Underwriting the transition to renewable energy

The increasingly rapid growth in renewable energy presents a mix of opportunities and challenges for property insurers. Susana Huete Santos, AXA XL’s Spanish-based senior underwriter for the energy sector, has the story.


According to BloombergNEF (BNEF), global investment in 2021 in what has been dubbed the “energy transition” totaled USD 755 billion, a 27 percent increase over 2020. BNEF also reported that “renewable energy, which includes wind, solar and other renewables, remains the largest sector in investment terms, achieving a record USD 366 billion committed to it in 2021, up 6.5 percent from the year prior.”

Sharply falling costs have played an important part. The International Energy Agency (IEA) reports that “Thanks to rapid technology improvements and cost reductions, a dollar spent on wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) deployment today results in four times more electricity than a dollar spent on the same technologies ten years ago.”