I am really confused about what people are complaining about. From what I have read and understood, this is basically saying that if you paid real money for a ship, you won't be able to lose it. Yes, you will need to pay some UEC in game to recover it that will cost more than the insurance bill would have been, but you won't lose the 30, 50, 120, 400, or even 890 dollar ship you purchased. One of the largest reasons people I know have refrained from buying this game is the fear of losing the item they purchased forever if for some reason they got in a jam and could not pay insurance or find a job without needing a ship. This says, "hey, that 450 ship you bought wont' be removed from your account. That rare gun you paid 5 bucks for or were given "free" because you attended a convention can't be lost if you die while holding it (so you might actually use it).
You may have to pay more to get it back than normal, but you can still get it back. Now the thing is, we don't know how much that will be. It could be the 2x the insurance payout, or the cost of the ship - one insurance payout. This means people will feel a bit more secure about buying that ship without LTI, or buying a game package without LTI. This means more backers. More backers means a better chance of this project succeeding.
LTI has one REAL advantage. If you have a large fleet of ships, you don't have to worry about making enough money to keep them all with basic insurance. That's it. If you have a small fleet of say...3-5 ships, it should not be an issue with keeping up with the insurance. If you had Blind Owl's fleet (before he had to refund), you might be spending a week a month just earning enough to pay the insurance bill. Once you start making the game a job, people leave because it's no longer fun.
Another thing. No matter how Mr. Roberts or people on the forums are insinuating that you are making a donation to support the game, let's be honest. You ARE buying a ship and in doing so, you are supporting the game. Without the virtual ship and copy of the game, (aka, you would need to buy the game once it came out), the kickstarter would have only raised maybe a few 100k.
Donating means "here, take this item of value and in exchange, I don't want anything in return". Lots of charities do this. Star Citizen is not a charity. In exchange for your money, you are receiving either information and REC (subscription), the ability to use in game this virtual vehicle once the game is live, or a physical good like a t-shirt. Even if you bought this
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/Add-Ons/Shut-Up-And-Take-My-Money, you are still receiving virtual goods in exchange for your real money. In this case, a skin for your ship.
