Green hydrogen a topic of the future for Allianz Insurance

22.04.2025

Source: E & M powernews

When it comes to offshore wind farms, insurers are no longer just looking at pure electricity generation. The topic of hydrogen is becoming increasingly important.

Allianz Commercial is an industrial insurer. According to Harald Dimpflmaier, it has insured more than 150 wind farms worldwide, "whether under construction or in operation", as the Head of Underwriting Natural Resources Germany reports in an interview with E&M.

He does not name any customers, but emphasizes that Allianz is involved in almost all wind farms and grid connection systems in the German North and Baltic Seas. "When I say 'involved', it means that we bear the risk, whether as the leading insurer or as a participant in an insurance consortium," says Dimpflmaier. This is because, given the size of offshore wind farms, a single insurer cannot usually take on the task alone.

According to Allianz, from 2014 to 2020, 53 percent of the claims volume for offshore wind farms worldwide was attributable to cable damage and only 20 percent to damage to turbines. This is basically still the case, explains Dimpflmaier. But the picture could well change in the future as turbine output continues to increase.

According to the Allianz manager, one issue that preoccupied the insurance industry in the early years of offshore expansion is currently at least "looking good": no higher claims burden or claims frequency can be observed for older wind farms. This is presumably due to the service and maintenance concepts of the wind farm operators and also to the condition monitoring systems that are integrated into the turbines and help to prevent impending damage.

For Dimpflmaier and his team, green hydrogen is a "topic of the future", as he emphasizes. That is why a "Climate Tech Team" is currently being set up. One of its main topics will be hydrogen production. At the moment, however, the risks in this area are still exclusively onshore.

"It is important that we are involved at an early stage and that there is a close exchange with our customers' project management teams because we want to understand the technologies better," says the insurance manager. After all, if no claims data is available yet, as is the case with a new technology, you have to fall back on other information.

Author: Fritz Wilhelm