Amwins Global Risks (AGR) is expanding its specialist commercial and industrial (C&I) insurance facility to cover battery energy storage systems (BESS) and electric vehicle charging infrastructure. The facility groups distributed assets under a single programme, with deductibles scaled to individual site characteristics rather than to utility-scale norms. The structure is designed for portfolios that sit between the two ends of the existing insurance market: too small for utility-scale terms, too numerous to place site by site.
Amwins has offered BESS cover through NARDAC, its specialist energy MGA, since March 2024, with capacity of up to US$50 million per location backed by eight Lloyd’s syndicates. The C&I facility does not introduce new BESS cover so much as a new structure for it: a portfolio approach that groups multiple distributed sites under a single programme, with deductibles calibrated to individual asset scale rather than applied uniformly across the portfolio.
The BESS insurance market has been expanding, but unevenly. A number of insurers have restricted or withdrawn capacity following battery fires in the UK and overseas, a trend documented by market participants including Allianz UK, which expanded its own BESS underwriting capability in July 2026 partly in response to gaps left by capacity withdrawals. That means brokers face a market where appetite and expertise are not evenly distributed. Allianz UK expanded its own BESS underwriting capability in July 2026, with its head of construction, engineering and energy insurance noting that early engagement with experienced underwriters is increasingly valuable given how quickly the risk landscape is developing.
For C&I assets specifically, the challenge is structural as much as technical. Individual sites can be relatively small in value, but developers are assembling portfolios of dozens of them across multiple locations. Applying terms designed for a large utility-scale installation to a single C&I site can produce deductibles that are disproportionate to the asset’s value, making the insurance economically unworkable. The Amwins facility is designed to resolve that by underwriting at portfolio level while still assessing accumulated natural catastrophe exposure across individual locations.
“Individual sites can be relatively small, but developers are increasingly building portfolios comprising numerous assets across multiple locations," said Tom Harries, director at Amwins Global Risks and partner at NARDAC. "Bringing those assets together allows us to underwrite them efficiently at portfolio scale, while still recognising the individual risk characteristics of each site.”
The facility covers both construction and operational phases, including delay in start-up and business interruption cover. The EV charging component is primarily directed at the US market, where commercial charging infrastructure is being deployed at scale. Amwins Global Risks operates from London and places through the London market, giving US-based developers and their brokers access to London capacity for risks that the domestic US market has been slower to accommodate in structured form.
Harries said the addition of BESS and EV charging reflects the increasing convergence of distributed energy technologies, and that the facility is designed to adapt as portfolios grow. “It allows us to focus on monitoring how the portfolio’s natural catastrophe exposure changes as new projects are added and gives developers the freedom to concentrate on building out their portfolios, knowing their insurance programme can adapt and grow alongside them.”
The C&I expansion follows AGR’s renewal and enlargement of a separate natural catastrophe facility for renewable energy projects in July 2026, which increased available capacity to US$50 million per placement from US$20 million and broadened cover to all major natural catastrophe perils globally. The two moves extend AGR’s distributed and renewable energy proposition across construction, operation and catastrophe layers within a matter of months.
