What is insurance?
Pilots in Star Citizen can purchase insurance policies for their ships, modifications and cargo. This ensures that your ship will be replaced and/or its modifications and cargo will be subsidized should you be destroyed in a fight or accident. As in real life, insurance policies must be maintained: you must pay a regular fee in galactic credits (the in-game currency) or your policy will lapse and you will not receive a payout or a ship replacement when your ship is destroyed.
Will this Insurance cost a lot?
Like in real-life, insurance should be a relatively small part of your regular in game expenses which will also include paying landing fees, trade tariffs (if in a system with lots of infrastructure and law and order), fuel (if you don’t collect it yourself from a gas giant), buying cargo to trade, hiring help, making upgrades to your ship or even buying a whole new ship.
Some of the additional policies like upgrade or cargo insurance will be rated based on risk levels. Risk level 1 being the safest systems and risk level 5 being the most dangerous system that is insurable for cargo or upgrades. Any risk level over 5 is un-insurable. A risk 3 policy for cargo will cover you for all cargo losses in a risk 3 system or below. The higher the risk level of the policy the more it will cost. As with the base insurance this will not be crippling financially but instead be a reasonable running cost that relates to the risk / reward profile of the systems flown.
How do I get lifetime insurance?
Anyone who pledged for a copy of Star Citizen before November 26, 2012 automatically has lifetime insurance on their pledge ships; this protects the pledge you made in the game in perpetuity. Anyone who pledged for a copy on or after November 26th starts with a finite insurance package for their ship. This can be anywhere from 2 months to 12 months depending on the ship and policy type. It is also included in the “concept sale phase” of ships. Lifetime insurance does not exist for modifications or cargo.
What happens if I don’t have insurance?
Your character will have to buy a new ship with any credits he has, or if he doesn’t have enough credits fly missions for a third party (both NPC and player) until he’s earned enough to buy his own ship again.
Will ships I add to my account have lifetime insurance?
No, lifetime insurance is not account based, and is only included on the items mentioned above.
Can I trade my lifetime insurance ship?
Yes. The lifetime insurance will follow the ship hull when it is legally sold or gifted. If the ship is stolen or otherwise captured, the policy will not transfer.
Will my insurance carry over to ships I earn in the finished game?
No, and you cannot transfer insurance policies from one ship to another.
Will my insurance carry over to ships I have applied a ship or cross chassis upgrade to?
Yes, the insurance would be transferred to the upgraded ship/package.
Can I use my insurance as an excuse to simply ram other ships to death knowing I will get my ship back?
You can, but this will be a very bad idea as it is inconvenient and time consuming in getting your replacement ship ready to go again. Additionally there will be an increasing delay in replacing your ship every time you make a claim within a certain period of time.
Can I insure alien or one-off ships?
You cannot insure them through the standard UEE-bonded insurance process, although other options will be available. The only exception is the limited number of Vanduul fighters sold through the RSI site during the pledge campaign; these ships do have lifetime insurance included.
What are the differences between “standard insurance” and “lifetime insurance”?
Lifetime Insurance *
Replaces your ship hull in the event of destruction or theft.
Hull is replaced with an identical model in equivalent condition.
Effective indefinitely with no additional in-game fee.
Standard Hull Insurance *
Replaces your ship hull in the event of destruction or theft.
Hull is replaced with an identical model in equivalent condition.
Effective for a set period of time: currently one, three or six months.
Must be renewed with in-game credits once expired.
What will you do to combat insurance fraud?
A ship cannot be sold without a legitimate hull id code. Claiming on the insurance policy invalidates the hull code on your previous ship, so if it was captured or stolen the new owner will be unable to sell the ship at a regular ship dealer. Additionally if you have claimed on a policy and someone is flying the stolen ship in a well policed system, the hull id will mark it as a stolen ship, the law will be after you and landing privileges will be denied on any lawful planet. You will be able to fly a “hot” ship to the less savory parts of the Star Citizen universe, where you will probably be able to land and may be able to purchase a fake hull id code, but it will take effort and not necessarily be cheap.
Finally the Advocacy takes insurance fraud very seriously. If it can be proven that a player has colluded with another player to defraud the insurance company, that hull’s lifetime insurance will be invalidated and the player may have to pay a large amount of credits to keep their record clean and not be marked as a wanted criminal.