SOLAR VS HAIL: PIVOTING AWAY FROM DANGER
Underwriting Solar Hail Risks
As one of the longest standing and most experienced insurers in the renewable energy market, AXIS has a unique insight into the industry's risks and always aims to establish partnerships with others willing to work together to overcome them. Our Renewable Energy team based in London and North America includes dedicated underwriters, claims specialists, and in-house risk engineers.
AXIS renewable energy global footprint — insured project locations
We can cover the entire lifecycle of the project; from transportation to installation, commissioning to operation, to end-of-life and repowering. Once our policies are triggered by physical damage, we can protect against property damage, business interruption (BI), and contingent business interruption (CBI), as well as delay in start-up (DSU) when in construction. Natural catastrophe perils are generally reflected in a coverage's sublimit and insurers may also offer coverage extensions, for example for microfractures when caused by an insured peril.
Severe weather, particularly events arising from severe convective storms such as hail, has become a critical topic for the underwriting of solar construction and operational risks. The increasing frequency and intensity of these storms necessitate a thorough understanding of the risks involved and the implementation of effective mitigation strategies. Given the severity of hail claims over the past few years AXIS has developed an underwriting strategy to assess hail risk, with input from the underwriting, claims, and engineering teams.
The focus is on differentiating between customer approaches to reduce this risk with preferential terms available to customers that follow three recommended key pillars of best practice.
First key pillar
Accurate forecasts
Customers are advised to understand what level of exposure their new potential project might face, and feed this into the choice of technology they deploy. Additionally, utilizing trusted real-time weather forecasts that inform automated or manual hail stow decisions.
Second key pillar
Smart technology selection
This report has highlighted the potential reduction in damage from hailstones if arrays with tracker systems can be stowed at more than 60 degrees, in addition to using PV modules that have been tested and certified to a higher level for hail resilience. Designing the solar PV system so that it is suitable for the extreme wind speed the site is determined to experience is also fundamental.
Third key pillar
Well-informed operation strategy
Implementing robust procedures during all project stages. Once the initial investment has been made in data modelling, forecasting and equipment choices, it is imperative that those advantages are not wasted through poor operational procedures, and instead staff and systems are prepared and practice for the worst case.
These are all examples of risk mitigation that AXIS would view favorably from an underwriting perspective. Not only is it important for project owners to implement best practice strategies for the benefit of the project, but they will also benefit if they demonstrate this to insurers by clearly outlining the approach taken.
Brokers should support and advise customers to ensure a full and comprehensive submission is provided to allow insurers to assess the customer’s approach to risk mitigation. In the past, customers using hail sensors at their projects have been able to show actual data on the number of hail events a project has suffered and how their project performed in those instances. In some cases they have also been able to identify issues that caused a loss and how this will be mitigated going forwards, such as a portion of a project not stowing correctly and then suffering damage. This is a powerful way to evidence that the project owner’s strategy to mitigate hail is working and should be recognized. The following real-world hail event summary provided to AXIS by a customer demonstrates with the monitoring and reporting hail events, as well as stow success:
2023 Hail Operations Summary
- ~0.07% Energy loss from hail stowing
- ~85% of hail events did not cause any site damage
- ~0.25% of modules damaged by hail
- ~98% confirmed avg tracker stow success*
2024 Hail Operations Summary
- ~0.06% Energy loss from hail stowing
- ~95% of hail events did not cause any site damage
- ~0.05% of modules damaged by hail
- ~99.5% confirmed avg tracker stow success*
2025 Hail Operations Summary
Jan 1,2025 - May 31, 2025
- ~0.01% Energy loss from hail stowing
- ~100% of hail events did not cause any site damage
- 0% of modules damaged by hail
- >99.7% confirmed avg tracker stow success*
*Failed stows primarily attributed to software version issue w/select tracker controllers
Fully integrated monitoring and stowing driving results
Hail operations and event summary provided with the permission of a customer and broker partner.
As with any risk mitigation there will always be challenges and limitations to this approach. AXIS has experienced losses caused by abnormally large hail above the design expectations of a project, modules not stowing correctly due to software issues or faulty connections, and forecasting systems that failed to predict an incoming storm. Historical data in remote regions where new sites are being built continues to be limited and even the most advanced modelling software can give optimistically low damage estimates when compared to the claims paid out on real-life events. However, AXIS’ analysis and experience suggests that the best practices presented in this report can make a substantial impact on a project’s ability to avoid hail damage.
