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Satellite Owner Says SpaceX Owes $50 Million Or Free Flight (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Israel's Space Communication Ltd said on Sunday it could seek $50 million or a free flight from Elon Musk's SpaceX after a Spacecom communications satellite was destroyed last week by an explosion at SpaceX's Florida launch site. Officials of the Israeli company said in a conference call with reporters Sunday that Spacecom also could collect $205 million from Israel Aerospace Industries, which built the AMOS-6 satellite. Spacecom has been hit hard in the aftermath of the Thursday explosion that destroyed the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and its payload. The Israeli company said the loss of the satellite would have a significant impact, with its equity expected to decline by $30 million to $123 million. Spacecom shares dropped 9 percent on Thursday, with the explosion occurring late in the last trading day of the week. Trading in the shares was suspended on Sunday morning, and the stock plummeted another 34 percent when trading resumed. In a conference call with reporters, Spacecom's general counsel Gil Lotan said it was too early to say if the company's planned merger with Beijing Xinwei Technology Group would proceed. Xinwei last month agreed to buy Spacecom for $285 million, saying the deal was contingent on the successful launch and operation of Spacecom's AMOS-6 satellite. The $200 million AMOS-6 satellite that perished in the explosion belonged to Facebook and was going to be used to beam internet to developing parts of the world.
Launching doubly so. OK this was a ground test of the engines. We still don't know what caused the explosion.
And hey, wasn't the satellite INSURED??
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
What's with these summaries? Facebook had nothing to do with the spacecraft, other than the fact that they had an agreement in place to lease a significant portion of the Ka-Band transponders on the satellite.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
When someone cracks your egg, remember there ain't no such thing as a free launch.
Always have an insurance - if you don't have an insurance for your stuff that's launched then it's your problem.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Always have an insurance
Never have insurance ... unless it is something you can't afford to lose. The cost of insurance is (expected-loss + insurance-company-overhead + insurance-company-profit). If you self-insure, it is just the expected loss. So never insure anything you can afford to lose. It is a bad bet.
Anyway, it is silly to conjecture about who is responsible for what cost. Here is the answer: Read the launch contract.
And what exactly are YOU doing in the various fields of science?
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They would probably have been cheaper.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
So you'd say it's an Umbrella Corporation?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Is this quibbling-after-the-fact also business as usual?
I'm not seeing a lot of quibbling; Spacecom is doing a bit of damage control with investors. SpaceX is privately owned, so doesn't need to play that game.
Always have an insurance
Never have insurance ... unless it is something you can't afford to lose. The cost of insurance is (expected-loss + insurance-company-overhead + insurance-company-profit). If you self-insure, it is just the expected loss. So never insure anything you can afford to lose. It is a bad bet.
I can see your point. However, there are a few counter points to consider:
1. In some cases, insurance is legally mandatory. Certainly in the countries I've lived it, vehicle owners are legally required to have insurance.
2. Insurance also covers you for additional costs. For example your car may be worth very little, but you still need insurance to cover you for a high value in case you crash into a Ferrari. Or another example: if you have a house fire the insurance will cover the costs to repair it, but it will also cover you for accommodation while it's being repaired.
3. If you've bought something on credit and need to replace it, you might find it difficult without insurance. The item being purchased may be the security for the loan, so if the item is stolen, broken or destroyed then the loan will no longer be valid; you'll be required to pay it off immediately, and you'll also be without the item. Double whammy.
4. It's not just about being able to afford to replace something; it's about being able to replace it quickly. If you know that you've *always* got enough money easily accessible to pay for a replacement immediately without loans and without compromising your other expenses then fine. For most people, that isn't the case.
5. Your health can't be replaced, no matter how much money you have. If you live in a country without free health services and you don't have health insurance then you're taking an enormous risk.
6. If you're responsible for other people's well-being -- maybe you're organising a public event, or a youth group, or whatever -- you absolutely must have insurance. Public liability isn't something you can self-insure.
7. If you're doing something risky (whether it's going on a skiing holiday or launching a satellite), you'd be a fool not to have insurance. You know there are risks and you know that if it goes wrong then it will be very expensive. So you buy insurance.
So in summary, I can see your point, and there are a few cases where it is justified to take the risk and not buy insurance. I don't have insurance (nor an "extended warranty") for any of the domestic appliances in my home, because I can afford to go out and buy a new fridge or washing machine at any time. Yes, it'll hurt the wallet but I can afford it. On the flip side though, I do have insurance for my car, my home, and a few other things, because the insurance does a lot more for me than simply buying a new one.
Bottom line: if you think that insurance is just about paying for a replacement, then you are failing to understand what insurance is actually for.
Always have an insurance
Never have insurance ... unless it is something you can't afford to lose. The cost of insurance is (expected-loss + insurance-company-overhead + insurance-company-profit). If you self-insure, it is just the expected loss. So never insure anything you can afford to lose. It is a bad bet.
Anyway, it is silly to conjecture about who is responsible for what cost. Here is the answer: Read the launch contract.
Wrong.When you self insure, you do not incur the "expected loss". You incur the "actual loss", which may be nothing, or could be more than anything you have.
If I had a $1m car, if I crashed it, I could lose $1m. But If I insured, I would lose the expected loss plus the overhead and profit margin.
The point of insurance is to remove uncertainty. Insurance is not a bad bet. Even very large companies such as Apple will insure because it is sensible to do so.
If you are self-insuring, you might not be using the funds you set aside wisely.
Would the like a ride on a reused one? :-)
Yeah - luckily the Protons are not, in any way, subsidized by the Russian government so that makes the comparison unfair?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
All your points converge to "can't afford". Then again, in company terms, a lot of people can't afford to lose a job. Better yet if it is the company paying the insurance.
And probably, both SpaceX and the sat owner have some kind of insurance coverage.
What sort of dangerous experiments are done when a Falcon-9 is launched? Be specific.
This was the 29th launch of the Falcon-9, the only one to blow up on the launch pad. One other launch blew up in-flight and a third one had a motor failure that resulted in a satellite not achieving orbit but the resupply mission was successful.
So two explosions in 29 launches over 6 years, no lives lost, no dangerous experiments.
You can never be sure with Russian accounting. There is a lot of invisible (to the western mind) and implicit streams of goods and services from everything in Russia to military structures and then (besides everywhere else) to military technology companies. Those companies (including space-related) are then almost free (or meant to, in some cases) to cross-subsidy other products.
So in Soviet (and post-Soviet) Russia no one can really estimate the real cost of something even remotely related to military. So they never try. The space launches are outright politically priced.
Attach and detach on the ground are complex, time consuming tasks - there's not much incentive to make it faster - you typically do it once, and the labor/schedule cost of it is tiny compared to everything else - making it faster isn't a big win.
In space, the payload is separated by firing pyro devices, or, in the case of tiny stuff like cube-sats - opening a motorized or springloaded door with a hot knife cutting a piece of string.
The point is: SpaceX is cheaper than other space transport systems because it doen't sell you an insurance. When we compare SpaceX launch cost with (e.g.) ESA launch cost, we compare launch cost against launch and insurance cost.
I see, and what is that you have done that affects millions of people and possibly the future of space colonization? Oh, thats right, nothing - so just sit there criticizing people that have the guts to try.
The cost of insurance is (expected-loss + insurance-company-overhead + insurance-company-profit). If you self-insure, it is just the expected loss.
Not true. The cost of insurance is (expected loss * probability of loss + insurance company profit / overhead). The cost of self insuring is either 0 or the expected loss. It only makes sense to self insure if you have a large number of things that you can average the risk over. It's also often a good idea to take a middle path. For example, the university that I work for gets a good deal on travel insurance, because the underwriters only have to cover very rare (and expensive) payouts. For smaller things, the university covers them itself out of overhead - these things are small and (averaged over all of the staff and students that qualify for the insurance) statistically easy to predict. They know roughly how much the payouts are going to be each year and budget for it. It wouldn't make sense to pass this onto an insurer, because we'd be paying them more than we're getting back. For particularly unusual events, we are covered, because then we average the risk not just among our own staff and students, but among the other tens or hundreds of thousands of people covered by the underwriter's policy. We will, on average, pay more than we get back, but in any given year we might get a lot more back than we pay and it's far easier to budget for that.
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Because launching rockets is more useful than helping to wipe out disease and paying for education programs? I mean it's more glamourous, but is it a better use of resources?
(Oh man, I just defended Gates and Zuckerberg. I feel physically ill.)
Because they aren't comparable. The proton's lift capacity is a good 20% lower than what the Falcon 9 can do - and they get to launch much closer to the equator so you need a lot less (expensive) orbital manoeuvring (Soviet launches end up in pretty terribly inclined orbits) so you can put less fuel on the satelite wihich means more of that already higher weight allowance can be used for the actual useful payload.
In short - a Falcon 9 is actually less expensive pound-for-pound than a proton.
And it blows the Soyuz entirely out of the water.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
They may simply be small people with hairy feet who eat seven times a day.
Alternative Right.
In every human endeavor, there is always a point, and then the 98% of everyone else chattering away trying to look clever with what they know about insurance and space flight. "Talking monkeys with car keys," indeed.
THE question of this endeavor is: what went wrong -- and how expensive is it to fix? Until it is known, doubt is going to hang over that program, despite the 27 previous launches that did not explode.
Alternative Right.
Actually, it's simpler than that. If you have one, insure; rare failures mean insurance is cheap, and frequent failures mean you're taking a bad gamble trying to dodge that hefty premium. If you have one thousand, self-insure; you're approaching risk parity with general population, and insurance would have a lesser stabilizing effect.
Self-insurance doesn't really just save you money. In theory, it's marginally-cheaper than buying insurance; and in practice, many insurance companies charge below-cost premiums to buy an opportunity (you're trying to transfer a threat). Progressive Insurance Co., for example, charges $0.96 in premiums for every $1 paid out; they have an income of $1.02 for every $1 paid out because they buy stable investments and collect interest.
Even without that, you have the risk of coming in a standard deviation lower (opportunity: your failure rate is slightly-lower than average and saves you money) or higher (threat: your failures are frequent, and cost you money). When you have few repeatable risk events (e.g. one car), the difference is 100% of cost, often lopsided (e.g. the cost of insurance is 1% of cost). When you have many repeatable risk events (e.g. a fleet of cars), the difference is in a much narrower range, centered more closely around the cost of insurance (e.g. you can expect to pay 0.98%-1.02% versus insurance). Self-insurance is riskier than insurance, and avoids the cost of logistics to manage insurance, while providing opportunities (e.g. you can skip warranty service for a computer fleet and instead self-insure, and self-build, possibly saving costs if your IT helpdesk is frequently underutilized and has time to replace hard drives or upgrade components).
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If you're self-insuring, the funds you set aside can sit in a 1% market fund and collect interest, or in a longer-term fund with bigger payouts. In general, you'll have liquid capital and such investments; if you have a risk event and tap your liquid capital, then you stop putting profits into your investment accounts and top your liquid capital back up. You might need to take a short-term loan and wait 6 months so you can pull money out of your investments--lose an extra 0.5%, pay it back with money that's grown by 11% over the past several years.
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Does SpaceX have surge pricing?
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It depends on what you mean by "estimated." Insurers estimate probability by statistical analysis, meaning they have large populations and predictable probability of loss. Probability is given by mean, deviation, and confidence interval; analysts use tools such as Monte Carlo Simulation to produce concrete outcomes which say "X outcome is exactly n% likely", which gives you a graph (a Monte Carlo Histogram). The outcome probability will show you that it's e.g. 90% likely you'll pay less than $1000, and 98% likely you'll pay less than $1,150, and 70% likely you'll pay less than $600, and so forth.
You pick how much risk you can tolerate (2%, 10%, etc.) and assume that a worse event is failure. If you have contingencies for such failures, you can handle that. Ongoing, this is a major concern; for one-time events, it tells you if you can do what you want to do or if you need to find a way to reduce risks.
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A) This was not a reused first stage. The first re-launch is scheduled to happen in October with SES-10.
B) The explosion was initiated in or around the SECOND stage during fueling. Even if it had been a reused first stage, that fact would've had nothing to do with it.
End of line..
There "am not," huh... Look, just because using "ain't" makes you sound like your parents were siblings, that does not mean you're not allowed to use it correctly (i.e. proper grammar is within the reach of even inbreds). ;)
The point is: SpaceX is cheaper than other space transport systems because it doen't sell you an insurance. When we compare SpaceX launch cost with (e.g.) ESA launch cost, we compare launch cost against launch and insurance cost.
Launch insurance is bookkept separately from launch cost. And you buy it from insurance companies. It typically costs five or six percent of the launch cost, depending on launch vehicle. http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/01...
You should be ashamed, but I guess your parents never taught you how to act like a human being. Poor little white trash kid.
It also made him sound like a comedian, which I think was the underrated point.
They weren't bringing the Internet to Africa from what I understand, but rather limited web access to a handful of web sites (one of which was of course Facebook).
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Which is why this whole thread is just silly including all of the counter arguments..... as in this particular case for spaceflight it is required due to regulations made by the FAA-AST (the guys who regulate private commercial spaceflight in the USA). It is also required by treaty so far as it is the government itself that assumes liability for any 3rd party damage... and the government gets that out of the hide of the people who send stuff up.
This payload wouldn't be uninsured because it can't be uninsured. The insurance policies in place are required even before a launch permit is issued.
Always have an insurance - if you don't have an insurance for your stuff that's launched then it's your problem.
Insurance is a sucker's bet. Think about it.. You are literally betting that you will loose... Insurance like extended warranties are *always* bad ideas for the consumer. If nothing goes wrong, you pay, If you suffer an insured loss, you pay, perhaps a bit less than the loss, but you pay.
Use insurance as a tool, not as an investment. Of course, use it where legally mandated, as a way to reduce risk (such as buying term life insurance to protect your family) and when creditors mandate it (such as terms for getting a mortgage). After that, understand that insurance companies are out to make money by selling you peace of mind at more than the actual risk will likely cost.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
If they did not pay for insurance, then they are morons. I guarantee the launch contract states, "this may blow up, we are not responsible"
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
There are two kinds of insurance on cars, and so, I'd imagine there would be on aeroplanes, space rockets and just about anything else that flies about.
Third Party - we'll pay to fix up anyone, or anything that is damaged by you
Fully comprehensive - We'll pay to fix you up as well as anything you hit along the way
The first is mandatory (depending on jurisdiction), the second is not. Seemingly Spacecom decided not to bother with the fully comp. insurance and now think that SpaceX should provide the services of that sort of insurance for free.
This all gets complicated because I suspect SpaceX have insurance against this sort of problem. However, just because they have doesn't mean they should have to pay out. Somewhere there's a very thick contract, and it'll state who pays for what - I'll bet it's not SpaceX in this case though.
When the N1 rocket was being developed in the Soviet Union, a similar explosion create what could arguably be called one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history. There were unfortunately people near/on the pad of that N1 rocket that died.
SpaceX also dodged a huge bullet so far as window glass of buildings with people in them did break from the explosion of this Falcon 9 rocket. People could have definitely been injured even if it wouldn't have necessarily been life threatening in terms of the distance they were from the launch pad.
Yes, saying that no lives were lost in this explosion is something of a legitimate statement to make, as lives could have definitely been in danger of being lost even if it wasn't astronauts sitting on top of the stack.
Not anymore. At best you can say it is "to be announced" after some significant return to flight effort that will require the FAA-AST to recertify the Falcon 9 as being eligible to launch at all. A total loss of vehicle tends to do that with air and space based vehicles.
Otherwise, you are correct that was when it was previously anticipated that the first lower stage was going to be reused.
I really hope that SpaceX finds and can replicate the problem which caused this disaster. The replication, like what happened with the struts, is important so far as it is something that can be addressed and eliminated as a source of problems in the future. By replication here I'm also talking about showing how a pipe fitting or some other component failed, not about sitting another whole Falcon 9 up to deliberately blow it up.
Latest news : SpaceX accept to give a free flight as compensation and will offer it in the form of enough frequent flyers miles. Small prints mentions that those miles will expire 6 months after being allocated.
Presumably Facebook contracted with this company to supply the satellite. They did that. They should have gotten paid.
If you or I go buy a new car, we pay for it, and wreck it on the way home, the car dealer is not going to be out. We agreed to pay. Likewise Facebook surely agreed to pay for the damn thing. So what are they whining about?
The failure on the pad probably wasn't their fault so even if there was some kind of contingency, they should still get paid. They delivered the vehicle to the launch contractor. The launch contractor is responsible for the rest of the process. Blabbering about demanding a free launch or something AT THIS POINT is really unprofessional when the cause is not even known. What if it turns out the satellite WAS the cause? Then they are demanding someone else cover their failure.
I hate to say it but they sure sound like Ferengi demanding compensation or something of equal value well before anyone even knows what really happened.
Sig for hire.
Very fast indeed, but we know it must have fired: the rocket exploded!
Yes. In general, launching rockets is more important than helping to wipe out diseases and paying for education programs.
GPS. Communications satellites. Weather satellites. Among many others. Just the weather satellites pay for the entire thing. The gain to the world as a whole to accurate weather forecasting is worth far more than the cost of all the space programs (including Apollo) combined.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
In reality the people working on the Ariane family have a far longer experience at launching a sat, and THAT count for a lot. SpaceX may have quite a few launches, but nothing on the historical track records various space agencies have. Number of launch is not everything.
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Given the circumstances of how this rocket exploded, it seems entirely reasonable that SpaceX should open up another flight spot to send up a replacement vehicle. The contract was for the flight, not the launch vehicle itself.
As for who is going to foot the bill for that flight... after Spacecom has already paid for this flight that never happened in the first place... that is between SpaceX and any insurance companies they may have against this kind of disaster. In this context, it is likely to be seen as an industrial accident rather than a space transportation issue, so there likely will be other insurance companies getting into the fray. As a matter of fact, the insurance on the satellite itself is covered under a marine transportation insurance contract that was valid until the moment of launch when other contracts kicked in.
Most of what Spacecom is talking about here though is that there was a contract clause that either refunded the launch cost (which was about $50 million) or an assurance that a loss of vehicle would result in a flight getting scheduled at a later time. I would expect the same sort of thing from FedEx or even the USPS if a package was lost and never delivered. Of course package insurance applies even in that situation.
It only makes sense to self insure if you have a large number of things that you can average the risk over. It's also often a good idea to take a middle path. For example, the university that I work for gets a good deal on travel insurance, because the underwriters only have to cover very rare (and expensive) payouts.
In that particular case it might also be to have a professional organization that can help travelers in need, do fraud detection and so on, not the monetary risk as such. It also depends on how deep pockets you can pull on, like NASA is not really just NASA they're a branch of the US government. If you have an understanding that this business unit will ordinarily deliver a good profit and occasionally a huge loss the parent unit/company/owners might decide they'll be your de facto insurance, eating the loss when it happens.
Anyway, I'm not sure if you can count this one towards failed launches, if you count a failed ground test then you'd also have to count all the successful ones. They did blow up the payload though, maybe next time they'll use a dummy until it's for real. I mean with this super-chilled fuel they use now they have to drain it after the test and do it again when the launch window opens, it's not like the rocket stands there ready to go. Though I suppose you'll need an awfully big crane....
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
SpaceX didn't have insurance. Satellite was insured but it isn't clear if it applies to real launches or to testing too, and if it covers additional consequential losses.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...
Launch Vehicle by Success Rate :
http://www.spacelaunchreport.c...
mmm, afaict there is only one somewhat decent public video of the event and it goes from normal on one frame to a substantial explosion on the next and the insiders aren't talking.
Scott Manly took a look at the video frame by frame https://www.youtube.com/watch?... . It's clear that whatever happened started in the second stage, potentially in the vicinity of the fueling connection.
Also interesting is that the payload seemed to remain attatched to the tower and largely intact for some time after the explosion. This suggests that had it been a dragon 2 with a launch abort system on the top of the stack the incident may have been survivable.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
What kind of journalism is this? The satellite did not "belong to Facebook." The company was merely leasing part of the payload.
Kriston
Cry?
http://i.cubeupload.com/T6cyLu.png
I would expect the same sort of thing from FedEx or even the USPS
Someone get on the phone with Elon and let him know that some guy on the internet thinks rocket flights are comparable to a UPS package delivery and that the same replacement policy should apply.
Falcon 9 v1.2 8 8 1.00 .90(D) 8 None 2015-
Last failure = none. Seems like this document is a bit out of date (or it's not listing previous failures since it was a different version (they list no other Falcon 9 variant).
GPS. Communications satellites. Weather satellites.
Except this one was going to primarily beam Facebook-sponsored internet to 3rd world countries.
More specifically the Nedelin catastrophe
another link
If I'm reading this correctly, something like 250 people died. There seems to be disagreement whether one, or three, guys who were on the pad and survived had gone for a smoke break shortly before the accident.
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According to the document, 74 people (57 military and 17 civilians) were killed on the launch pad, and 49 injured. With 16 more people, who later died from their injuries, the official death toll rose to 90 dead. Bodies of two soldiers were found outside of the perimeter of the Site 41 after the official list of victims had been submitted, bringing number of dead to 92 people (74 military and 18 civilians).
Among other things, the commission found that many more people were present on the launch pad than should have been — most were supposed to be safely offsite in bunkers.[citation needed]
But 250 were on the pad, so most of them actually survived? I don't really trust these two sources.
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Have you ever heard about satellite insurance? About about an analogy?
It sounds like both have flown way over your head.
Have you ever heard about satellite insurance?
No, I don't own a satellite.
About about an analogy?
Like comparing rocket flight to package delivery? Thanks for furthering the discussion. Not being an aerospace engineer, I appreciate you putting it in terms us lowbies can understand.
Wow, a troll mod for a fun little joke post about a bug flying across the video frame at the time of the explosion. There are some really butt hurt space nutters around here these days...sheesh!
They could give them a "free" ride on their "refurbished" rocket.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Satellite launch contracts disclaim responsibility. That's why companies that launch satellites buy launch insurance. And because a significant number of launches fail, that insurance doesn't come cheap.
Jews suing everyone involved, because their business took a risk, and incurred a loss? Say it ain't so...
You may be trying to be funny, but you do realize that Uber does hold insurance on their drivers, don't you?
https://newsroom.uber.com/5646...
The lack of insurance argument was always bullshit, it was never an issue with Uber.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
In October, Aviva Insurance began cancelling the policies of clients found to be driving for UberX. Politicians and police now have concrete proof that UberX drivers are not covered by their personal policies and yet police have no plans to take action; this, while they tow hundreds of cars during the “parking blitz.”
According to Uber’s own numbers, there are now 20,000 uninsured UberX drivers on Toronto’s roads.
This begs the question: Which is the greater societal crime to which enforcement resources should be allocated, illegal parking or uninsured vehicles?
https://www.thestar.com/opinio...
"While the possible legality of the Uber taxi system (or how it may be regulated) remains to be seen, what is clear is the huge risk the current system poses from an insurance and liability perspective."
https://www.chinneck.ca/the-hi...
"A crash involving an Uber driver carrying a passenger is grabbing headlines in Toronto after the driver’s insurance company refused to cover his claim — and dropped him. The reason? The driver, Tawfiqul Alam, had personal auto insurance, but was using his car for commercial purposes." http://www.lfpress.com/2015/08...
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Um, Tawfiqul Alam should have been using Uber's commercial insurance policy that they offer, Aviva is apparently morons as they are dropping people for non commercial policies that are used in non commercial times (otherwise it is Uber covering the incident).
You haven't actually disagreed with me in a single point. Where do you show that Uber does not carry commercial policies as they state that they do? It seems you are just pointing out people doing what people do, which is do stupid shit.
If you drive your car in a commercial situation sometimes, and your car is covered with a commercial policy at those times, why should your personal insurance company drop you when your car is not being driven commercially? This makes no sense, the cars are not commercial vehicles, and are covered by commercial policies when they are being used for commercial purposes, so there is no issue with the personal policies except when someone apparently tries to use the wrong policy in the wrong situation.
I guess I need to reiterate, Uber carries commercial policies on their drivers:
https://newsroom.uber.com/5646...
There are no uninsured Uber cars carrying passengers, that is covered by a policy, and personal insurers dropping people off their policies is more of a sign of a misunderstanding than an issue with Uber.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
So I guess you just need to make sure your driver isn't confused about the insurance before you get into the vehicle. It indicates that in every driver profile, right?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
No. That driver needs to resubmit the claim to the correct insurance.
From Your Fing Article:
WHAT UBER SAYS
Though most Uber drivers don’t carry commercial insurance, they’re required to have personal auto insurance to be a driver, said Uber spokesperson Susie Heath in an email.
More importantly, they’re covered by Uber’s commercial insurance policy when they drive for the app.
Uber rides are backed by $5 million to cover bodily injury and property damage, which is over double the requirement for taxis in London, Heath said.
“Riders, drivers and the community at large can rest assured knowing they are also covered by our commercial policy in addition to coverage maintained by the driver.”
Heath wouldn’t comment on Alam’s specific case, but said that “all UberX rides are insured with liability coverage. Our insurer reviews these claims and we’re committed to helping drivers understand the resolution process.”
So, the question is, why isn't he submitting the claim to the Uber commercial insurance company that he is covered by when driving passengers?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
All I know is that it seems very convoluted.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.