Liability, Law, and the Risk of Denial
The legal stakes are significant. International treaties such as the Outer Space Treaty and Liability Convention establish frameworks for claims arising from space activities. Yet private insurers have made no comparable disclosure of how these frameworks would translate to mass claims from ordinary businesses, homeowners, or municipalities if a celestial event caused ground damage. Would carriers pay? Or would they invoke exclusions en masse, leaving governments to act as backstops while shareholders flee?
The journal warns of market volatility: over 40% of insured losses in space insurance occur during launch, and about 41% occur within the first two months in orbit. If losses from a single satellite failure can rock pricing, imagine the impact of a cascading satellite collision triggered by debris from a comet or asteroid. The absence of a public plan, disclosure, or even an industry dialogue on this front is no less than a breach of the duty to prepare.
