At the midpoint of 2026, the war insurance market looks different than it did three months ago. It has grown-and not just in numbers. The product matrix has expanded into new segments of the economy, new companies have joined the PRIMA information exchange, and insurers have, for the first time, revealed to the market the amount they have already reserved for future payouts. This very figure – 977 million UAH – is the main takeaway of the first half of the year.

Before diving into the latest statistics, let’s recall the architecture of war insurance, which has remained a stable foundation since 2022.

What exactly do “war risks” cover?

The basic coverage contour remains unchanged: compensation for losses from direct hits by missiles, strike drones, and their debris. This also includes damage caused by the operation of air defense systems-both by the interception systems themselves and by the fall of downed targets-along with accompanying destruction from fires, explosions, and shockwaves.

Two coverage models

The market operates with two formats for concluding agreements, and the difference between them is fundamental-both for the client and for the reader of statistics.

• Comprehensive approach means that war threats are already integrated into the basic contract-classic CASCO or property insurance. There is no separate pricing; the risk is part of the total premium but operates within strictly defined liability limits and exclusions.

• Individual approach involves the targeted work of an underwriter with a specific object. The war component is separated into an independent policy or a special extension with its own price, a separate premium, and a personally calculated sum insured.

Territorial restrictions

Here, the rules remain without alternative: zones of active hostilities, a 50-100 km strip to the line of combat contact, and temporarily occupied territories are excluded from insurance. The logic is simple: where the probability of an event occurring approaches 100%, the risk loses its characteristic of randomness and, therefore, ceases to be insurable.

Expanding horizons and new indicators

The dataset for January-June 2026 is based on the reporting of 17 insurance companies participating in the PRIMA project, which is two institutions more than in the first quarter.

The sectoral cross-section has also scaled. For the first time, the conclusion of war insurance contracts was recorded in the “Liability” and “Financial Risks” segments-albeit with symbolic volumes for now, but the very fact of the emergence of these lines indicates that the market is looking for new points of application.

A trend in life insurance deserves special attention: companies of this profile are increasingly integrating war threats into endowment programs. As of the end of June, the portfolio of such new contracts crossed the mark of 5,000 units.

Key Indicators for H1 2026

Insurance Premiums *

Dynamics against Q1

The second quarter brought 87% more premiums than the first. Payouts over the same period grew even more significantly: clients received 129.4 million UAH against 47.1 million UAH a quarter earlier, which clearly demonstrates the real work of the insurance sector-companies are meeting their obligations.

The main new indicator: Reserve for reported but not settled claims

The most important marker of the financial burden on the industry was an indicator that PRIMA participants are reporting for the first time—the reserve for reported but not settled claims. This is the money that insurers have already accumulated for future reimbursements for events that have already occurred.

Reserve for reported but not settled claims

The figure is staggering: 977 million UAH, of which 898 million (92%) accounts for damaged property. It is indicative that 98% of this property reserve is formed under contracts with individual risk assessment-that is, exactly where the underwriter worked with each object separately and where the insured sums are the largest.

Comparing the reserve (977 million UAH) with the actual payouts for the half-year (176.5 million UAH) gives a more accurate picture of the real burden on the market than any single loss ratio indicator.

At the same time, it is worth emphasizing an important detail: the announced sum reflects exclusively those cases that policyholders have already managed to officially report to the companies. Factually, this is only the recorded and reliably known part of the destruction. However, the specifics of wartime dictate their own conditions-business owners often do not have immediate access to the affected locations, so notifications of losses will inevitably arrive with a certain delay. Accordingly, the size of reserved claims is a dynamic value, and with the influx of new applications from clients, this indicator will, unfortunately, continue its further growth.

Transformations in key segments

Motor Insurance (CASCO)

In the motor insurance market, 55% of agreements are realized through integrated comprehensive approaches-yet it is precisely these that generate 79% of all revenues in this niche.

A moderate price correction is observed: the average cost of such a comprehensive policy rose to 62,000 UAH (in Q1 it was around 60,000 UAH), while individual contracts hold at the mark of about 19,000 UAH. The maximum volume of the insurer’s liability is mostly limited to 10% of the total vehicle valuation, with an upper payout limit of 3 million UAH per incident.

Protection of Real Estate and Infrastructure (Property)

• Individuals. The retail segment is developing extremely dynamically. The absolute majority of policies (95% of all property contracts) are based on the comprehensive approach, with an average check of about 13,000 UAH. The conversion rate of inquiries into signed contracts is around 40%. This prompts insurers to generate new products to meet demand, despite the persistent barriers: high costs and geographical restrictions.

• Legal Entities. Corporate property insurance once again confirms its status as the most complex zone for underwriting. Every industrial or commercial object has a high concentration of capital and its own specifics, which virtually precludes boilerplate solutions. Therefore, half of all agreements here require a pinpoint calculation of threats and an assessment of each location-and it is precisely these 228 individual contracts that form 98.8% of the corporate premiums in the segment. The average premium for such a contract is about 3.3 million UAH, and the total premium amount for the “Property” segment reached 887 million UAH.

At the same time, the announced average check of 3.3 million UAH for such a policy should not become a psychological barrier for entrepreneurs. It is important to understand that within the framework of exclusive underwriting, this is purely a mathematical median-a highly averaged indicator. The actual cost of a policy is an absolutely flexible value, formed under the influence of dozens of variables.

The final price is directly affected by the architecture of the request itself: whether it is planned to protect an isolated warehouse facility or an entire property complex with adjacent infrastructure. A significant role is played by the requested limit of financial liability, as well as the detailed configuration of coverage-whether it is worth including absolutely all possible threats in the contract or if it is sufficient to focus on the most critical ones.

Thus, the given figure acts only as a kind of macroeconomic beacon for understanding the overall volumes of the segment. In practice, the final tariff is calculated personally, organically adapting to the specifics of the activity, the risk appetite of the owners, and the current budgetary capabilities of each individual client.

State program as a catalyst. An undeniable driver of the revival has been the state compensation program: the business pays only 1% of the insurance premium, while the rest of the policy’s market value is compensated by the state. The effectiveness of the initiative is illustrated by the quarterly dynamics-the portfolio was replenished by 129 new contracts among legal entities, formalized precisely under the individual assessment procedure (99 contracts at the end of Q1 versus 228 at the end of June). For the large corporate risks market, this is a highly optimistic indicator: the program has genuinely unlocked access to such insurance for businesses.

Green generation-the new frontier. A powerful signal for macroeconomic resilience was the industry’s readiness to work with renewable energy objects. Responding to the strategic challenge of energy system decentralization, insurers have expanded their offerings to protect solar and wind power plants, as well as industrial battery energy storage systems (BESS).

Providing such coverage is accompanied by uncompromising rules: a key prerequisite for approving a deal is passing a strict geographical “filter” and the absolute absence of any military or dual-use infrastructure near the energy facility.

And even with the high cost of such a policy, the strict barriers of underwriters and international reinsurers, and the meticulous analysis of the distance to the contact line, domestic entrepreneurs consciously invest in this protection. Businesses have come to the understanding: under conditions of continuous threats, an insurance policy is not an additional option, but a mechanism for survival and further development.

Cargo Transportation

Logistics continues to serve as the circulatory system of the economy, and the relevant statistics confirm this. During the reporting period, the segment generated almost 130 million UAH in premiums. The compensation mechanism works like clockwork: payouts reached 29.5 million UAH, and another 28.1 million UAH is recorded in the status of reserved claims awaiting a final decision.

The main competitive advantage of these products is coverage flexibility. Under conditions of complex logistics, customs queues, and regular delays, policies protect products not only during transit along the route: the insurer’s liability is also maintained during periods of temporary warehousing or transit transshipment lasting up to 45 days. For companies engaged in foreign economic activity, this is a critically important safety buffer.

The rules of the game in the segment remain stable and predictable. The limiting factor for the further scaling of portfolios is solely the limits of available capacity from international reinsurers.

The overall conclusion is cautiously optimistic: practically any nomenclature of goods, raw materials, or equipment that a business intends to bring into Ukraine can receive adequate insurance protection. Framework restrictions regarding cargo specifics or delivery geography exist, but globally, insurance functions fully.

Architecture of Reinsurance Support

The global market continues to play a critical role: domestic insurers retain only a tenth of accepted risks on their own balance sheets.

The top reinsurer remains the London-based Lloyd’s market, whose consolidated limit reached 600 million USD-almost twice as much as a quarter earlier. However, access to this capacity is burdened by high prices and strict selection. Powerful support is provided by institutional partners-DFC with a capacity of over 125 million and the EBRD with a limit of about 110 million dollars.

Instead of a Conclusion

The first half of 2026 has proven: the insurance sector rapidly constructs new defense mechanisms in response to client requests-from corporate real estate to solar power plants and energy storage systems. Premiums grew almost threefold compared to the level of Q1, new lines of business appeared, and the circle of information exchange participants expanded.

However, considering the colossal volumes of reserved claims-almost a billion hryvnias that are yet to be paid out—the stability of this system in the future will totally depend on uninterrupted and accessible support from international reinsurance capital.

It is worth looking beyond the reporting period as well. Information coming from the market after the finalization of the data for the first half of the year records an unprecedented surge in insurance events. According to preliminary expert estimates, the scale of destruction and the total volume of newly reported claims already currently multiply exceed the total mass of premiums under the respective contracts. This is a harsh reminder of the extreme conditions in which the economy continues to function.

However, from this harsh reality emerge several fundamental conclusions that radically change the approach to asset management:

• The insurance mechanism proves its effectiveness. The system fulfills its primary purpose, even despite strict underwriting limits and pricing that may seem financially burdensome for some clients. The true value of a policy is revealed through the mathematics of potential losses. Paying an insurance premium of two or three million hryvnias is a minimal price for a financial shield when it comes to protecting a modern warehouse complex or large batches of goods. After all, in the event of the sudden destruction of an asset, the bill for its restoration will already run into hundreds of millions or even billions of hryvnias, which can lead to the ultimate bankruptcy of a company without insurance support.

• Risk diversification is an alternative-free strategy. The current statistics form a clear signal for entrepreneurs of all levels: from industrial giants to representatives of small and medium-sized businesses. Capital management during wartime requires a comprehensive approach. A modern formula for resilience must combine the presence of an insurance policy with radical managerial decisions. This primarily concerns physical decentralization and the relocation of warehouse hubs or production facilities to safer regions.

Deciding to relocate a business is an extremely difficult task, yet it has a direct economic effect. Physical distancing from high-risk zones not only ensures the continuity of operational activities and the inner peace of owners, but also radically changes insurers’ attitudes towards such an object. As a result, a company gains the opportunity to purchase an insurance policy much more cheaply, optimizing its own operational costs and gaining absolute confidence in tomorrow.

And this final message applies not only to major entrepreneurs or corporate owners. It is an important signal for every person who still doubts the expediency of financial protection for their assets, property, or health.

In today’s turbulent realities, insurance has definitively become an absolute “must-have”—a basic standard of a responsible attitude towards one’s own future. This necessity is most aptly illustrated by a simple real-life analogy with medicine. No conscious person waits for the peak of an epidemic to get vaccinated. We undergo vaccination in advance—not to hundred-percent avoid encountering the virus, but so that the body meets the threat prepared, endures the illness in the mildest possible form, and avoids fatal complications.

An insurance policy works on exactly this same preventive principle. It cannot physically stop destruction, cancel an accident, or avert a mishap, but it acts as a powerful financial “vaccine.” Thanks to it, any life crisis will pass with minimal losses, allowing you or your family to quickly recover, get back on your feet, and maintain your usual standard of living, instead of being left alone with catastrophic consequences.

Notes:

* For insurance products with a comprehensive approach, the data on insurance premiums includes coverage for both standard and war risks, while the data on insurance payouts only covers war risks. As a result of this representation, a significant disproportion arises between the sum of insurance premiums and the sum of insurance payouts.

Data source-PRIMA information exchange, reporting of 17 insurance companies participating in the project for January–June 2026.