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The below is a keynote address from Relm’s Head of Product Innovation and Emerging Risk, Dr Claire Davey, which was delivered at Insurance Innovators London 2025.
Insurance has always been the invisible force behind human progress.
From the age of exploration to the rise of aviation to the dot-com boom — each frontier was made possible not just by innovation, but by the ability to take risk confidently. To fail, recover, and try again.
And yet, when we look honestly at where the insurance industry stands relative to the new space economy, we must admit something uncomfortable: we’re behind.
The risks of space are emerging, evolving, and multiplying faster than our products, our models, or even our imaginations can keep up with.
From orbital debris and collision cascades to geopolitical tensions and autonomous decision-making in orbit — these are no longer elements of science fiction.
There are million- and billion-dollar liabilities waiting to be realized.
So, if we are truly serious about the future of space, we must be equally serious about its resilience.
That means rethinking how we define, measure, and underwrite risk in this new frontier.
It means asking ourselves — how do we, as insurers, become part of the solution?
How do we protect the people and companies pushing the boundaries of what’s possible?
How the Space Economy Has Changed
Over the past decade, the space sector has undergone a fundamental transformation — from the domain of governments and aerospace primes to a thriving, private, tech-led economy.
The World Economic Forum projects that the global space economy will nearly triple — from $630 billion today to $1.8 trillion by 2035.
This growth is being driven not only by rockets and satellites, but by entire new sub-industries: semiconductors, cyber systems, lunar logistics, in-orbit manufacturing, asteroid mining and early space tourism.
Take Earth observation, for example: it’s expected to grow from $3 billion today to $9 billion by 2035.
Why? Because businesses on Earth increasingly depend on data from space — monitoring crops, shipping routes, defense capabilities, and wildfires in near-real time. Space data has become the nervous system of the modern world.
In short, we are moving away from a space economy defined by physical assets to one defined by services from space — communications, observation, positioning.
And as the capital flows accelerate, so do the interdependencies and vulnerabilities.
The future of the space economy will be defined not only by who builds the fastest, but by who can manage and transfer their risk most intelligently.
This is where the evolution of insurance becomes absolutely vital.
Where the Market Got Stuck
Let’s look at what’s happening in the launch landscape.
In 2024, there were 258 launches — and 219 of those went to low Earth orbit (LEO), compared to only 24 to GEO.
Space has shifted from singular, billion-dollar satellites to scalable fleets of smaller, more affordable spacecraft.
LEO is the new default – cheaper, faster, more agile, and more commercially viable.
This fundamentally changes the insurance equation.
We’re no longer insuring one $300-million GEO satellite; we’re protecting networks of thousands that together power global connectivity.
And yet, the insurance market hasn’t caught up.
In 2023, insurers earned about $557 million in premium — but paid out $1.9 billion in losses, largely driven by GEO failures.
Meanwhile, only 11% to 17% of LEO satellites are insured at all.
That means of the 219 LEO launches last year, perhaps a few dozen were insured. The rest flew uncovered — an extraordinary gap.
The truth is, our traditional model was built for a world of a few massive launches, not thousands of small ones.
LEO operators — fast, iterative, investor-backed — see legacy underwriting as slow, opaque, and uneconomical. For small operators, that time and investment has an opportunity cost: innovation. And so, many have opted out entirely.
That’s not a coverage gap. That’s an existential gap for the insurance industry.
Rethinking Underwriting
The methodology for underwriting space assets was designed for a different era.
Underwriters may take months or years to quote a risk, relying on thick engineering reports and submission materials that contain static data from six months ago in the new space economy, this is unworkable.
Their risk profile can change every six months; their R&D cycles are agile, iterative, and guided by live data. They iterate hardware as quickly as software.
We need to mirror that.
The opportunity lies in data-driven, nimble underwriting — using comparative failure rates, constellation reliability, and AI-based analytics to make faster, smarter, more scalable decisions.
The underwriting process must be as agile as the space technologies it protects.
An Ecosystem, Not a Supply Chain
To serve this new world, we have to think of the space economy as an ecosystem — a network of interconnected players upstream and downstream.
Upstream, we see the proliferation of smaller, low-cost LEO satellites, a diversified manufacturing base, and the rise of specialist subsystem providers.
The era of vertically integrated giants is over; today, propulsion systems, sensors, and software are sourced from a global web of contributors.
Downstream, the story is just as compelling.
Communications, Earth observation, and data-driven enterprises are transforming raw satellite feeds into actionable intelligence — for agriculture, logistics, finance, and more.
The most successful companies don’t sell space — they sell solutions that happen to be delivered from space.
To ensure this world effectively, we must go beyond launch and in-orbit physical coverage.
We need to focus on the flow of risk across this entire ecosystem — professional liability, technology errors and omissions, cyber threats, executive risk.
These are the vulnerabilities that make or break companies and where modern insurance can create enormous value. Insurance products tailored to these exposures will give investors confidence and that make the space economy investable at scale.
New Frontiers, New Covers
Of course, there are still pockets of risk where the insurance market has yet to respond.
- Cyber-related property damage in orbit
- Business interruption caused by missed launches.
- Space tourism: from passenger liability to third-party exposure — still largely uncharted territory.
As the industry moves from satellites to space tourism, insurance becomes more than protection — it becomes permission to participate.
It enables innovation. It allows capital to flow. It makes risk investable.
That’s the role Relm intends to play — empowering the companies that make space not just possible, but profitable, sustainable, and safe.
A Call for Collaboration
To get there, collaboration is essential.
Between operators and insurers. Between insurers and reinsurers.
Between the insurance market and adjacent risk-management partners — those working in debris removal, cybersecurity, and orbital resilience.
We need to build an insurance infrastructure for the sustainability of space exploration — one that supports innovation rather than restrains it.
Because the future of space isn’t only about reaching new frontiers — it’s about ensuring we can return to them, safely, reliably, and repeatedly.
If you’re building the future of space, we’ll help you protect it. Get in touch to learn more about specialized cover for the space economy.
