On 15 Feb 2016 at 6:54, Greg Chalik wrote:

> I do not accept the possibility of TL15 or even 11 of loosing
> spaceships, at least so completely, if only because no one would
> insure vessels.

You do not understand how insurance works then.

Insurance is *betting*, with the insurance company being the bookie.

Your premiums are the bets, and and the payouts for when something
bad happens come from that.

You can insure *anything* as long as you can calculate the odds.

Ships lost with or without a trace doesn't influence that. Either
way, the insurance has to pay out.

What matters are the *odds* of a ship getting lost. As long as the
premiums for all ships insured add up to more than the payouts for
the ships lost or damaged, the insurer makes money.

And they usually add up to a lot more than the payouts.

> Substantive measures to improve crew selection and construction
> standards were taken as a result of the emergence of shipping
> insurance, just after the Napoleonic wars.

Sure, because those *changed the odds*, so ships that did that got
lower premiums.

But note that back then ships could (and *did*) disappear "without a
trace". All that was known was that they left port X for port Y and
never arrived. And the insurance eventually paid out.

--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com