Originally published by Adam Silberman, Deneys, adapted for Deneys
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Commercial aviation has long been exposed to hostile interference. Recent technological developments have sharpened that risk profile, particularly through the increasing use of signal jamming. For insurers, operators and financiers, this trend raises practical questions around coverage scope, pricing and risk allocation.
Recent incidents in Northern Europe illustrate the issue. Aircrafts operating in the Baltic region have experienced GPS interference severe enough to disrupt landings and force diversions. These events have occurred against a broader geopolitical backdrop in which electronic and cyber interference techniques, refined in modern conflict environments, are becoming more accessible and more widely deployed.
From an insurance perspective, the challenge lies less in recognising the risk than in assessing how existing policy frameworks respond to it.
Signal jamming and operational exposure
Signal jamming involves the deliberate transmission of radio signals to disrupt navigation, communication or control systems. In aviation, interference with satellite-based navigation and onboard communications can affect situational awareness, flight management systems and approach procedures.
While catastrophic outcomes remain rare, even non-accident incidents can generate material operational disruption, including aborted landings, delays, rerouting costs and reputational impact. These exposures increasingly sit alongside more traditional aviation risks rather than at the margins.
Policy wording and coverage uncertainty
Many aviation policies contain exclusions for war risks and related perils, as well as for noise, pollution and electromagnetic interference. Cover for such risks is typically available through additional endorsements, usually at increased premium.
In practice, however, policy wording is not always well aligned to modern interference scenarios. Electromagnetic interference exclusions often reinstate cover where interference results in a crash, fire or in-flight emergency. War risk exclusions commonly depend on proof that acts were carried out for political or terrorist purposes.
This creates potential grey areas. Where interference is caused by non-state actors, criminal groups or loosely affiliated individuals, insurers may face evidentiary hurdles in establishing motive or attribution. As a result, risks that were assumed to be excluded may in fact remain within cover.
For underwriters and reinsurers, this uncertainty can translate into unpriced exposure, particularly where multiple incidents occur without a definitive loss-causing event.
Risk management considerations
Addressing signal jamming risk is unlikely to be achieved through insurance alone. Airlines are increasingly assessing technical countermeasures, enhanced crew training and operational protocols designed to manage navigation disruptions.
From an insurance and commercial perspective, clearer alignment between operational risk and policy response is critical. This may involve more precise drafting around interference, attribution thresholds and aggregation, as well as closer scrutiny of how premiums reflect evolving exposure rather than historical loss data.
Signal jamming also raises broader liability questions. Depending on the facts, responsibility could potentially attach to perpetrators, technology providers or operators, each with different recovery and subrogation implications. These considerations form part of the overall risk calculus when structuring aviation programmes.
Commercial implications
For aviation market participants, signal jamming represents a convergence of cyber, geopolitical and operational risk. It underscores the importance of stress-testing insurance arrangements against realistic disruption scenarios, not only catastrophic loss.
As electronic interference becomes a more persistent feature of the aviation environment, insurers and insureds alike are likely to focus less on whether the risk exists and more on how it is contractually allocated, priced and managed.
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