Traditional commercial insurance policies don’t cover armed conflict, sending property owners and developers to the specialty war market. Peiser estimated that global insurers like Lloyd’s of London have $50 billion of those policies active in the Middle East, locked in at lower premiums than today’s risks would command. (Marine tanker insurance, in contrast, re-prices during conflict; tankers, as Peiser points out, can also be moved, which is “not an option with data centers.“)

Estimated insurance losses from the Ukraine war, where insurers were “orders of magnitude” less active, are $750 million after four years of war, he said.

“The early read is that the losses in the Middle East, if the conflicts stop today, will exceed that,” Peiser said.