Article by Nicholas Hughes, Partner/Vanessa Leigh, Solicitor
Nicholas Hughes and Vanessa Leigh explain some of the particular facets of this specialist market.
The satellite insurance market is global and, given the size of the risks involved, when a major commercial communications satellite is to be insured, most of the capacity of that global market may be involved.
However, unlike the aviation insurance market, satellite policies neither contain a leading underwriter clause nor does the space market have an invariable practice of recognising such a person according to which insurers would delegate claims handling authority to one, or possibly two of the larger insurers. Therefore, in the event of a major satellite loss, the insurers may decide to set up an ad hoc "Claims Coordination Committee" (the "CCC") to coordinate the handling of the claim. The CCC will be comprised of a workable number of those insurers who have the larger participations in the risk or who have
