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PZU SAPoland's first insurance pool for nuclear risks may be established by end-2026
By the end of 2026, the first Polish insurance pool for nuclear risks may be established; 13 insurers have already made their declarations, the CEO of listed insurance group PZU's mutual insurances unit TWU PZUW Andrzej Jarczyk told a conference during Energy Days in Katowice. This concerns the liability policy of Poland's first nuclear power plant operator, 100 percent state-owned SPV PEJ.
As TWU PZUW's CEO Jarczyk pointed out, nuclear risk insurance is unknown on the Polish market today.
"Such a civil liability policy for the operator, i.e. PEJ, will have to be issued before entering the nuclear fuel power plant (...). Nevertheless, we, and I am speaking here on behalf of the entire insurance market, have decided to create a mechanism to prepare us for insuring nuclear power plants and this fuel much earlier," he said.
The CEO continued that there are two main models of insurance for nuclear power plants by operators in the world.
"The first are the so-called mutual insurance companies, which were created and are based in Belgium, and their shareholders are individual operators, i.e. owners of nuclear power plants. The second, however, dominant model is the so-called nuclear pools," he explained.
Andrzej Jarczyk added that these are agreements between commercial insurers in a given market who declare their insurance capacity, i.e. the amount they are able to take on.
"Today, we are at a very advanced stage of creating a Polish nuclear pool. We have ambitions to establish such a pool by the end of next year. We already have declarations from at least 13 insurers who have their companies in Poland," he added.
As the CEO pointed out, the willingness of Polish insurers to cover nuclear risks in Poland has exceeded expectations.
"We expected that, given the guarantee sum, the minimum sum resulting from the Vienna Convention, at around PLN 1.6-1.7 billion, we would be able to collect about 10, maybe 20 percent on the Polish market. Today, these declarations are significantly higher, even twice as high," he emphasised.
Jarczyk noted that this is the level of declarations agreed with the owners of foreign companies.
"Of course, this is not enough to issue these policies, we will still need capacity from other markets, and this will be provided by European and global nuclear pools," he stipulated.
Poland's nuclear power SPV Polskie Elektrownie Jadrowe (PEJ) is a 100-percent state-controlled operator and investor in the project of Poland's first nuclear power plant construction in Pomeranian region. First unit of the NPP is to launch operations in 2036.
jz/ ao/
