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Life Insurance Restrictions For Space Tourists
RockDoctor writes: Reuters reports that there are changes afoot for life insurance contracts, which will require additional premiums for "space tourists." While not likely to be a disabling issue for the industry — the statistics for astronauts dying in flight are not that bad — it is an issue that people considering such a jaunt will need to address. Obviously this has been brought to the fore by the unfortunate crash of the Virgin Galactic craft under test.
Relatedly, an article at IEEE Spectrum explains why SpaceShipTwo's rocket fuel wasn't the cause of the accident.
Just found out my policy only applies to earth. Fucking rip-off!
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
with ET.
The submitter, passed by the "editor":
Relatedly, an article at IEEE Spectrum explains why SpaceShipTwo's rocket fuel wasn't the cause of the accident.
Not.
It says this:
The company’s larger suborbital vehicle, SpaceShipTwo, also employs a hybrid rocket, which at the time of this writing did not appear to have caused October’s tragic accident.
"wasn't" != "does not appear to be".
Q - What's the best decade of a Slashdot editor's life?
A - Third grade.
All I want to do is get on a giant pile of explosives, accelerate at several G's, go many times the speed of sound, up into a place utterly lacking in oxygen, sit in unfiltered ionizing solar radiation for a few hours, plummet rapidly to the ground, and go home.
What's so dangerous about any of that?
Anyone inclined to become a "space tourist" is, pretty much by definition, rich.
In other words, he or she almost certainly doesn't need life insurance to make sure the spouse and rugrats can afford the lifestyle to which they've become accustomed when the breadwinner gets splattered all over the desert.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Quick tell the OP this usually applies to skydiving too. (Check your policy - it might be explictly listed, or just covered under a general "if you die while engaging in a risk sport you're SOL" clause.)
Many health- and life-insurance policies ask if you engage in high-risk activities on more than an occasional basis. They build in the cost for occasional skiing, but they will charge you extra if you are a professional skier specializing in the world's most dangerous places to ski.
Space tourism is so new that it's not a risk that's already "baked in" to insurance rates. Until space tourism companies get a decent-sized track record of safe flying, expect to see life insurance coverage exclude this from the normal coverage.
Besides, if you can pay for a trip at today's rates, you can almost certainly afford the insurance rider. If you don't have dependents and you don't have a business that needs to insure your life/health, or you have enough spare cash to take care of your dependents and/or business, you may not need life insurance at all.
How big are the out of network charges for health insurance for space tourists?
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Lawyer food.
Insurance companies need a giant base of numbers to determine probability. When they don't, you get month-after-ACA type prices. Humana had no idea what would happen when they picked up 10 million very unhealthy people under the ACA plan so all ACA plans were about 4x the price of my identical non-ACA compliant plan. So in other words, when insurance companies gamble on something without enough data, they guess. When they guess, the price skyrockets.
This is easily solved with a one-time bond. Insurance companies work with secondary insurance all the time. If you're buying a $250,000 ticket, it's easy to throw on a $3000 one-time bond for space-travel related issues. People do the same type of thing all the time for international travel.
Just because I can hook a shark from a boat, I do no offer to wrestle it in the water.
In other words, he or she almost certainly doesn't need life insurance to make sure the spouse and rugrats can afford the lifestyle to which they've become accustomed when the breadwinner gets splattered all over the desert.
"Need"? Strictly speaking you are correct. But people who are rich generally actually do have life insurance policies as a part of their estate plan. Violating the terms of these policies could cause them some fiscal heartburn. These policies have a price and payout terms that are based on certain expectations of the policy holder's lifespan. Things that could radically alter this expectation may void the terms of the policy or necessitate a material change in underwriting charges. Spaceflight is one of those things that falls into the category of radically adjusting risk.
If you apply for a life insurance policy of any real value, they will ask you to take a physical and you will be asked questions like whether you have a pilot's license or have flown in a non-commercial aircraft in the last 5 years. The insurance company will adjust their price accordingly if they are willing to underwrite the policy at all. Lie about it and the policy can be null and void to the detriment of you or your family.
I'd like to go a step further than say that space tourism is currently not possible. I think that it's wrong in principle and that staring into the stars from your backyard or from a glorified tin can are the same.
If I have the 20 million dollars it costs to be a space tourist in first place the increase in life insurance premiums is irrelevant. Even if I have the $250,000 sitting around to blow on a one time vacation they claim the price might come down to life insurance costs are not going to stop me from going.
Shawn Moore http://www.teuse.net
If it had been the engine, it would have been forgettable. Rocket engines explode all the time, because they're funneling huge amounts of extremely volatile fuels and oxidizers into a high-pressure, high-temperature chamber. SS2 was also testing a new design - new engines are particularly failure-prone, because there's still stuff rocket scientists don't know. While it would have been worse than "not exploding at all", if the problem had been the engine, they could fix it and move on.
The news that it was the wing, and not the engine, that caused the failure is, in my mind, worse. It means they fucked up on a relatively simple, well-understood problem. Part of the blame can be assigned on the pilot disabling the safety early, but it still activated spontaneously and catastrophically. That makes me suspicious of what other simple things they've screwed up.
"if you die while engaging in a risk sport you're SOL"
note to self: check policy before going to Walmart on Black Friday.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Smoking, sky diving, hang gliding, scuba diving, racing pretty much any motor vehicle...all are generally called out on a life insurance policy. Adding another exemption for space tourism is not really news worthy.
Let them meet static.
If the Wright brothers had waited on an insurance company, we STILL would not be flying.
If the insurance companies are completely in the dark, they can't raise your rates. and they already charge so much that most people are better off just saving their money, into a rainy day fund.
I find their lack of faith ... disturbing.
there should be a very short list of things they're allowed to know about you.
Not even jumping out of a plane - just flying one! I'm a private pilot and I'm SOL for life insurance unless I get one that specifically doesn't exclude it. Annoying because flying isn't particularly dangerous - about as dangerous as riding a motorcycle, and it's easy to reduce your risk below even that, but there's an actuarial stigma to it.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
I don't like the recent fear-mongering discouragement of continued advancements in space travel development because I understand that human progress in that arena demands brave, bold persistence. I also understand that due to potential liabilities, no space tourism company will take the general public to orbit in unproven technology.
But this makes sense anyway.
Those who can current afford space tourism can afford the additional insurance for whatever interim time before their flight. It's not as if they need to keep it forever, but just long enough to buy a decent policy. This will build a bank of capital for the insurance industry, which will lead to returns on investment and interest yield that drives down the premium. That, combined with an expected low incidence of tourist mortality will establish a framework that can be expanded upon later for the broader public, as space travel becomes more accessible.
That foundation is a necessary step because hopefully we will eventually be reading of first policies for space mining and exploration ventures. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but isn't it true that the vast majority of financial systems have no components in this sector and the finance industry has no stake in it? Get the banks and Wall Street involved, and we'll see a gradually accelerating process toward progress.
The other angle on this is that once traditional business system and services are in place for space industry, it will lower barriers to entry (or reentry, pun intended) for new space ventures. It's a lot easier to convince investors to hire the broad interdisciplinary team of highly skilled personnel needed to create vessels when their end product can be insured like any other asset.
Finally, consider safety. The space shuttle was decommissioned at the onset of a NASA-encouraged drive toward safer space travel. Considering that insurance fraud is simple when there are no standards in place for mandatory safety and reliability measures, it will be necessary to develop those. That's a mission accomplished from the perspective of the new approach to space exploration.
I mean, it's a money grab. It's probably a planned money grab. It's opportunistic. It's vulture-like. But you can't deny that it is a step in the right direction if you really stop and think about it.