Business interruption claims have surged, with average losses now exceeding €850,000—70% higher than property damage claims—due to fragile supply chains, geopolitical tensions, cyber incidents, and growing technology dependencies that can disrupt entire production networks.
- Average business interruption claim value now exceeds €850,000, representing a 70% increase compared to average property damage claims.
- Claims increased by over 30% annually during the past two years, despite stable claim frequency.
- Fire and explosion account for more than 40% of total business interruption loss value, making it the costliest cause.
- Non-natural catastrophe events remain the principal loss driver, accounting for 74% of claims and 66% of total value.
- More than 48,000 outages were tracked across cloud and software services in 2025, highlighting rising dependence on digital supply chains and cyber vulnerabilities.
Companies are increasingly at risk from surging business interruption losses due to concentrated production, fragile supply chains, geopolitical tensions, inflation, and growing technology dependencies, according to new analysis from Allianz Commercial.
The average total value of a business interruption claim now exceeds €850,000, which is 70% higher than the corresponding average property damage claim, demonstrating that the financial consequences of being unable to operate can substantially exceed the cost of repairing the damage that caused the disruption.
Although claims frequency has remained relatively stable, the average value of claims increased by over 30% annually during the past two years.
“Business interruption and supply chain risk remains elevated and volatile. The operating environment is challenging with geopolitical tensions, trade fragmentation, cyber-related incidents, and growing dependency on technology such as artificial intelligence (AI). The scale of physical damage alone no longer determines the ultimate cost of a business interruption. Even a relatively contained incident can have consequences across production networks, customers and markets. Businesses therefore need to identify and better understand not only their own critical assets, but also those of the suppliers, technologies and infrastructure on which their operations depend,” says Thomas Lillelund, CEO of Allianz Commercial.
Key takeaways:
· Fire and explosion is the costliest cause of business interruption claims, accounting for more than 40% of the total value analyzed. Fire was responsible for nine of the 10 costliest man-made business interruption events in the dataset and was the most expensive cause of loss in markets in Germany, Singapore, the UK and the United States.
· However, events that do not involve natural catastrophe activity remain the principal overall business interruption loss driver, accounting for 74% of claims and 66% of their total value.
· Some natural catastrophe claims are developing over increasingly long periods. Supply chain delays, labor shortages, and volatile material costs can extend both recovery and settlement.
· While ransomware remains the leading cyber-related cause of disruption, a growing share of loss activity is also being driven by cloud outages, software failures and incidents at third-party technology providers. More than 48,000 outages were tracked across cloud and software services in 2025 alone, highlighting businesses' rising dependence on digital supply chains.
