Only 36% of European executives feel prepared for the energy transition and its costs — the lowest of any region surveyed.
That is the sharpest finding from Beazley's Spotlight on Energy Transformation 2026, drawn from a survey of 3,500 business leaders across seven markets in January 2026.
The survey was conducted in January 2026, against a backdrop of record clean energy investment and growing geopolitical pressure on fossil fuel supply chains.
Beazley’s survey found 65% of UK executives say economic uncertainty is preventing them from progressing on the transition.
The gap between transition investment and transition readiness is where insurance becomes decisive.
Renewable energy projects are not financeable without insurance. Banks require robust cover before committing capital. Without it, projects stall – not because of technology or ambition, but because risk cannot be transferred.
The structural pressure on brokers is clear. Clients are being asked to commit capital to assets – battery storage, floating offshore wind, small modular reactors – that lack long-term loss data. Traditional policy structures were not designed for them. And where cover cannot be secured, development stops.
The Lloyd's Market Association's (LMA) March 2026 Underwriting the Transition report, produced with KPMG UK, put a deadline on that pressure. The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) has mandated that climate risks – including climate litigation risk – be embedded into governance and risk appetites before June 2026.
That deadline has now passed. For UK brokers advising clients on transition exposures, the question is no longer whether to act. It is whether their clients' risk frameworks are already compliant.
Beazley's research identifies five converging barriers slowing transition progress.
Supply chain disruption tops the list, with 30% of UK executives citing transition-related delays as a top-three macro risk. Infrastructure constraints follow, as legacy systems struggle to support distributed clean energy networks.
Policy uncertainty – fragmented regulation and tariff pressure – is deterring long-term planning. Limited access to capital compounds this. A lack of historical performance data is making new asset classes harder to price and transfer.
The Strait of Hormuz crisis has sharpened all of these pressures. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the ongoing military escalation has disrupted shipping flows through the strait. Ripple effects are reaching energy markets, maritime transport and global supply chains. For UK businesses, it has reinforced the strategic case for moving away from fossil fuel dependency.
Kelly Malynn, head of transition and emerging risk at Beazley, said the industry cannot afford to wait.
"From surging energy demand driven by technological transformation to the need for greater energy security and resilience, the energy transition is one of the biggest commercial opportunities of our time," Malynn said. "But ambition is running ahead of readiness, with many businesses and infrastructure struggling to advance.
"Specialty insurance has a critical role to play. Our sector has been at the forefront of every major technological and energy shift. By adapting at pace and pooling our cross-disciplinary expertise and risk data, we can support businesses to move forward at scale," Malynn said.
The permit-to-insurance bottleneck is one concrete example of where the gap bites. Underwriters typically require finalised permits before releasing quotes. Permitting processes across Europe remain slow. The result is a window in which affordable capacity can vanish before a project launches – leaving developers unable to secure construction loans.
Low-carbon power is increasingly being treated as a catastrophe risk class, with underwriters reassessing exposure to battery storage, floating solar, and offshore wind. The LMA has called on brokers to move beyond transactional renewals and into long-term, collaborative client engagement.
Beazley has been expanding its own transition underwriting capabilities. Its March 2026 acquisition of US renewable energy MGA kWh Analytics signals intent to build deeper technical capacity in risk modelling and clean energy portfolio management.
European preparedness sits at 36% — the lowest of any region surveyed. Beazley's data suggests the gap between transition ambition and transition readiness remains wide.
