SOLAR VS HAIL: PIVOTING AWAY FROM DANGER
What the Claims Data is Telling Us
Natural Catastrophe and Extreme Weather Claims
As an established global insurer of onshore renewables, AXIS holds several years’ worth of claims data that reveals the impact of natural catastrophes and weather events on solar PV installations. To inform this report, a large sample of closed solar claims information has been processed for losses occurring between 2019 to 2025, including many utility scale projects, some over 500 MW in size.
Gross Claim Amount ($): Combines physical damage (PD), business interruption (BI) and delay in start-up (DSU) quantities before deductibles, excesses and waiting periods are applied.
Ground-up downtime: The time the component and/or system is non-operational.
The findings confirm that globally, natural catastrophe (natcat) and extreme weather is by far the biggest cause of solar PV claims by the total gross claim amount for all analyzed claims, with an average gross claim amount that is many multiples of any other perils or causes, including mechanical and electrical breakdown (MEB), theft and vandalism. Natcat and extreme weather also contribute the greatest ground-up downtime at an average of 240 days, when compared to 136 days for MEB and 78 days for theft and vandalism.
Natcat and extreme weather events are far more probable causes of extensive and severe site damage, often requiring more significant repairs and even total repowering in some cases. Inspection and repair works are often further hindered by flood water, damaged roads or dangers to personnel, which further increase the associated downtime. Furthermore, 90% of natcat and extreme weather claims data analyzed have PV modules as the primary damaged component, as opposed to cables or other balance of plant. Where the number of broken PV modules can run into the thousands, onsite spares are quickly exhausted and the lead time for sourcing replacements can therefore become significant.
When breaking down the type of natcat and extreme weather event claims, strong wind—encapsulating winds produced by named storm, SCS, sandstorm, and other wind weather phenomena—has had the highest claims frequency of 23% compared to other natcat and extreme weather solar claims and makes up 45% on a claims amount perspective. The frequency of hail events is far lower on a global perspective when compared to wind, flood, and lightning, yet 27% of claims by gross amount from natcat and extreme weather solar claims are attributed to hail.
Of the total gross claim amount for Solar PV natcat and weather claims by cause, hail contributes
Distribution of claims by total gross claim amount for Solar PV natcat and weather claims by primary cause of damage (global). Based on a significant sample of AXIS closed solar claims with date of loss in the period 2019–2025.
When considering North America, capturing claims from the US and Canada, hail dominates total gross claim at 55% and has the highest average gross claim amount, with wildfire shortly behind.
Distribution of claims by total gross claim amount for Solar PV natcat and weather claims by primary cause of damage (US and Canada). Based on a significant sample of AXIS closed solar claims with date of loss in the period 2019–2025.
It is also important to note that many hail claims also saw damage caused by the strong winds typically associated with SCS. Such damage events are also more likely occur where there is a presence of twisters and tornados, particularly in the great plains including Texas. However, hail was still the primary cause of loss in the majority of instances and has been categorized as such.
Hail Claims Focus
The totals below consider data for both closed and open claims and emphasize the catastrophic combined impact of hail events at solar PV sites.
All solar PV hail claims analyzed had hail stone diameters equal to or greater than one inch (25mm) with some claims reporting a maximum hail diameter of four inches (100mm). The average gross claim amount per MWac installed capacity was found to increase with the hail stone diameter average which recorded during the event, with a marked increase for claim amount with hail greater than 3 inches (75mm).
Average gross claim amount per MWac installed capacity by average hail stone diameter recorded during the event for open and closed solar hail claims, 2019–2025.
Although hail claims from South Africa and the Middle East feature in the AXIS database, the vast majority are from the US, primarily the South and Midwest. Texas was the state with the greatest total gross claim amount, with an order of magnitude greater than the second largest Nebraska.
When considering claim frequency of hail claims by project stage, losses during the operational policy (operations all risks, OAR) were the most common being 73% of analyzed claims, despite the average gross claim amount for construction policies (construction all risks, CAR) being far greater, around 3 times greater than that of gross claim amount during the operations.
Solar PV and hail open and closed claim frequency by policy type.
During construction, PV modules should be kept under cover until installation to prevent hail damage, especially if they are stored horizontally on pallets. Claims from tracker projects that were under construction show that in 50% of cases, the modules were either significantly or fully out of stow position when the hail event occurred. Due to the weather monitoring or tracker systems not yet being fully commissioned, or to mis-informed practices, having the PV modules in a lower than optimal tilt angle prior to energization left them more exposed to the hail.
Tracker and Fixed-Tilt Claims Trend
When analyzing the gross claim amount per MWac installed capacity by the tracker stow scenario we found that a major or full failure of the tracker system resulted in an average gross claim amount of $380k/MW, which is greater than the $340k/MW average derived for fixed-tilt systems. A successful stow effort resulted in less than half of the average gross claim amount, at $150k/MW, emphasizing the protective benefit when a stow system operates effectively.
Average gross claim amount per MWac installed capacity by tracker stow scenario.
Average percentage PV module breakage by tracker stow scenario.
Taken from open and closed solar PV hail claims, 2019–2025.
Claims for tracker systems that suffered a major or full failure have a lower percentage breakage rate than fixed tilt but a greater average claim amount per MWac installed capacity. This is likely due to other additional components that were damaged, such as the trackers themselves, having higher associated costs of replacement or repair than a fixed tilt system.
Several factors contributed to trackers not going into stow mode in the claims analyzed by AXIS including:
- Stow command initiated too late with low speed of rotation, meaning modules were impacted before achieving the stow position
- Design wind speed exceeded, preventing trackers from being able to rotate to the hail stow position
- Hail stow command overridden or deactivated by site operations/asset management
- Conflicting stow positions, for example when a horizontal wind stow position for high wind overrode the high tilt angle stow for hail
- Trackers being non-operational pre-event, due to mechanical electrical breakdown such as from rodents chewing though cable
- Communication system failures and wireless protocols choking from too many signals
- Grid power failure, without back-up power in place to move the trackers
- Lack of correct preparation during construction
A severe case of extensive hail damage to monofacial PV modules with tempered glass where the tracker system failed. Very large hail stones in the range of 2.5-3 inches were reported. Included with permission of the asset owner.
Successful stow events are also thankfully reflected in our claim notifications and data, providing reassurance that engineering design does make a significant difference:
- US: a hail stow with a 60° degree angle initiated successfully when hail of 1.8-2.2 inch diameter struck a US site, largely protecting PV modules of >2mm heat strengthened glass >2mm, only resulting in 3% panels damaged and a $20k/MWac gross claim amount
- EMEA: hailstones of two inches struck a site when a maximum stow was in place, there was some damage to DC string cables and casings for electrical balance of plant, but the PV modules went unscathed, resulting in minimal claim amount.
PV Module Type Claims Trends
Our analysis suggests fewer discernible trends when assessing PV module construction such as front glass thickness or whether the module was monofacial or bifacial. However, claims involving heat strengthened glass PV module were $50,000/MW higher on average than fully tempered glass modules.
Back-glass damaged from a hail impacted bifacial PV module (striking the front-glass).
Very large hail stones in the range of 2.75-4 inches were reported.
Included with permission of the asset owner.
Hail impacted bifacial PV module heat strengthened glass and 6.5 inch pen for reference.
Very large hail stones in the range of 2.75-4 inches were reported.
Included with permission of the asset owner.
Crystalline silicon (C-Si) contributed to a higher average gross claim amount than thin-film PV modules, which have an added advantage of not suffering the same micro-cracking damage. It should be noted that the former are more common and this is reflected in the claim count.
Average gross claim amount per MWac installed capacity by PV module cell type for open and closed solar hail claims, 2019–2025.
