New Delhi: Less than a month into 2026, and the global space market has already witnessed three failed launches, including India’s own PSLV-C62 mission, carrying 16 Indian and foreign satellites. The blow fell harder on the private players because none of their payloads were insured.
With more startups entering the space industry and an increasing number of launches and missions on the calendar, the importance of space insurance is slowly gaining traction.
Rajeev Gambhir, Deputy Director General, SatCom Industry Association (SIA), said that for a national space programme, a lost satellite is a setback, but for a startup, it’s an “existential crisis”.
“Insurance isn’t a luxury. It’s venture capital’s safety net. If we want India’s space ecosystem to be resilient, failure must be survivable. Right now, it isn’t,” Gambhir said.
High cost, low demand
The recent failure of the PSLV-C62 mission, which carried 13 private satellites, has highlighted the need for space insurance in India. None of the satellites by Indian space startups survived the failure, and none of them were insured.
Only Theos-2, an earth observation satellite jointly developed by the UK and Thailand, was insured for possible launch risks. This was because of mandatory satellite insurance requirements in the UK.
Chaitanya Giri, a fellow at the Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology, Observer Research Foundation, said that at the current state of India’s private space ecosystem, it does not make sense for companies to insure their assets.
“No country, in the lower pecking order of currency power, would insure their whatever puny space activities. Insurance is too expensive for such countries. Market demand is low due to high premium costs,” Giri said.
He added, “But then the other factor is: if a space company from the Indian ecosystem decides to launch 10-20 satellites in the same LEO (low Earth orbit), where the chances of satellites from a 10,000-satellite constellation hitting my satellite are high, would the constellation’s operating country compensate my Indian satellites? The compensation payments would drag the company to the point where it would have to cease doing business.”
The insurance companies operating in the Indian space industry are also limited. It was only in 2024 that TATA AIG announced its entry into the space insurance market with its satellite in-orbit third-party liability insurance, which covered bodily injury and property damage.
The New India Assurance is another company providing space insurance options in India. But this market remains niche and underutilised.
Gambhir said that Indian insurers aren’t being “conservative”, they are being “constrained”.
“We have moved from sovereign missions to private enterprise, yet we lack a national risk framework. Expecting insurers to price a mission without data is like asking them to price hurricanes without weather data,” he said.
Also read: PSLV is obstructing ISRO’s transition to a new era. Don’t delay its handover to industry
Global demand for space insurance
While the idea of space insurance is still nascent in the Indian context, the business is growing at an impressive scale globally. According to the Space Insurance Market Report 2026, the market has grown significantly over the past few years.
The report highlighted that the growth is expected to be from $4.06 billion in 2025 to about $4.43 billion in 2026 — a compound annual growth rate of 9.1 per cent. Experts attribute this growth to an increase in commercial satellite launches.
Space insurance, which is usually taken out for specific space assets or missions, is available for different stages of the mission — pre-launch, launch, and in-orbit.
The pre-launch coverage includes damage caused before launch, including problems that might occur during the transportation of satellites to the launch site, while stored at spaceports, during fuelling, and during the final integration. This is also the safest phase of the launch, and the least opted-for coverage plan.
Insurance is usually popular for the next two stages.
Most insurers step in during launch and in-orbit phases. During the launch, the plans protect companies from the uncertainties of ignition, through lift-off, separation and until the satellite is released into its intended orbit. Insurance companies extend coverage for early in-orbit failures, satellite functionality issues, and other long-term failures.
An official from an Indian space startup said that space insurance is likely to gain popularity among satellite makers once commercial launches become more channelised and regular.
“India will reach that stage sooner rather than later, and the insurance market should be prepared for that scenario. Policies need to be more flexible and tailor-made to accommodate the needs of the Indian ecosystem,” the official told ThePrint.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)