AON ups insurance offering to protect datacentre developers from costs incurred by project delays

Professional services company AON is expanding the amount of financial protection it offers datacentre developers and investors should their projects get derailed by cyber attacks or construction delays.

The company will now offer datacentre developers and investors up to $2.5bn in financial protection through its Data Centre Lifecycle Insurance Program (DCLP), as a result of a $1bn expansion in the initiative’s coverage.

Originally launched in 2025 by AON, the DCLP was setup to provide insurance protection for datacentre developers, investors and construction specialists as their projects progress from the buildout phase to being operational.

According to AON, insuring a datacentre project over the course of its entire lifecycle – from development to being up and running – previously required multiple, separate policies to cover the wide range of risks involved.

However, its DCLP plan was introduced to provide a comprehensive, “multi-line insurance” cover spanning risks including construction issues, startup delays, business interruptions, cyber attacks and terrorism, to name a few. And now the scheme is being expanded to reflect the important role datacentres play in increasingly digital economies and the problems that can arise if projects run into difficulties.

“The expansion responds to accelerating global investment in cloud computing, artificial intelligence [AI] and digital infrastructure and increasing complexity of risks across the datacentre lifecycle,” said AON in a statement. “[It] is designed to support investors, developers and operators as datacentres grow larger, more capital-intensive and more operationally complex.”

The growing demand for power-hungry, AI datacentres has seen the average size and footprint of server farms increase massively, which has knock-on impacts regarding the costs involved in the construction of them for everything from the amount of land that needs to be acquired to accommodate the builds, as well as securing the required planning permissions, down to the costs involved in building the sites and kitting them out with the necessary hardware.

The AON statement added: “By integrating insurance capacity with risk engineering and analytics, the programme helps clients anticipate risk, demonstrate resilience to stakeholders and support long-term performance.”

Under the scheme, participants can benefit from up to $2.5bn in coverage for any construction-related risk, startup delays or operational property damage, and up to $400m in protection against malicious cyber attacks, for example.

“Managing risk throughout the datacentre lifecycle is a strategic imperative – these platforms drive innovation, connectivity and economic growth,” said Greg Case, president and CEO of Aon. “As these facilities become more critical and complex, building resilience into their infrastructure is essential for the broader business ecosystem. Aon is committed to helping clients anticipate risks, strengthen operational continuity and invest in the future of digital infrastructure with confidence.”

Joe Peiser, CEO of commercial risk for Aon, said the expanded offer highlights the financial fallout that any sort of disruption to a datacentre project can cause: “When disruptions occur, the financial and operational consequences can be significant and ripple well beyond a single facility, affecting customers, supply chains and broader business operations. By expanding the capacity of DCLP, we are helping clients manage risk across the full lifecycle of a datacentre – from build-out to steady state operations – while supporting faster, more certain execution.”