How a Billion-Dollar Satellite Risks Upending the Space Insurance Industry - Sla...
source link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/23/09/04/0149214/how-a-billion-dollar-satellite-risks-upending-the-space-insurance-industry
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How a Billion-Dollar Satellite Risks Upending the Space Insurance Industry
"Viasat Inc. has more than $1 billion of orbiting satellites in trouble," reports Bloomberg, "and space insurers are girding for market-rattling claims."
The company's roughly $1 billion ViaSat-3 Americas satellite, central to expanding its fixed-broadband coverage and fending off rivals including Elon Musk's Starlink, suffered an unexpected problem as it deployed its antenna in orbit in April. Should Viasat declare it a total loss, industry executives estimate the claim would reach a record-breaking $420 million and, in turn, make it harder — and more expensive — for other satellite operators to get insurance... Viasat on Aug. 24 reported another stricken spacecraft, saying its Inmarsat-6 F2 satellite launched in February suffered a power problem. The failure may end the craft's useful life and result in a $350 million insurance claim, Space Intel Report said. Viasat's troubles in orbit come a few years after big-name insurers like American International Group Inc. and Allianz SE have shuttered their space portfolios. That's left a smaller pool of providers to absorb the risks in the notoriously high-stakes $553 million market... Following news of the Inmarsat-6 anomaly, Viasat and other industry participants "will likely experience significant challenges with obtaining insurance for future satellite launches," [investment banking firm] William Blair's Louie DiPalma said in an Aug. 25 note... In 2019, the total losses from satellite claims amounted to $788 million, which overwhelmed the total premiums for the year at $500 million, according to launch and satellite database Seradata. In the years that followed, big names like American International Group Inc., Swiss Re AG, and Allianz SE all closed the door on satellite insurance. Earlier this month Viasat's CEO says before deciding whether they'll file a claim, "There's no consequences to us taking another couple or three months to get good measurements and then making those decisions."
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should not be a required purchase absent related price consolidation and review
Fine with me, as long as every driver who refuses insurance puts the full legally required minimum liability amount into an escrow account that can be used to pay for any damages inflicted on others.
- companies should not be allowed to exit markets where they have claims that cause them losses. Either insure everyone or insure noone.
Maybe you could force them to stay around, but you probably won't be able to force them to do business at a guaranteed loss. With climate trends, rates will simply be astronomical. That's why "conservitave-run" Florida is mostly replacing its insurance market with a socialist program that doesn't actually need to use sound actuarial practices (since it can always just fleece the taxpayers).
companies should insure equally situated claims the same. It shouldn't matter what MY CREDIT RATING or MY ZIP CODE. If I'm insuring my 2011 Hyundai Genesis Coupe then I should pay the same as anyone else insuring the same car. PERIOD.
I'll bet that most people posting on this site have better-than-average credit ratings and live in better-than-average zip codes. That probably means that if you force all premiums to be the same, *your* rates will go up.
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Put another way... The poster wants his insurance rates based only on things he can control, while actual insurance must take into account things outside his control. For example, crime rates are (often) different in different localities, etc... I also imagine one's credit rating affects something, otherwise companies wouldn't care about it -- I also imagine those reasons are probably, at least a little, racist.
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The outcome is racially biased, but the reasons are not.
The insurance companies want profits. It costs more to insure a vehicle in a high-crime area. So they charge more. But the insurance companies aren't looking at race. They are looking at crime rates.
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I was referring to the use of credit scores, not zipcodes - sorry if I was confusing. I agree with your rational for the latter.
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Why would the minimal required insurance cost more in a high crime area? At least where I am, you only have to have liability insurance to cover repairs/ injuries you might cause. Then there's the extras, collision for if you're at fault and comprehensive, which does include theft as well as weather and such like when a tree fell on my vehicle. While comprehensive will cost more in a high crime area, it is not required.
What does matter for liability is traffic, the more urban, the more expensive as accident
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If statistics show orange drivers crash their cars more, is it racist to charge more for insurance to orange drivers?
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I was referring to the use of credit scores, sorry for being confusing.
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If statistics show orange drivers crash cars more and orange drivers also have lower credit scores, is it racist to charge more for insurance for those with lower credit scores?
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Yes. Treating an individual as a member of their class ("orange" in your example) rather than as a unique human being to whom the stereotypes of their class may or may not apply is the textbook definition of racism, as I learned it.
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The whole point of insurance is to be treated as part of a class. You are distributing risk over a class . Its not as if insurance pays out of its pocket. It distributes the risk so that no one person is ruined due to bad luck but as a whole for Insurance to work the total of premiums paid in has to be more than the claims paid out to cover operating costs, profits and reserves.
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I think you are missing the point. If credit scores correlate with insurance losses, then insurance companies are justified in using credit scores to rate insurance.
If later it is found that credit scores also correlate with race, why should that invalidate their earlier use to rate insurance?
If brown cars are found to cost insurance companies more losses than beige cars, then the insurance company is justified in charging more to insure brown cars.
If it is later found that brown cars are more likely to
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Not to mention the billions in National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) payments, without with Florida would be a nonviable place to own a home. Florida isn't just fleecing their taxpayers, they're fleecing all of us.
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This is literally "space" insurance for those who put satellites into space and are large corporation who can afford to either: 1) pay the increased premiums or 2) decide to fly their satellites with no insurance (and effectively self insure). No one is holding a gun to their head, and if a $500 million satellite cost $400 million to insure, then they would probably opt for option 2. Something tells me that the company with by far the most satellites (i.e. many thousands of satellites) and also the company
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High rates will help SpaceX consolidate its lead.
SpaceX doesn't insure its rockets or payloads, so will pay no additional cost.
SpaceX only carries 3rd party liability insurance that is required by the FAA.
ViaSat is doing it wrong. Instead of a single billion dollar satellite, they should be launching lots of little expendable satellites like StarLink does.
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ViaSat-3 is a geostationnary satellite, fundamentally different from the constellation of low-orbit and soon-to-re-enter Starlink satellites.
Major paradigm shift.-
That in and of itself is reason to wonder what the heck they were thinking. Between the unavoidably high latency and the more expensive launch costs, geostationary satellites are fossils these days. Why would anybody launch one now? I guess they had already ordered these when Starlink began launching satellites? If so, they're probably really glad for an opportunity to write the satellite off as a loss and get that money back from their insurance provider.
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Different zip codes by definition are differently situated. Crime rates tend to be different in different areas.
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You're both right in this case. Car insurance is mandatory in every state. Therefore we should have an at-cost national insurance program to cover it. Nobody should be profiting off legal requirements.
Driving is a privilege, some say, but our nation was literally deprived of alternatives by a convicted conspiracy to force people to drive cars by destroying profitable mass transportation systems, so driving should be a right until that defect is corrected.
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We've tried that world. It was fucked. No thanks. If you can't afford insurance for your car then you can't afford to have an accident and thus should have your driving privileges revoked due to the net negative impact you pose on society.
Companies aren't doing that. They are literally choosing to "insure noone" in this instance.
Insurance companies do. They apply a the same risk formula to everyone. Not everyone generates the same risk but they are all treated equally in the formula. Where you live, how you
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