Allianz Puts Almost 80% of Global Data Center Capacity in Catastrophe-Exposed Areas

Allianz Commercial published a report on the data center construction boom on August 12, 2026, and the figure carriers should read first describes buildings that already exist. The report puts around 79% of global data center capacity in areas exposed to heightened natural catastrophe risk, with 54% exposed to chronic heat and drought stress. That is the installed base. It is not a forecast about where the next campus will be sited, and the distinction matters, because exposure already written cannot be underwritten differently next quarter.

The regional split separates two different problems. In the Americas, 86% of capacity carries acute flood, wildfire, and wind exposure. In Asia Pacific, 89% is exposed to chronic heat and drought stress. The percentages and the acute and chronic labels are the report’s. How each one reaches an insurer is our own reading: acute perils arrive on a date and produce a claim file, while chronic stress reaches a site through cooling capacity and water supply rather than through a single event. Allianz names Northern Virginia, Johor in Malaysia, and Marseille among the fastest growing markets that are also among the most climate exposed.

On losses, the report separates severity from frequency, and the two do not point at the same peril. Fire is the leading driver of severity, accounting for well over half of around €700mn (US$800mn) of losses. Water damage is the most frequent cause of claims. By line of insurance, business interruption is the primary driver of severity. That is where we would start the accumulation question for anyone whose exposure sits behind a tenant rather than in the building itself.

Thomas Lillelund, CEO of Allianz Commercial, frames the change in what the asset is. AI, he says, “is turning the latest generation of data centers from a specialist real estate asset into mission-critical infrastructure.” Success now “will increasingly depend on resilience,” which he lists as access to power, reliable supply chains, robust construction controls, climate-aware site selection, and “insurance programs that reflect the true accumulation risk.” He adds that “comprehensive insurance cover has become a prerequisite for financing many large-scale AI infrastructure projects.” Read from the underwriting side, that is a statement about leverage: cover is now sitting on the critical path of the buildout.

Christian Kolbe, global head of construction claims at Allianz Commercial, puts the technical question in accumulation terms. “For insurers, the key question is not only the value of the building, but the concentration of value and dependency inside and around it,” he says, listing power, cooling, batteries, fiber routes, testing and commissioning, and business continuity planning as parts of one risk picture.

The capital behind the exposure is moving faster than the loss history that would price it. Annual investment in data centers is projected to double from around US$500bn in 2024 to more than US$1trn as early as 2027, with the US and China accounting for more than 60% of global capacity additions through 2030. The data center insurance market itself is projected to grow from around US$11bn today to more than US$24bn by 2030.

Two limits belong with those numbers. Allianz writes this business, so the report is an interested party’s account of a market it wants to grow, and the loss breakdown reflects its own claims experience rather than an industry-wide dataset. The report also states no capacity limit, rate level, or line size for any peril, so it cannot answer whether the market can absorb what is being built.

What it does give a carrier is a testable question. If a portfolio has picked up data center exposure through construction, property, business interruption, or covers written for tenants and financiers, the concentration is already on the books. Pull the sited locations, check them against both the acute and the chronic peril sets, and see whether that accumulation was underwritten deliberately or arrived one policy at a time.