In my opinion current progression system in Elite is totally and 100% designed in vertical way - you progressing only in one direction, buying better and better ships, improving your rank etc. At the ending point you are wealth enough to freely buy any ship, module or pay insurance without any problem. Honestly this is bad approach. There should always be another tier of improvement worth of grinding credits, event if it is only 1-2% improvement.
I would say, in currently available system, lose of a ship is nothing special, you just pay small price of insurance and bah, you have your new shiny ship. In my opinion it should work differently to expand end game gameplay.
1) Standing based insurance coverage:
With evolution of Crime and Punishment system, insurance system should evolve to. Player reputation should scored with standing raging from GOOD standing for normal players ending at OUTLAWS for griefers. This standing should be based only on Player To Player interactions, it shouldn't be affected by illegal PVE activities in my opinion. So any illegal activity toward other player will move your standing slightly form GOOD to OUTLAW and it will change you insurance coverage! For example GOOD standing grants your typical current 90% coverage, however for totally OUTLAW player insurance should cover/return only 60% of ship value. This will influence griefing, piracy and PVP. This also will make your ship less worthless, it will have real value and every dead will be meaningful.
2) Ship chassis engineering:
Currently you can only engineer your module, but whats about engineering your ship? It should work in different way! Instead of random god mercy it should be based on consecutive upgrades. Ship should be upgradable four times. Each time it should rise certain ship parameters by 1-2% and each upgrade should cost 20-30%, maybe 40% of initial ship cost in credits. Now the best: Insurance doesn't cover upgrades! If you die, you lost it. Again, thanks to it PVP will become more valuable and players will be more worried about their machines.
I think this is the way how should it evolve
I would say, in currently available system, lose of a ship is nothing special, you just pay small price of insurance and bah, you have your new shiny ship. In my opinion it should work differently to expand end game gameplay.
1) Standing based insurance coverage:
With evolution of Crime and Punishment system, insurance system should evolve to. Player reputation should scored with standing raging from GOOD standing for normal players ending at OUTLAWS for griefers. This standing should be based only on Player To Player interactions, it shouldn't be affected by illegal PVE activities in my opinion. So any illegal activity toward other player will move your standing slightly form GOOD to OUTLAW and it will change you insurance coverage! For example GOOD standing grants your typical current 90% coverage, however for totally OUTLAW player insurance should cover/return only 60% of ship value. This will influence griefing, piracy and PVP. This also will make your ship less worthless, it will have real value and every dead will be meaningful.
2) Ship chassis engineering:
Currently you can only engineer your module, but whats about engineering your ship? It should work in different way! Instead of random god mercy it should be based on consecutive upgrades. Ship should be upgradable four times. Each time it should rise certain ship parameters by 1-2% and each upgrade should cost 20-30%, maybe 40% of initial ship cost in credits. Now the best: Insurance doesn't cover upgrades! If you die, you lost it. Again, thanks to it PVP will become more valuable and players will be more worried about their machines.
I think this is the way how should it evolve