Insurance damage to the solar installation: document to standards and secure payouts

A storm, a hailstorm, an arc fire – and the solar installation is no longer running at full power. What counts now is complete, standards-compliant documentation. Anyone who makes mistakes here or misses deadlines risks a reduction or rejection of the insurance payout. This guide explains step by step what operators must do after a damage event – and why a thermographic report to IEC TS 62446-3 is the most important document in every insurance process.

Obliegenheitspflichten – was viele Betreiber nicht wissen

Most operators immediately think of the extent of damage when insurance claims arise. What they overlook: insurers can reduce or refuse payouts when so-called duty obligations have been violated. Duty obligations are contractual behavioural requirements that you as the insured must regularly fulfil – regardless of whether there is currently a claim.

For commercial PV systems these obligations typically cover three areas. Firstly the jährliche Sichtprüfung by the operator or a contracted service provider with a written log. Secondly the wiederkehrende elektrische Prüfung per DGUV regulation 3 or DIN VDE 0105-100 – for commercially used buildings generally every four years. Thirdly VdS damage prevention (guidelines VdS 2858) recommends a thermographic inspection every two years, to detect hotspots and electrical overheating early.

What damage does PV insurance cover?

The extent of insurance cover depends on the chosen tariff. Most specialised photovoltaic insurances distinguish between basic cover and extended cover. Basic cover typically covers: fire, lightning, explosion and implosion, and storm and hail damage from a defined wind force.

Extended cover additionally covers: snow pressure and avalanches, surge damage from lightning, theft and vandalism, design and material defects, and operating errors and short circuits. Business interruption insurance also covers lost yield – usually after a waiting period of 3–5 days.

Was viele Betreiber überrascht: Gradual degradation is not an insured event. When modules gradually lose power through normal ageing this is not insured – even if the loss is considerable. What is insurable, by contrast, are sudden events with a clearly definable time of damage. This is precisely where prompt thermography after a damage event is decisive: it fixes the damage condition immediately after the event and proves that no gradual pre-damage existed.

Immediate measures after the damage event

The standards-compliant damage analysis with thermography

For insurance settlement photos of obvious damage alone are not sufficient. Microcracks, PID damage and hotspots after surge events are not provable without thermography – but they cause considerable yield losses. A standards-compliant thermographic report to IEC TS 62446-3 is the technical document that evidences all damage without gaps.

The standard prescribes under which measurement conditions thermograms must be taken: minimum irradiance of 600 W/m², wind speed below 4 m/s, modules in normal operating condition with at least 20% of rated power. Only measurements under these conditions are reproducible and thus legally sound. Insurers and expert witnesses accept exclusively standards-compliant reports as the basis for settlement.

Important: thermography should be carried out as soon as possible after the damage event. The longer you wait, the more difficult it becomes to prove that damage was caused by the specific event – and not by other causes over time.

What the thermography report for the insurer must contain

Process from damage report to settlement

The typical process of insurance settlement for PV damage follows a clear pattern. After the damage report the insurer usually commissions their own expert for an inspection – they check visible damage and assess whether the reported event is a plausible cause of damage.

If you have an independent thermographic report at the same time this considerably strengthens your position. The report technically demonstrates precisely which modules are damaged, how large the yield loss is and that the damage is event-typical. This prevents the insurer's expert from classifying damage as "pre-existing damage" or "normal ageing" and reducing the settlement accordingly.

For larger damage from a claim amount of typically €10,000–15,000 many insurers use a formal expert procedure (§ 84 VVG). In this case a standards-compliant thermographic report is indispensable as evidence.

Costs of the thermographic expert report and reimbursement

The costs of a drone thermographic inspection for damage documentation depend on system size. For commercial rooftop systems between 50 and 500 kWp they are typically between €750 and €3,200 net (Complete or Premium package with expert opinion). Travel costs from Hamburg are added.

These costs are reimbursed as damage investigation costs in many insurance contracts. Ask your insurer explicitly before commissioning whether and to what extent expert costs are covered. For insurers that make a technical expert report a prerequisite for settlement – which is increasingly standard in the commercial PV insurance sector – reimbursement is almost universally possible.

Frequently asked questions