An insurance company which claims to be the first dedicated to the renewable energy sector has been launched.

Nviro Insurance was set up by Paul Davies to environment-related businesses with a range of covers that include some which are unique to the insurance sector. It specialises in helping companies and professional advisors in the bio-energy, hydropower, solar pv, wind farm and recycling and environment sectors.

Mr Davies formed Nviro because he felt the unique risk requirements of green companies were not properly served by the UK’s 3000 general insurance brokers and intermediaries.

He said: “Many of the UK’s existing insurance brokers will be handling enquiries from the recycling and renewables sector every day, but we are the only broker working in this sector all day, every day. There are particular circumstances which are unique to this industry, which means companies in the sector need to ensure they deal with a broker with the knowledge and experience, otherwise they may not be properly insured when they make a claim, or a claim is made against them.””

Nviro has already handled a case involving the owners of an offshore wind farm, which had to cross several areas of land with its pipelines to connect to the National Grid.

As no-one was registered as the owner of parts of the land being crossed, this could have lead to major problems if an owner had come forward after the work had taken place.

Mr Davies said: “We organised a policy which provided cover of up to £25m should anyone claim ownership of the land and prevent access, or require cabling to be re-routed. It protects them against the re-routing costs, and loss of profits during any downtime.””