The $1 trillion race to build data centers is driving the economy-and creating a huge new opportunity for insurers. The industry is eyeing a once-in-a-generation chance to generate tens of billions of dollars in additional income.

Global premiums for insuring data centers will likely reach $20 billion to $30 billion a year by 2030, reinsurer Swiss Re forecast in a report this month.

That is a supercharged rate of growth: at least double the $10 billion in new premiums the centers could generate this year, according to ratings company S&P Global. To compare to another major market, it is four times the $5-billion-a-year size of global aviation insurance, according to S&P.

"U.S. data centers are likely one of the biggest opportunities for commercial insurers for decades," said Jérôme Haegeli, group chief economist at Swiss Re.

Individual artificial-intelligence data centers are among the most valuable insured assets in the world-often worth $20 billion upward each, more than bridges, tunnels and skyscrapers.

Tech firms can balk at paying for full coverage, instead opting to essentially carry a significant chunk of the risk on their own balance sheets, according to analysts.

The scale of self-insurance represents an "amazing opportunity" for the insurance industry, said Jim Bichard, chief financial officer at Lloyd's of London, the insurance marketplace. Insurers and brokers are working on new structures, including outside sources of capital, to fit the specialized insurance requirements for hyperscale data centers.

Even if the bipartisan backlash against the AI boom slows the forecast pace of growth, data centers offer a tantalizing sales prospect for insurers.

Hundreds of billions are already being plowed into the build-out: Whatever investors decide for the future, "the infrastructure already built doesn't disappear," Swiss Re's Haegeli said.

The biggest check on the insurance gold rush: the risks.

Data centers are exposed to a dizzying array of potential threats during their construction and operation, from extreme weather to power cuts, IT failures and even terrorism. The clustering of buildings in areas such as Virginia's "data center alley" means a single event-such as a tornado-can trigger multiple major claims.

"The risks are very, very significant," said Bichard of Lloyd's of London. "The scale is so much bigger than we've seen in more traditional markets."

Tech companies typically choose sites for data centers based on affordable land and easily accessible power, factors that favor disaster-prone states, such as Texas. As the hyperscale build-out gathers pace, the dollar value of assets exposed to potential catastrophe is spiraling.

More than a third, or 40%, of U.S. data-center capacity is located in tornado-prone areas, and over a quarter in areas subject to large hailstorms, according to Swiss Re. Flash floods are another significant-and hard to predict-threat.

Some risks can be largely sidestepped: choosing not to build on an earthquake fault line, for example, or in flood plains. But other threats are much harder to avoid.

"The peril that is most concerning is really tornadoes," said Karen Clark, chief executive and co-founder of risk-modeling firm Karen Clark & Co.

Developers can't protect assets from the most severe grade of tornadoes, but rely on the fact that the chances of one hitting any particular location is very low, according to Clark. "You're betting on the probability," she added.

Another insurance headache: the resilience of new hyperscale data centers, each of which can house billions of dollars in physical assets, is largely untested. Policies are being underwritten without the usual benefit of a long track record of claims to help set the rate and terms.

That all adds up to high prices. "The premiums become quite large, very quickly, the way they have to date been priced," according to risk-modeler Clark.

A hyperscale data center can have a total insurable value of $20 billion to $30 billion, according to an S&P report this year.

A few are bigger still: Meta Platforms, for example, forecasts its center in Northeast Louisiana will cost more than $50 billion. A single center can house thousands of servers, along with valuable energy and cooling systems.

Some of the biggest insurance companies are willing to take on a "low single-digit billions" slice of the risk for a given center, S&P said. "No single insurer can absorb the risks alone."

Some risks, such as technology-related losses, will "likely remain self-insured or only partially insured," the report added.