A massive asteroid passing dangerously close to Earth and a meteor falling over Russia are just a couple of reminders that space risk is on insurers’ radars.The meteor that exploded in the sky above Russia on Friday is estimated to have shattered more than 1 million square feet of glass. According to local officials, more than no one was killed, but nearly 1,200 people in the city of Chelyabinsk alone were injured, most from glass shards.Preliminary reports suggest that more than 3,000 homes and business sustained damage from broken glass, including a zinc factory where part of the roof collapsed.An impact crater was reported on the outskirts of a city about 50 miles west of Chelyabinsk.Meteorites began to hit at about 7:25am Moscow time, 16 hours before a 45-meter (150-foot) asteroid named 2012 DA14 was forecast to pass the planet.According to the European Space Agency there is no connection between the asteroid and the meteor that hit Russia.However, both events are reminders that insurers do sometimes have to consider out-of-this-world catastrophe exposures and the possible outcome of a large asteroid hitting an urban environment is one of them.According to catastrophe modeller AIR Worldwide, in many countries with developed insurance markets, a comprehensive multi-peril insurance policy generally will cover all risks that are not specifically excluded, meaning that meteorite damage would generally be covered.The dwelling portion of the homeowner policy is very broad and if damage from falling objects is not listed in the exclusions, it is generally covered.The last meteorite strike was recorded in Sudan in 2008. Astronomers spotted a meteor heading toward Earth about 20 hours before it entered the atmosphere and it exploded over the vast African nation.Hundreds of smaller meteorites strike the Earth’s surface every year, although only 10 to 20 are detected. Such meteorites usually reach the surface having been burned down by the atmosphere and are too small to cause damage.As far as asteroids are concerned, according to Lloyd’s of London, nearly 10,000 Near Earth Asteroids have been discovered by observatories around the world since 1995.More than 860 of these have been classified as ‘large’ — one kilometre in length or larger.NASA co-ordinates tracking this activity and operates a service called the Near Earth Objects Program to keep an eye on these incoming ‘killer’ asteroids.Four years ago, risk modelling specialists at RMS looked at the 1908 Tunguska event, when a large part of Siberia was destroyed by an exploding asteroid.Early in the morning, on June 30, 1908, a giant airburst occurred over the basin of the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Central Siberia, Russia.It levelled trees over an area of 2,000km sq and produced seismic and pressure waves that were recorded all over the world.The released energy was later estimated to be equivalent to a ten megaton TNT explosion, about 1,000 times as powerful as the nuclear bomb dropped over Hiroshima in 1945.The blast was attributed to the explosion of an asteroid in the lower atmosphere, at a height of five to ten km over the remote Siberian forest, and measuring approximately 50 meters in diameter.Theoretically an asteroid could land anywhere, so RMS modelled a Tunguska type event occurring over New York City. With a population exposure of nearly ten million, their model forecasts 3.2 million fatalities and 3.76 million injuries.The total economic exposure under the explosion’s footprint measures around $2 trillion and as a result, RMS estimates property losses at around $1.19 trillion.What’s the likelihood of that actually happening?RMS cites a study based on different data sets that estimates a mean return period of 1,000 years for earth collisions with objects similar in size to the 1908 Tugunska event. That’s between 400 and 1,800 years.While there is around a 1 in 250 chance of an asteroid between 30-100 metres across colliding with Earth every year, your odds of getting killed by a meteorite are roughly one in 250,000.You’re far more likely to die in an earthquake, tornado, flood, airplane crash or car crash.