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News & Current Events Apr 16, 2026 at 1:10 PM

Nord Stream blasts due to war, say insurers seeking to avoid pay out

Posted by Infodataplace

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Infodataplace Apr 16, 2026 +42
this is a good example of how geopolitical risk actually shows up in financial contracts most large infrastructure like pipelines are insured under all risk policies, but almost all of them carve out war / state action exclusions the tricky part is the standard of proof, insurers don’t necessarily have to prove exactly *who* did it, just that the loss is consistent with a war type event or state-backed sabotage and once that threshold is met, the burden can shift back to the insured to prove it *wasn’t* war-related, which is extremely hard in cases like this also worth noting, this isn’t a small claim, it’s in the range of hundreds of millions of euros, so both sides are incentivized to push legal interpretation pretty aggressively in practice, cases like this can drag on for years in arbitration, and the outcome often depends more on policy wording and legal standards than on a clear public attribution of the event itself so yeah, it’s less about establishing a definitive cause in the public sense, and more about how risk is classified under insurance law
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Dingcock Apr 16, 2026 +10
War is excluded in pretty much every insurance policy, and since 2001 terrorism is also a standard exclusion. Yes this will probably devolve to a fight over wordings and intent. The war exclusion are generally extremely broad, I've seen them specifically exclude actions by a belligerent power, and also exclude derelict weapons of war and all kinds of shit. I bet the insurers win.
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Sad-Lecture6340 Apr 17, 2026 +3
In every standard policy. I highly doubt these pipelines are insured on standard policies. If they didn't include war-clauses some insurance manager f*cked up.
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Beginning-Wish-4273 Apr 16, 2026 +27
Calling it “war-related” now feels less about clarity and more about liability. If insurers can tie it to war, they don’t have to pay — so suddenly the narrative matters a lot. Funny how the definition shifts when billions are on the line.
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faster_tomcat Apr 17, 2026 +1
This was a "special military operation" not a war tho. /s
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Leverkaas2516 Apr 16, 2026 +6
> Nord Stream blasts due to war, ... I've always assumed this was true, and would be astonished if it wasn't.
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Filias9 Apr 16, 2026 +13
If insures insuring war related damages, insurance would be astronomical. It's job for state, companies to deal with that, make some preparations, etc.
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Foxkilt Apr 16, 2026 +7
>If insures insuring war relatdamages, insurance would be astronomicalIf insures insuring war related damages, insurance would be astronomical Not really: it would be very feasible (and not really expensive) to insure one single item against war risks. The reason insurances refuse to do it is that wars are rather large things, which are good at damaging multiple things in a short time. So the insurance would go bankrupt if it had to pay for rebuilding all that is destroyed by war by itself  So the cost wouldn't be astronomical, rather you couldn't trust your insurance to still exist when you would need it 
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BrothelWaffles Apr 16, 2026 +3
It's almost like insurance is a giant scam that can only be profitable if they don't actually do the thing people are paying them to do.
3
ShaqShoes Apr 16, 2026 +3
That isn't how it works at all? They just need their ratio of premiums:losses to be greater than 1. Most insurance companies in reasonably competitive markets have loss ratios very close to 1 Buying insurance has a negative expected value but helps to manage risk on an individual level. Large companies "self-insure" for this very reason- if you have a fleet of thousands of trucks, the cost to insure them will be more than the cost of simply paying out the claims yourself.
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interposetenth Apr 16, 2026 +5
More like insurance doesn't want to be a scam so they specifically tell you the sorts of things they will not insure, such as war-related damage, because they aren't sure they have the resources to pay it out.
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Flyz647 Apr 16, 2026 +1
Doesn't have the ressources nor could they expect to increase insurances premiums to cover loses.
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ZzZzZzZzZzZero Apr 16, 2026 -3
Insurance is a scam anyway.
-3
Flyz647 Apr 16, 2026 +1
not really
1
YarpsDrittAdrAtta Apr 16, 2026 +4
Perhaps we should point out here that Russia’s Gazprom holds a 51% stake in NS1 and a 100% stake in NS2
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evildrtran Apr 17, 2026
Arrest the insurance executives for money laundering
0
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