Commercial property owners are investing in resilience measures, such as roof upgrades, automatic sprinklers and water-monitoring technologies, but insurer recognition of those efforts is still catching up, sources say.
Property resilience remains an important differentiator for insurance buyers — even amid ample capacity and increased competition — particularly for businesses vulnerable to prolonged business interruption, said Blake Giannisis, New York-based executive vice president and North American property practice leader at Hub International.
Insurers continue to push for loss-control improvements, and resilient risks can attract more capacity, increasing competition and potentially lowering costs, but individual measures do not necessarily result in a specific premium credit, he said.
“It’s not a direct correlation to a premium reduction for doing that one thing,” Mr. Giannisis said. “It’s by enhancing your profile and becoming a more attractive risk, you now have more capacity being thrown your way, which in turn brings down your associated costs and premiums.”
Despite increased investment in resilience, only 26% of more than 120 organizations surveyed globally said their adaptation efforts had been recognized in insurance negotiations, according to Marsh’s 2026 Climate Adaptation Survey, released last week.
Prologis has strengthened construction specifications for its developments, including extending the lifespan of some roofs from 20 to 30 years, said Jeff Bray, San Francisco-based senior vice president and head of global risk management at the logistics real estate company.
“We are using products that are intended for a longer, more durable life cycle,” he said.
The company, which owns and develops about 6,000 properties in 20 countries, has also, in some years, voluntarily spent millions of dollars retrofitting earthquake-exposed properties, Mr. Bray said. The work is intended to make the properties more resilient and reduce potential disruption to customers following an earthquake, he said.
Mr. Bray said he could not point to direct premium savings from the seismic investments across Prologis’ portfolio but that resilience measures can differentiate the company with underwriters and strengthen its negotiating position on capacity, deductibles and coverage terms.
The investments have been “a strong signaling tool” to insurers indicating that Prologis is reinvesting in its portfolio and “becoming a better risk,” he said.
Prologis ensures that operational resilience measures such as disaster response and backup power planning are discussed with insurers, but insurers do not consistently capture those measures as data points, said Mr. Bray, who was named the 2026 RIMS Risk Manager of the Year by the Risk & Insurance Management Society earlier this year.
Resilience remains critical regardless of whether the property insurance market is hard or soft, said Raymond Chiusano, New York-based head of property, East zone, at Axa XL. Better-prepared businesses can prevent or reduce losses, respond quicker and limit downtime, while potentially attracting more stable capacity over the long term, he said.
Insurers and risk engineers work with policyholders to understand changing exposures and develop strategies to address them, from hardening facilities to emergency response and disaster recovery plans, Mr. Chiusano said.
For health care organizations, water-loss prevention and response is a major focus, while life sciences companies and manufacturers can address supply-chain risks through supplier vetting, alternative sources and buffer inventory, he said.
Commercial property owners can install leak sensors and flow technology that detects abnormal water use to help prevent water damage, he said.
“If an insured is proactive with those items of resilience, I’m more willing to put out more capacity,” he said.
Efforts to reward property owners for resilience measures can be hampered when catastrophe models and other risk assessment tools do not capture mitigation work, several experts said.
Existing catastrophe models can incorporate some measures, but may have more difficulty quantifying community-level work, said Kim Roberts, Fort Collins, Colorado-based North America head of North America peril advisory at Marsh Re.
“We need to be able to speak the language of reinsurance and insurance, and translate these actions into measurable metrics,” she said last week during a panel sponsored by Marsh for Climate Week NYC.
One example of resilience being recognized is a $2.5 million wildfire policy developed last year by The Nature Conservancy and Willis Towers Watson for the Tahoe Donner homeowners association in California.
A specialty managing general agent analyzed risk reduction from forest management practices, including tree thinning and prescribed burning. The resulting policy had a 39% lower premium and an 84% lower deductible than it would have without the resilience work, according to Deborah Glaser, Los Angeles-based project director for disaster resilience at the Nature Conservancy.
Catastrophe models can account for numerous resilience measures when detailed building information is provided, Glen Daraskevich, executive vice president at Boston-based catastrophe modeler Karen Clark & Co., said in an interview.
Depending on the peril, models can incorporate features such as roof cover, glass type and building elevation and reflect them in loss estimates ranging from expected losses to probable maximum losses, he said.
One challenge is ensuring that information moves from risk managers through insurers and into catastrophe models, Mr. Daraskevich said. Newer mitigation measures may not be captured if catastrophe models are not updated frequently, he said.
Some models can also incorporate community-level flood and wildfire mitigation when information is available, he said.
Mitigation measures can have a significant impact on modeled losses. When multiple measures are implemented, “you can have double-digit impacts,” though the effect varies based on factors including the level of hazard, he said.
Gavin Souter contributed to this report.
