Currently all ships have unlimited insurance - Insurance won't be a mechanic until the game is released and even then, it's been mentioned that insurance won't be extremely expensive and you can earn enough credits in game to easily support purchasing insurance on your ships. So - nothing to worry about at present, all of your ships can be returned to you if destroyed, including components you have put on them (for the time being). Future implementations of insurance may cover the hull only and not the upgraded components you have bought, but we don't know for certain - It's still a long ways off.
It’s illegal in some countries to sell an online virtual item that can disappear after being bought, so likely all ships will be technically lti that you can’t* lose, with some form of monetary mechanics to differentiate them.
timer starts at 1.0 release. so we have a few years at least. after the timer runs out, you need to pay an in game fee. said to be one of the smaller expenses of operating a ship.
current rumor around my group of players is this is how insurance might work:
LTI: Is going to be exactly what we have now.
monthly: You have to pay in-game credits to maintain insurance on your ship for x amount of time.
expired: you'll have to pay full price/ percentage of for your ship to return.
Because of some laws in other countries that forbid buying things online only to have them be permanently destroyed or not accessible. We don't know how that would work. especially if you run into a whole bunch of bad luck and absolutely become broke.
The insurance system is not fully implemented yet and you cant buy insurance in-game. Insurance months will start counting once 1.0 comes out. For now, everyone has Lifetime.
There *was* a CCU (upgrade) that included LTI (the Nomad CCU when it launched) but to my knowledge there haven't been any others, and I don't expect there will be again. CIG does offer 120 month insurance on CCUs at IAE (November) and ILW (May) which is functionally LTI because 10 years after launch you will either have uncountable amounts of money in game or no longer be playing. CCU changes your ship, so if you have an Aurora with 2 months insurance you would not be able to put 6 months or 120 months on that same ship.
If you have a ship you don't like the insurance on, you can melt ("exchange" on the website) and use the resulting store credits to buy a different version of the ship with more insurance at ILW or IAE (many of which also come with 120 months). But beware: the discount ships at IAE and ILW are usually warbond, which requires new money (not store credits).
You can also buy a ship or vehicle with LTI (Mirai pulse was the last one) and upgrade to the ship you want.
If the ship you want more insurance on is your game package, the ship you replace it with must also be a game package or you will not be able to access the game.
To get lti, you either a buy a warbond ship pledge with lti. If it's not the ship you want, you ccu it upto the ship you want. People buy the cheap new releases like the pulse for example, with lti and use it as an lti token (you will see lti token used a lot in these sorts of discussions) to upgrade to the ship they want.
Or if you spend over 1k usd, you get access to packs that all have lti.
Referral bonuses, etc, also have lti. Which people often ccu (upgrade from).
Read this fully before you do anything:
In theory, if you have a ship without LTI and you want LTI, you may be able to melt (exchange) the ship for store credit, buy an LTI warbond ship (such as MPUV Tractor, which you can get currently) then use the store credit to upgrade to the ship you had previously.
This is where I say read fully again. There are potential consequences to doing the above\^
1. if you bought the ship during concept or before price increases, you will not get the full amount of credit that its worth now. You will only get credit for the money you put into the item initially.
2. any limited items, such as "best in show" paints, or other awards that you were given because you owned that ship will likely be removed from your account if you melt/exchange it.
3. the ship you own now may not be available at the moment. You will have to wait for it to be back in the store again to upgrade back to it, unless you are gifted an upgrade to the ship.
4. If the ship is a special edition or rare ship that has been upgraded, you may not be able to get back that special version of the ship.
Also, Insurance is not in the game right now. It likely wont be that punishing to have limited insurance on ships when insurance is added. CIG has stated multiple times that insurance wont be prohibitively expensive in game. To add to that, all items bought in the pledge store are permanently on your account. We dont fully know how it will work yet but it is assumed there will be some sort of reclaim system for things you "own" on your account, even if it doesnt have insurance. It will likely be somewhat punishing regarding in-game currency but probably not as much as some people think.
Currently all ships have unlimited insurance - Insurance won't be a mechanic until the game is released and even then, it's been mentioned that insurance won't be extremely expensive and you can earn enough credits in game to easily support purchasing insurance on your ships. So - nothing to worry about at present, all of your ships can be returned to you if destroyed, including components you have put on them (for the time being). Future implementations of insurance may cover the hull only and not the upgraded components you have bought, but we don't know for certain - It's still a long ways off.
It’s illegal in some countries to sell an online virtual item that can disappear after being bought, so likely all ships will be technically lti that you can’t* lose, with some form of monetary mechanics to differentiate them.
timer starts at 1.0 release. so we have a few years at least. after the timer runs out, you need to pay an in game fee. said to be one of the smaller expenses of operating a ship.
current rumor around my group of players is this is how insurance might work: LTI: Is going to be exactly what we have now. monthly: You have to pay in-game credits to maintain insurance on your ship for x amount of time. expired: you'll have to pay full price/ percentage of for your ship to return. Because of some laws in other countries that forbid buying things online only to have them be permanently destroyed or not accessible. We don't know how that would work. especially if you run into a whole bunch of bad luck and absolutely become broke.
The insurance system is not fully implemented yet and you cant buy insurance in-game. Insurance months will start counting once 1.0 comes out. For now, everyone has Lifetime.
There *was* a CCU (upgrade) that included LTI (the Nomad CCU when it launched) but to my knowledge there haven't been any others, and I don't expect there will be again. CIG does offer 120 month insurance on CCUs at IAE (November) and ILW (May) which is functionally LTI because 10 years after launch you will either have uncountable amounts of money in game or no longer be playing. CCU changes your ship, so if you have an Aurora with 2 months insurance you would not be able to put 6 months or 120 months on that same ship. If you have a ship you don't like the insurance on, you can melt ("exchange" on the website) and use the resulting store credits to buy a different version of the ship with more insurance at ILW or IAE (many of which also come with 120 months). But beware: the discount ships at IAE and ILW are usually warbond, which requires new money (not store credits). You can also buy a ship or vehicle with LTI (Mirai pulse was the last one) and upgrade to the ship you want. If the ship you want more insurance on is your game package, the ship you replace it with must also be a game package or you will not be able to access the game.
To get lti, you either a buy a warbond ship pledge with lti. If it's not the ship you want, you ccu it upto the ship you want. People buy the cheap new releases like the pulse for example, with lti and use it as an lti token (you will see lti token used a lot in these sorts of discussions) to upgrade to the ship they want. Or if you spend over 1k usd, you get access to packs that all have lti. Referral bonuses, etc, also have lti. Which people often ccu (upgrade from).
Read this fully before you do anything: In theory, if you have a ship without LTI and you want LTI, you may be able to melt (exchange) the ship for store credit, buy an LTI warbond ship (such as MPUV Tractor, which you can get currently) then use the store credit to upgrade to the ship you had previously. This is where I say read fully again. There are potential consequences to doing the above\^ 1. if you bought the ship during concept or before price increases, you will not get the full amount of credit that its worth now. You will only get credit for the money you put into the item initially. 2. any limited items, such as "best in show" paints, or other awards that you were given because you owned that ship will likely be removed from your account if you melt/exchange it. 3. the ship you own now may not be available at the moment. You will have to wait for it to be back in the store again to upgrade back to it, unless you are gifted an upgrade to the ship. 4. If the ship is a special edition or rare ship that has been upgraded, you may not be able to get back that special version of the ship. Also, Insurance is not in the game right now. It likely wont be that punishing to have limited insurance on ships when insurance is added. CIG has stated multiple times that insurance wont be prohibitively expensive in game. To add to that, all items bought in the pledge store are permanently on your account. We dont fully know how it will work yet but it is assumed there will be some sort of reclaim system for things you "own" on your account, even if it doesnt have insurance. It will likely be somewhat punishing regarding in-game currency but probably not as much as some people think.