The satellite insurance market saw unusual strain this year following Viasat’s insurance claims following the malfunction of two of its most expensive satellites.
“Our business this year has been a difficult one,” Chris Kunstadter, global head of space at space insurance provider AXA XL said at this month’s Connectivity Next Summit 2023. “Space insurance has suffered [losses of about $950 million], and that’s against about [$600 million] in premiums.”
AXA XL is the U.S. subsidiary of French insurance giant AXA.
“There have been 16 insurance losses this year, which is more than we’ve seen for a while, and two of those make up 80% of the $950 million,” Kundstadter told Connectivity Business News. “It’s been a difficult year, but the business is fundamentally sound if it’s priced right.”
While he didn’t name names, the two large claims Kundstadter referred to are likely Viasat’s $770 million claims for ViaSat-3 and Inmarsat I6 F2.
An innovating market
AXA XL intends to work with partners including debris mitigation technology company Astroscale to create a new insurance product next year that will incentivize debris removal, he said.
“There’s still a lot to be done here, and regulators certainly have a role. The recent fine for EchoStar was a good start,” Kunstadter told CBN.
AXA XL intends to release more information about its new, debris-mitigating insurance product in late February, along with service that protects commercial space stations, Kunstadter said.
“Debris removal is a chicken-and-egg problem in that it’s very expensive to do,” he said. “But it’s also too expensive not to do. We’ve been trying to work on different ways of incentivizing owner-operators, rocket companies, space agencies and governments to make active debris removal [make sense marketwide]. To that end, we’ve been working with Astroscale, ClearSpace, Northrop Grumman, Airbus and others who are investing in active debris-removal technology.”
