The tech boom is creating opportunities for property and casualty insurers as global uncertainties make it harder to balance growth and resilience, an S&P Global Ratings Asia-Pacific event heard.

Insurers see emerging potential driven by renewal transition trends and technology advances, with S&P forecasting new demand for coverage of data centres could generate $US10 billion ($14 billion) in global premium this year.

“There is no shortage of growth opportunities for insurers, whether from cyber, data centre or the long-standing natural catastrophe protection gap,” S&P Global Ratings credit analyst Wenwen Chen said.

An S&P report following the event says some industry leaders expect technology to be a differentiator, and those that cannot afford to invest in AI may lose market share and relevancy.

The event also heard that chasing growth requires capital resilience, which is complicated by volatile markets and macroeconomic adversity. Markets want “underwriting at white-knuckle speed” and challenges exist where there is limited history and complex interdependencies.

Liberty International Insurance Asia-Pacific president Matthew Jackson said data centres may look like property risks, but many are becoming power and infrastructure risks.

“Exposure is no longer limited to one building, but across multiple facilities and contractors,” he said. “Portfolios may be accumulating more correlated risk than current modelling reflects.”

Peak Re chief underwriting officer Philip Hough noted impacts from climate change, cyber, geopolitical uncertainties, supply chain disruptions and the rapid emergence of AI.

“The industry may still be underestimating how these individual emerging risks are slowly interacting and actually amplifying one another,” he said.

S&P Global Ratings credit analyst Carmi Margalit said new types of private credit assets have expanded on insurer balance sheets.

For analysts that requires “deeper dives” into asset structures that are becoming more complex and less transparent, while an expansion of private credit brings considerations around a potential lack of liquidity, she said.