Global mining insurance capacity has never been more abundant, and the risks mining companies face have rarely been more complex. Willis’ Mining Risk Review 2026 puts that tension at the centre of its argument and pushes it further. Willis argues the more pressing question is whether mining companies are using this window to build resilience before conditions shift.
Global mining liability capacity has grown for the eighth consecutive year, now exceeding $1.2 billion, with property placements frequently oversubscribed and several carriers entering or re-entering the market and others relaxing restrictions on tailings storage facilities and underground exposures. Rate reductions on well-managed US property accounts are running at 10% to 20%, while South African insurers have delivered 10% to 20% reductions on claim-free business, according to the report.
Yet the report makes clear that risks that were once considered isolated are becoming increasingly interconnected, with disruption in one part of a system often having consequences far beyond its original source. Geopolitical tensions, concentrated critical mineral supply chains, intensifying cyber threats and rising stakeholder expectations are all adding complexity to risk profiles that underwriters are still evaluating by familiar metrics. The gap between what is insured and what is actually at risk is quietly widening in supply chain and cyber exposures.
The report’s most pointed analysis concerns critical mineral supply chains. New extraction capacity, it argues, does not guarantee revenue. Vulnerabilities frequently sit beyond the mine gate, in processing infrastructure, logistics corridors and specialist inputs that a standard property policy does not address.
The International Energy Agency’s 2026 Global Critical Minerals Outlook, cited in the report, found that refining concentration across key energy minerals reached record levels in 2025, with the average share of the largest refined supplier rising to 70%. Indonesia and China together accounted for more than three-quarters of refined-supply growth between 2023 and 2025. That concentration means a single plant outage in the wrong jurisdiction can function as a market-level event, rather than just an operational one.
Willis draws a distinction between physical diversification and genuine resilience. A mining company can control multiple orebodies and still depend on a single processor, reagent supplier, transport corridor or buyer. Expanding extraction into a new jurisdiction may add volume without reducing exposure, particularly if new projects converge on the same downstream infrastructure. The broker’s role, the report argues, is to trace how an operational event becomes a financial loss, identify where the contractual and policy trigger actually sits, and show where risk can be reduced, transferred or retained.
Tailings storage facilities remain the clearest test of where underwriting discipline survives a soft market. The report notes that insurers are willing to provide meaningful capacity for well-managed facilities with strong governance, independent engineering oversight and transparent data, but that scrutiny has not softened alongside pricing.
The Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management (GISTM), now increasingly treated as a prerequisite for market access, is acquiring sharper teeth. An ICMM analysis from November 2025, covering 836 applicable tailings facilities across 24 members, found 67% in full conformance and 33% in partial conformance.
But conformance is not static. As deposition continues and walls are raised, repeated movement between conformance and non-conformance sends a signal to underwriters about an operator’s wider governance culture, the report warns. Some carriers have responded to the 2024 failures at the Çöpler mine in Türkiye and Eagle Gold Mine in Canada by introducing leach-pad exclusions or tightening scrutiny on heap-leach structures more broadly.
Cyber risk in mining has moved decisively beyond IT systems. Automation across haulage vehicles, remote drilling, SCADA-controlled processing plants and centralized remote operations centres is expanding the attack surface, and the potential consequences of a breach. The report flags that a cyber event affecting operational technology can halt production, disrupt logistics, damage equipment and create direct safety risks.
A cyber incident that stops production for weeks may generate losses across property, business interruption and liability policies simultaneously, making co-ordination between lines as important as any individual policy.
Willis notes that today’s conditions create an opportunity to do more than reduce premiums. The report identifies specific actions: stress-testing supply chain dependencies to locate where revenue actually stops, aligning business interruption values with current commodity prices rather than historical assumptions, and building insurer panels that combine long-term technical underwriters with selective newer participants. The cheapest capacity in a soft market may not be the most responsive in a hard one.
“Mining companies are enjoying some of the most favourable insurance market conditions seen in recent years, but resilience remains critical,” said Will Fremlin-Key, global mining and metals leader at Willis Natural Resources. “As risk profiles continue to evolve, the companies that are best positioned for long-term success will be those that can demonstrate not only that they have a deep understanding of their risks, but that they have the discipline, governance and adaptability to respond proactively to shifting conditions.”
Lloyd’s H1 2026 results, which recorded a combined ratio of 90.8% on the back of lower-than-average catastrophe activity, illustrate why the current environment holds. The result was flattered by reserve releases and a comparatively light major-claims year, a reminder that much of the current softness is cyclical rather than structural. Willis notes that any market correction is most likely to come from a major global catastrophe event.
Lloyd’s own underlying combined ratio, which strips out the benefit of lower catastrophe losses and reserve releases, moved in the wrong direction, from 82.1% in H1 2025 to 84.0% in H1 2026, a signal that rate adequacy is eroding beneath the headline figures.
