Since March 2020, Airmic has been issuing Friday Reading, a curated series of readings and knowledge resources sent by email to Airmic members. The objective of Airmic Friday Reading was initially to keep members informed during the Covid-19 pandemic. Today, Airmic Friday Reading has evolved in scope to include content on a wide range of subjects with each email edition following a theme. This page is a searchable archive of all the readings and knowledge resources that have been shared.
Friday Reading Edition 289 (17th April 2026)
The UK is dependent on its undersea cables and pipelines for its data and energy. There are around 60 undersea cables which come ashore at several points along the UK coastline, particularly around East Anglia and South West England. More than 90% of the UK's day-to-day internet traffic travels via these undersea cables.
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Managing the new economic risks in the defence sector [free to download upon sharing contact details Text
Friday Reading Edition 289 (17th April 2026)
This report explores the new economic risks for the defence sector and their implications for 2026. A period of relative calm has given way to a new age of geopolitical instability, marked by a rise in violent conflicts involving governments. And this return to intergovernmental warfare has ignited a significant increase in defence spending worldwide.
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Friday Reading Edition 289 (17th April 2026)
As the UK commits to spending 5% of GDP on national security, and with NATO partners scaling up their own defence budgets, a generational opportunity is taking shape: to rethink how defence investment can drive not just military capability, but also economic growth, productivity, and innovation.
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Friday Reading Edition 288 (10th April 2026)
The first crewed test flight under NASA’s Artemis programme is underway. Four Artemis II astronauts are flying aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft around the Moon and back, as they test how the spacecraft’s systems operate in a deep space environment.
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Friday Reading Edition 288 (10th April 2026)
In May 2025, the UK Space Agency published the UK Planetary Protection Technical Framework, providing clear guidance to ensure UK space activities safeguard the environment on Earth and in space from potential harmful contamination.
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Friday Reading Edition 288 (10th April 2026)
Space weather originates from solar activity and mostly causes no tangible disruption. Severe space weather can, however, disrupt a range of technologies. For example, an event could cause the widespread disruption of air travel for multiple weeks, localised power outages in the UK, and disruption to satellite services such as satellite navigation and timing services used by many sectors.
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Friday Reading Edition 288 (10th April 2026)
Both natural and human-induced factors causing space risks pose a concrete threat to modern society and many questions remain for companies and their insurers regarding this rather complex and obscure threat.
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Friday Reading Edition 288 (10th April 2026)
The modern space race is on. Now, more than 80 countries across the globe have a presence in space. New opportunities in space are being discovered and advancements in space resource utilisation, telecommunications, space tourism, along with lower costs of space exploration, have resulted in exponential growth in investment in the private commercial sector over the past 5 years.
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Friday Reading Edition 288 (10th April 2026)
There are few areas in insurance where causes of property and liability losses are as varied, or the consequences of malfunctions and system crashes as far-reaching as in commercial space flight.
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Friday Reading Edition 280 (13th February 2026)
Swiss Re’s annual SONAR report identifies eight emerging risks, such as the impacts of extreme heat, fungal disease spreading and building fungicide resistance, harm caused by plastics, and potential claims from increased consumption of ultra-processed foods.
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