I went to the Fusion Industry Association. Here’s what the insurance market is missing.

There’s an old joke that nuclear fusion has been 30 years away for 50 years now - I’m an underwriter and sustainability professional, not a physicist, so I can’t say when it will be fully commercialised and scaled. However, from conversations I was part of at the Fusion Industry Association's annual conference last week, that old saying no longer stands up!

Something else struck me. Many developers, investors, and supply chain executives said a similar version of the same thing: “We hadn’t really thought about insurance”. Now, that didn’t necessarily surprise me, but it did capture something important about where fusion and insurance currently stand in relation to each other. The technology is moving faster than most people realise. We are at a tipping point between technology deployment and commercialisation. The technology is not yet fully ready, but the commercial and financial infrastructure that will need to support it is lagging. Insurance sits squarely in that gap.

The state of fusion today

Over the past week, I have fully registered the scale of what’s been built. The event itself was twice the size of last year’s event - attended by CEOs, physicists, government ministers, policy directors, supply chain specialists, and a few insurers. It is clear that the conversation has shifted - it’s no longer “will fusion work?” It’s “how do we sequence the commercialisation?” That’s a fundamentally different discussion - and it’s one that pulls in a whole set of actors who haven’t historically been part of the fusion story: financiers, grid operators, supply chain architects, and insurers.

The government signals were significant, too. Two days before the conference, the UK published its Fusion Strategy - a comprehensive document that positions the country at the forefront of global fusion development, covering investment, supply chain, and insurance, etc. At the event itself, the US introduced the director of the dedicated Office for Fusion within the Department of Energy, Jean Paul Allain. Japan, another major player, continues to build out its own regulatory and investment infrastructure - we heard from Akirta Tsuneto, Deputy Director General for Science, Technology and Innovation Policy for the government of Japan.

The insurance gap

The fusion insurance product is developing alongside the technology - and both are almost here. As a first-of-a-kind technology, fusion has lacked the operational data and claims history that insurers typically rely on to price risk with confidence. That is changing.

Traditional nuclear insurance was built around fission - a fundamentally different technology, with different physics, different failure modes, and a very (very) different risk profile! Fusion doesn’t carry the same risks and his is one of the major reputational challenges the sector faces: when people hear “nuclear”, they assume fission. The UK government has formally recognised fusion as a novel technology distinct from fission, though the market is still developing the frameworks to reflect that distinction.

However, there is currently a bottleneck: project developers need to demonstrate that their assets are insurable to unlock financing. Investors need a financial backstop. Without insurance, capital hesitates — and when capital hesitates, timelines extend. NC Fusion - the dedicated nuclear fusion insurance facility we launched at Lloyd’s last year with our partners at Northcourt - was designed specifically to address this. It’s the first facility of its kind in the world: built not around what fusion looks like today, but around what it will need to become commercially viable. Cover that scales from financial lines to R&D through to commercial operation, designed for a technology whose risk profile will evolve significantly as it matures.

Zemfira Knott from Northcourt spoke on stage at the event. Her message was simple and it is one we share within TMGX: the more insurers understand that technology and the risks associated with it, the more confidently we can price and share that risk.

That process is built on confidentiality - proprietary information shared as part of underwriting discussions is protected throughout - and the earlier that dialogue starts, the better positioned we are to provide the cover fusion will need as it scales.

The window is open - but it won’t stay open indefinitely

The insurance market has experienced similar market dynamics before. Offshore wind was once speculative - until the sector scaled and the firms that had invested in building expertise found themselves holding something genuinely valuable.

Fusion is not offshore wind. The technical challenges are different, the timelines are longer, and the risk profile requires purpose-built solutions rather than adapted ones. But the fundamental dynamic is similar: the window to build expertise, develop products, and establish relationships with the sector is open now.

It is not fission. The physics are different, the failure modes are different, and the risks - while complex and novel - are not categorically unlike risks the industry prices in chemicals, advanced manufacturing, or early-stage energy technology. The challenge is about really understanding the intricacies of the technology to price it well.

Start the conversation now

If you’re a fusion developer or investor thinking about project finance: the conversation about insurance doesn’t have to wait until you’re ready to operate. The earlier it starts, the more useful it is - for your financing structure, your risk management, and your relationship with the capital markets that will ultimately determine your timeline to commercial operation.

Fusion is happening. It’s bigger than most people realise, and it’s moving faster than the old saying gives it credit for. The infrastructure - regulatory, financial, and risk - needs to be ready when the technology is. We’re building our piece of that infrastructure now. The rest of the insurance market should be doing the same.

Eva Merpillat Guiraudet is an Underwriting Assistant at Tokio Marine GX, where she focuses on marine, energy transition, and financial line risks within the energy transition NC Fusion, developed in partnership with Northcourt MGA, is the world’s first dedicated nuclear fusion insurance facility, launched at Lloyd’s in October 2025.