Reducing uncertainty in wind insurance claims through root cause insight

By Andrei Buliga, Digital Blades Project Director at RES, supporting Bladena

When a wind turbine blade fails, insurers need more than a description of the visible damage. They need to understand what happened, why it happened, who may be responsible, and whether the same issue could affect other assets.

That clarity is not always easy to reach. Early information can be limited, conflicting or shaped by the interests of different parties. And where uncertainty remains, insurers can face greater exposure to dispute, misattribution, repeat failures and long-term cost.

Bladena provides independent root cause analysis for wind turbine blade failures, helping insurers make evidence-based claims decisions with greater confidence.

Speak to our balde failure experts

When the cause is unclear, claims decisions become harder

Blade failure claims can quickly become complex.
Multiple stakeholders may be involved, each with their own interpretation of the incident. When there is no clear, independent technical evidence to rely on, it can be difficult to separate fact from assumption, or to determine whether a proposed repair addresses the real cause of failure.

For insurers, this creates uncertainty around some of the most important questions in the claim:

• What was the actual failure mechanism?
• What factors contributed to the failure?
• Is the failure isolated, or could similar assets be exposed?
• Are proposed repairs technically appropriate?
• Is there enough evidence to support a clear liability position?
• Could the same issue happen again

Visible damage does not always explain the true failure

Conventional approaches often focus on where a blade has failed, what repair may be required and what can be seen on the surface. But visible damage is often the outcome of a deeper issue, not the explanation in itself.

Wind turbine blade failures are rarely driven by a single factor. Their behaviour can be shaped by design characteristics, manufacturing conditions, transport stresses and operational loading. In many cases, the true cause of failure only becomes clear when these factors are assessed together.
That’s why root cause analysis is so important.

Bladena’s RCA process is designed to reconstruct the sequence of events leading to failure. By combining specialist blade structural assessment, operational evidence, modelling and simulation, Bladena helps distinguish between the visible symptoms of damage and the true origin of failure.

[Comparison table]

Conventional approaches may focus on…	Independent RCA helps reveal…
What damage is visible	Why the failure occurred
What repair may be required	Whether the repair addresses the underlying cause
The individual incident	Whether there may be wider fleet-level exposure
Differing stakeholder interpretations	Evidence-based understanding of causation
The visible blade condition	A defensible basis for claim evaluation

Evidence-led insight for clearer claims decisions

Bladena’s independent root cause analysis gives insurers a more robust technical basis for claim evaluation, liability discussions and future risk assessment.

With RCA and specialist structural analysis, insurers can:

• Establish a clear, unbiased understanding of what happened
• Assess liability using objective technical evidence
• Distinguish between failure symptoms and failure origins
• Validate whether proposed repairs address the true underlying cause
• Evaluate the risk of recurrence across similar assets
• Support negotiations with transparent, defensible documentation
• Make more informed decisions across claims, underwriting and risk evaluation

This can be particularly valuable in multi-party claims, where differing perspectives and commercial interests can make resolution more difficult.

Independent RCA in action: disputed blade failure claim

Bladena combines specialist structural insight with practical understanding of turbine behaviour in the field. As part of RES Group, Bladena’s insight is strengthened by real-world operational experience across a global renewable energy portfolio.

If you’re working through a disputed claim, liability question or blade failure scenario, Bladena can provide independent technical insight to support claim evaluation, liability discussions and repair decisions.

Background

Following a blade break incident, an insurer faced a disputed claim involving multiple stakeholders and differing interpretations of the technical cause.

The insurer needed an independent assessment to clarify the failure mechanism, understand whether the event was isolated or indicative of wider fleet risk, and establish a defensible position for claim resolution.

The challenge

Different parties had presented different views of causation, leaving the insurer without the clarity needed to assess liability or move the claim forward. Bladena was brought in to provide an independent investigation that could go beyond surface-level damage interpretation and determine the underlying failure mechanism.

Bladena’s role

Bladena carried out an independent root cause analysis, delivered without commercial ties to any of the parties involved.
The investigation combined specialist blade structural assessment with operational evidence to determine the true cause of failure.

The analysis included:
• failure mechanism identification
• load-damage correlation
• design envelope assessment
• manufacturing indicator review
• evidence-based hypothesis elimination

This approach allowed Bladena to test different explanations, rule out unsupported assumptions and build a clear technical causation narrative.

The impact

The RCA gave the insurer a clear, unbiased and technically substantiated basis for claim evaluation, liability discussions and stakeholder alignment.

The findings supported:
• a clearer causation narrative
• improved liability clarity
• reduced uncertainty in claims decisions
• faster claim resolution
• reduced dispute complexity
• a stronger negotiation position
• better visibility of potential fleet-level risk

For the insurer, the value was not only in understanding a single failure. It was in gaining the evidence needed to make a confident decision under scrutiny.

Want to find out more?

---

• Category: Blog