On Oct 29, 2014, at 11:26 AM, David Shaw <dj.shaw@btconnect.com> wrote:

> I was told - many years ago, so things may well have changed since - that rocket flight was considered so risky that it cost as much to insure a rocket as to build it, so nobody bothered.  The fact that one company will now offer such insurance tends to suggest that the perceived risk is now lower - or that there are a lot of financially inept people in rocketing  ;-)

There are commercially-owned satellite systems, and have been for some time. There are also commercial launch enterprises, (albeit quasi-governmental, such as Arianespace) Insurance has been available for quite a while; without it standard capital funding wouldn’t be available.

Lloyds has been insuring satellite launches for quite a while now.

--
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs