What's the importance of Lifetime Insurance (LTI) in Star Citizen?

While shopping for your next Star Citizen ship, you might notice that ships always have some sort of insurance listed. Whether it's "LTI", "Lifetime Insurance", or "10 years Insurance", one might wonder what do these terms actually mean?

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In this article we'll explain what insurance does for you in Star Citizen and how you can decide what insurance to get for your newly purchased Star Citizen ship.

We'll start with a huge disclaimer: insurance doesn't actually matter until Star Citizen exits it's Alpha phase. For right now, every ship is operating under the same basic insurance plan that never runs out and never charges you. LTI, Lifetime Insurance, and insurance with a time duration will not take affect until Star Citizen is ready to launch. 

With that being said, once Star Citizen does launch, the insurance listed alongside ships will cover the hull of the ship plus the basic components. So that means it does not cover any upgrades you make to your ship components or any contents within the ship like cargo or passengers. However, you will be able to purchase additional insurance plans in game to cover upgraded components and cargo not covered by LTI.

When trying to evaluate whether you should choose LTI with your new Star Citizen ship it's important to note that insurance costs are not going to be excessive. The developers have also promised that they will give players ample opportunity to purchase insurance whenever their insurance runs out. Even if you manage to ignore all of those warnings, you will never truly lose a ship that you've paid real money for. The ships you purchase on Starlti.com are yours forever! 

Lifetime Insurance does have it's benefits over any other insurance. For one, you can gain peace of mind never have to worry about insurance for your base ship ever. LTI allows you to save the cost and hassle, even though the cost and hassle may be small. You might also have gain a bit of 'verse "street" cred by having LTI on your fleet as LTI has historically held a higher value within the Star Citizen community. That "street" cred also comes with higher resell value if you ever chose to sell your ships later on. 

In conclusion, LTI in Star Citizen is not the end all-be all. However, it can be a worthwhile investment as for most ships on Starlti.com, the price difference between 10 year and Lifetime insurance is not very high. Ultimately, it's a personal decision but for me, I have LTI on every ship in my fleet.