{"id":91553,"date":"2026-10-31T18:12:22","date_gmt":"2026-10-31T10:12:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/war-in-space-isnt-insurable-yet-gallaghers-rush-says\/"},"modified":"2026-10-31T18:12:22","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T10:12:22","slug":"war-in-space-isnt-insurable-yet-gallaghers-rush-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/war-in-space-isnt-insurable-yet-gallaghers-rush-says\/","title":{"rendered":"War in Space Isn\u2019t Insurable Yet, Gallagher\u2019s Rush Says"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Nick David, Editorial Lead, SatNews<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Gallagher
Gallagher\u2019s Tim Rush on the space insurance market at the MilSat Symposium. (Photo: SatNews)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Satellites used for military purposes are increasingly seen as legitimate targets. That is exactly the risk satellite insurance won\u2019t cover.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, those are not insurable risks. These are excluded events,\u201d Tim Rush, a senior partner at Gallagher Aerospace, said Thursday in a talk on the new space insurance market at Silicon Valley Space Week\u2019s MilSat Symposium. Gallagher is one of the world\u2019s largest insurance brokers.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s now widely reported that there are weapons in space, Rush said, and \u201creasonably well accepted that satellites can be legitimate targets when they\u2019re used for military purposes.\u201d Satellite property policies are written on an \u201call-risk\u201d basis, covering failures, malfunctions and loss of use. But the exclusions page lists war in several forms, and cyber as well.<\/p>\n

War coverage would still have holes<\/h2>\n

A separate war-risk market exists for airplanes and ships, and the International Union of Aerospace Insurers made space war risk a big topic at its annual meeting this year, Rush said. Coverage isn\u2019t available yet because demand hasn\u2019t materialized, which he called a chicken-and-egg problem.<\/p>\n

Even if it is offered, it will be \u201cimperfect,\u201d he said. Policies could cover war, invasion and hostile acts, but not conflicts involving the world\u2019s major nuclear powers. \u201cIf the war risk involves the U.S., the U.K., France, Russia or China, then it\u2019s going to be excluded.\u201d<\/p>\n

The clearance problem<\/h2>\n

National security programs barely use the market today. The space insurance market has averaged about $500 million a year in premium in recent years, Rush said, and less than 1% of that has gone toward national security programs.<\/p>\n

The obstacle is information. Underwriters need to understand a satellite\u2019s architecture, redundancy and margins to price it, and for national security programs that information is classified. Among cleared insurance professionals, \u201ca couple of underwriters and a couple of brokers is it,\u201d Rush said, so companies that want coverage often can\u2019t get it.<\/p>\n

Only a defense contractor working under a program of record can nominate and sponsor an insurer for a clearance, which brings real cost and delay, he said. Rush suggested the Space Force\u2019s new ACES program, which Col. Tim Trimailo described Wednesday as a way to help early-stage companies get clearances, could also help clear insurers.<\/p>\n

He also had advice for acquisition officials vetting young companies: check their insurance and risk management, too, so that a mishap on the factory floor doesn\u2019t bankrupt a supplier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Nick David, Editorial Lead, SatNews Gallagher\u2019s Tim Rush on the space insurance market at the MilSat Symposium. (Photo: SatNews) Satellites used for military purposes are increasingly seen as legitimate targets. That is exactly the risk satellite insurance won\u2019t cover. \u201cRight now, those are not insurable risks. These are excluded events,\u201d Tim Rush, a senior […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91553"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91553\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}