Insurance cos worried over Insat failures

MUMBAI, APR 21: The failure of INSAT-2B transponders is giving sleepless nights to its insurer - New India Assurance - which is expecting...

MUMBAI, APR 21: The failure of INSAT-2B transponders is giving sleepless nights to its insurer – New India Assurance – which is expecting to take a major hit along with its London-based re-insurers for the latest setback. The insurance company had earlier taken a hit of US $ 65 million on the INSAT-2D failure in October 1997 and is expecting the re-insurance rates for Indian satellite programmes to shoot up considerably.

“We are waiting for an official communication from Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on the failure of transponders. Till now, they have not informed us of any failure,” New India Assurance officials in Mumbai said. New India had insured the entire range of INSAT-2 satellites and had passed on a major part of insurance premium and the insurance risk with the international re-insurers. Thus, it were the London-based insurance companies which actually lost money on Insat.

What is worrying the insurance company is the continued failure of India’s satellite programmes which wouldultimately result in a hike of premium for ISRO. “For the current series of Insat satellite, there will not be any hike as we had re-insured them before the programme even began… but for the future series, ISRO will have to pay a higher premium due to high risk involved,” officials add.

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The launch of next series of INSAT-3B has been put off till the first-half of 2000 instead of the earlier planned date sometime during the latter half of the current year. Thus, insurance premium for this series will go up due to its ISRO’s track record.

The failure in transponder 18 of the INSAT-2B, which occurred Monday night, is the second such transponder to fail in the last two months. Officials say that they are in touch with their counterparts in United Kingdom and keeping them informed about the latest situations. “As soon as we receive any information from ISRO… we’ll start processing their papers,” officials add.

The INSAT-1D is on an extended life, INSAT-2A went into an inclined orbit in April lastyear thus making it unusable. INSAT-2E, being launched only recently, is yet to be operationalised commercially. This burdens the present INSAT-2B and 2C for use by most commercial and Government agencies including the RBI and stock exchange operations.