Watching a rocket take off is heart-stopping enough for most people, but for Chris Gibbs, a space underwriter at Brit Insurance, it’s particularly tense. He insures rockets and the vehicles that launch them. If anything goes wrong, it’s likely to be very, very costly.

It’s an expensive journey to take-off. A spacecraft can cost $120 million dollars (£60 million), a launch $100 million. Insuring the spacecraft is the third-largest cost, typically running to tens of millions of dollars. “I try not to let numbers go through my head when I’m watching a take-off,” he says.

Gibbs insures the commercial satellites used for everything from mobile telephony to broadband internet and credit-card transactions. Satellite photography lets city planners study urban areas and has helped to identify fields of opium poppies. Brit Insurance also insures the spacecraft that supply images to Google Earth.

Space insurance is a niche market; Gibbs estimates that there are only 25 space underwriters in the world. Months of work with technical experts allows underwriters to work out the exact risk and cost of insuring the hardware of a satellite, from the reliability of its maker’s history — “you’re only as good as your last launch” — down to the precise quirks of manufacturing.

Insurance doesn’t deserve its grey-suited image

Bright graduates relish the intellectual challenges and international opportunities

BACKGROUND

• How sport sponsorship gives a human face to the insurance industry

• How can insurers respond to global pandemics and terrorist attacks?

• Do you have what it takes to be an insurance big shot?

• Bred for speed, insured for millions

BACKGROUND

• Insurers adapt to risk of weather incidents

• Modern insurance industry demands ever more graduates

• Space underwriter Chris Gibbs on insuring rockets and satellites

• New needs force change of course

Related Internet Links

• Snakes & Ladders

• Graduate jobs

• Search for an internship

Related Links

• $450m lets astronauts spend a penny

“Launch is the most dangerous part of any mission,” he says. “When things go wrong it tends to be catastrophic.” Last year a rocket launched at sea blew up on take-off, with proof posted on YouTube, the video-sharing website. So nailbiting is it that several of his colleagues stay up all night watching on the internet, but he manages to sleep. “In the morning I’ll have a look to check that it’s all gone well,” he says. He does, however, go to watch live launches, usually in French Guyana, Kazakhstan or the US. “Launches tend to be near the Equator because from there it is a straight line up to the orbit.”

Last month, Nasa’s Phoenix Mars lander made the first successful probe landing on the red planet for 32 years, after a nine-month, 422 million-mile journey. In 1999 an orbiter crashed on take-off after years of construction and design work. “When things go wrong, we’re here to pay.”

Deployment is the next most dangerous phase. When it arrives in orbit, 22,000 miles up, the satellite unfolds its solar panels to become the length of a football field. It is a very complex piece of kit. “Once it’s up there you can’t send a shuttle to fix it.” If all goes well, a satellite can orbit for 15 years, generating hundreds of millions of dollars.

Gibbs started in aviation insurance before going into space. He enjoys the work: “You have something on your desk that’s a little bit different.” Part of the job is visiting space laboratories, wearing a lab coat and putting covers over his shoes to minimise the dust, which can cause problems once a satellite is in orbit. “We talk about them all day, every day,” he says. “It’s nice to go and see them.”

Brit Insurance does not cover manned missions or individual liability. But with space tourism opening up — Virgin Galactic plans trips to the Moon from 2010 — it may cover elements of these missions, he says. “It’s certainly going to be an interesting time.”

Space underwriting is a technical area, but Gibbs maintains that he is not a technical person. “I’m learning all the time,” he says.

After almost a decade on the job, working with some of the brightest minds on some of the world’s most exciting projects is still fascinating, he says. Not bad for someone who failed physics at school. “It is rocket science,” he says.

Explore Careers in

• Careers in Banking & Finance

Times Recommends

• Inspirational leadership
• How to get a new job
• The reluctant CEO