Brilliance in Focus: 2025 Renewable Energy Power Broker Molly Lovelette

As part of covering the best brokers in the commercial insurance space, Risk & Insurance®, with the sponsorship of Philadelphia Insurance Companies, is expanding its coverage of Power Broker® winners and finalists with its Brilliance in Focus series.

Look for these expanded profiles on the Risk & Insurance website and in your social media feeds throughout the year.

Here, we talk with Molly Lovelette, Vice President, Alliant Power, and a 2025 Renewable Energy Power Broker.

Risk & Insurance: What sectors of the renewable energy space remain most attractive to underwriters?

Molly Lovelette: Underwriters are attracted to portfolios with geographical and technological diversification, strong engineering and risk management, and insureds who are looking to be an active partner with their carriers with respect to risk solutions. With the boom in renewables projects over the past 5-10 years, insurers are seeing tons of submissions come across their desks, so a strong, technical IPP rises to the top of their pile.

R&I: In your career what “lessons learned” ended up being most important to you?

ML: It’s important to balance the trust that our clients and market partners place in us as brokers. We are coming out of a hard market cycle where we often had to deliver tough news on both sides. Learning how to do that tactfully, honestly and transparently is imperative to maintain that trust we build with our partners.

R&I: Where do you see AI gaining meaningful traction in the commercial insurance space?

ML: From a commercial perspective, I expect AI to be useful in severe weather forecasting, perhaps improving the ability to predict severe weather earlier and more precisely, which can be helpful to our clients with assets in CAT-exposed areas of the U.S. and to insurers looking to build loss modeling for ever-changing NAT CAT perils.

Of note, I work with Independent Power Producers (IPPs). Our clients are helping to support the massive energy demands created by data centers by co-locating renewable power assets (wind, solar, BESS) to meet the power needs of AI software. We engage our engineers early in the process to help identify unique risks for the owners and we’ve had interesting conversations with our clients and markets around business interruption and delay in start-up.

R&I: What are some common mistakes buyers of insurance make that they would do well to correct going forward?

ML: When speaking to our clients, we stress the importance of their buy-in on risk management and mitigation. Equipment and contractor selection and strong site practices with respect to vegetation management and NAT CAT perils are important to mitigate the potential of a large loss to the project and the insurance markets. While it’s certainly important to build a project that works for a long-term financial model, the clients that take the extra step to retain or otherwise mitigate risk to their insurers and operate their assets from a place of reciprocity are the clients who see the most favorable coverage terms and rates from the markets.

R&I: What gives you the greatest sense of satisfaction from this work?

ML: The best part of my job is the satisfaction that comes with working through a tough risk with my colleagues and clients. We work very hard to produce a product that makes both our market partners and clients happy at the end of the day. There’s a great sense of camaraderie, teamwork and mentorship amongst my colleagues, and that is reflected in the final outcomes we achieve for our clients. &