Infrastructure Investment and Insurance: Insurers' Role in Financing Long-Term Growth (Insurance Europe)

Summary

• The EU requires an additional €750–800 billion per year for the green and digital transitions, energy security, and modern infrastructure.p.2
• European insurers act as major institutional investors holding approximately EUR 9.5 trillion in assets under management.p.2
• German insurers hold over €100bn in infrastructure investments, representing 6% of their total balance sheets.p.6
• French insurers invested €67bn in infrastructure at the end of 2024, representing 2.6% of their balance sheets.p.6
• Ageas's I4B programme expanded its battery portfolio to 2.14 GWh across four sites by June 2026, representing around €600 million of investment.p.8
• An IW Köln study found that PPP procurement delivered average municipal building construction-cost savings of around 17%.p.13

Key insights

1. Public resources alone cannot bridge Europe's estimated €750–800 billion annual infrastructure gap, necessitating private capital participation.p.2
2. In the 2021-2027 military mobility programme, €3.7 billion in project demand competed for only €807 million of available funding in the Connecting Europe Facility.p.3
3. Listed infrastructure securities provide daily liquidity but exhibit higher correlation with public equity markets compared to private assets.p.5
4. Italian insurers accounted for €17,6bn in infrastructure allocations in 2025, of which €14 bn was held in General Accounts.p.6
5. The Solvency II standard formula dedicated capital criteria for qualifying infrastructure have proven overly onerous for widespread market adoption.p.7
6. The 2018 CJEU Achmea ruling restricted intra-EU investment arbitration, creating legal uncertainties for cross-border infrastructure dispute resolution.p.11
7. Comparative research shows that public-private partnerships can reduce municipal building construction costs by an average of 17%.p.13