Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

When rocket launches go wrong: space insurance is here to payout
https://digital.hbs.edu/digital-infrastr...to-payout/

EXCERPT: When rocket launches go wrong, space insurers can step in and prevent companies from dealing with the costs [...] With the development of more reliable, cheaper rockets, the space insurance business can continue to grow while the probability of launch failure decreases year after year. The U.S. government’s backing and support of the commercial space industry has allowed it to flourish into what it is today.

[...] With about fifty companies in the space insurance business, this niche market happens to provide consistent returns, as CNN reports that these firms collected $715 million in premiums and paid out $635 million in claims last year. The space insurance business and the commercial space industry as a whole would not have existed without Congress’s intervention. Congress amended the Commercial Space Launch Act of 1984 in 1988 to allow for the government to insure against genuinely large-scale disasters...
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The future of space risks
https://www.propertycasualty360.com/2020...1025145612

EXCERPT: As companies revolutionize space flight, outer space is shaping up to become a major market for the insurance industry. [...] “There will be an increasing need for third party liability coverage, simply because when you have a proliferation of commercial non-state interests and commercial activities in order, it is just pure statistics that you’re more likely to see either physical or electromagnetic interference between different operators in orbit and also from orbit with the ground,” he explains.

”As a commercial operation in space expands, then you will have an expansion of risk; therefore, I suspect there’s an increasing need for third party liability. There will be some novel elements to that [such as] physical damage caused by something falling out of the sky; it’s been contemplated in lots of areas including aviation liability, of course, but aviation has the benefit of legal regimes that give insurers a degree of certainty. You don’t have quite the same thing for space risks.”

Within the next decade, Slomski also predicts that there will be a greater need for a more comprehensive international liability regime. “It’s a great area for lawyers to think hard about — you want certainty and uniformity of legal rules, and I don’t think we have that right now,” he adds.
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SpaceX insurance requirements
https://www.businessinsurance.com/articl...deral-Avia

EXCERPT: The SpaceX Starship has yet to soar, but the same can’t be said for the mission’s insurance requirements [...] As part of the license, Space Exploration Technologies Corp. ... is required to maintain insurance policies covering $300 million for starship pre-launch activities and policies covering $198 million for potential claims that result from the starship prototype suborbital flight testing from Boca Chica, Texas. The insurance policy requirements for suborbital flight testing ... were initially set at $100 million...
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SpaceX Is Ushering in the Era of Space Commercialization as Insurers Prepare for Take Off
https://riskandinsurance.com/spacex-is-u...-take-off/

EXCERPT: To get a license from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), companies need to have third-party liability coverage to cover any damages to outside people or businesses caused by the launch. Companies looking to launch uncrewed vehicles into space will also likely purchase insurance policies for their rockets or satellites.

“There’s no particular liability that’s different from what they’ve been doing in the past,” Kunstadter said. “They still have to have a license to launch and, in order to get the license, they have to show financial responsibility, as does any company launching from U.S. soil.”

For uncrewed launches, challenges come as more companies start launching vehicles into space, creating the opportunity for crashes and other types of accidents that simply haven’t occurred before. “If you’ve got a proliferation of commercial operators in orbit, then eventually someone is going to cause damage to someone else, whether it’s in orbit or on the ground,” Slomski said. “So the risk landscape is going to become more complex.”

When it comes to crewed launches, the types of coverage needed and who purchases them depends on whether the crew is made up of NASA astronauts, company employees or third-party participants [space tourists]. “The rocket doesn’t know who it’s carrying, whether it’s carrying NASA astronauts, or employees of the launching company, or third parties,” Kunstadter said. “There are various liabilities for that.”

If a rocket is crewed by NASA astronauts, as was the case in the SpaceX launch, then NASA provides the insurance coverage for their personnel. If a company provides its own crew members for the launch, then they would likely be covered under some kind of workers’ compensation policy.