Nuclear Pools

How Nuclear Insurance Works

NRI's model approach to insurance focuses on 'pooling', which combines the capacity of multiple insurers to jointly underwrite risks, specifically catered to the civil nuclear industry.

Nuclear pools provide a critical service to civil nuclear operators and are an enabler to the operators’ “social license’ by satisfying their complex insurance needs. 

‘Pooling’ is a mechanism where several insurers collectively underwrite a complex risk type. It’s typically adopted when a risk is high in severity but low in frequency, such as terrorism and natural disasters. Pools also arise when individual insurance companies are reluctant to provide sufficient capacity due to risk appetite, technical underwriting challenges, and business costs.

Nuclear pools infographic

A pool in one country insures a civil nuclear risk domestically and shares that risk with other international nuclear insurance pools through reciprocation. This process helps diversify potentially catastrophic risk.

Today, over 300 insurance companies in countries where a civil nuclear power sector exists pool their net capacity in this way, which is then used to insure domestic civil nuclear risks and provide reciprocation. NRI writes risks in all nuclear countries, except for countries where sanctions apply. 

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