On all of the BF forums, it is being treated as a fait accompli that the Insurance Company will foot the bill for the payouts for all of the 34(+?) lawsuits that are coming. Squillions of dollars.
Am I the only one who questions whether this will really happen?
If Essendon have been found guilty of not complying with an anti-doping code that they signed up for and the players sue them for reputational and endorsement loss blah blah, why would the insurance company pay ?
They have 3 issues here:
1. The insurance will have to cover the deliberate or negligent doping of players;
2. The players must not have contributed by knowing what the injections were;
3. The insurer must be convinced that they must make massive payouts; they won't if there is a possibility that a court will not order them to do so.
And insurance companies will try to recover any losses from other parties, like Dank or Hird.
My conclusion: the club or some benefactor is paying most of the payouts, and they are being offset against contracts being signed by the players, e.g. Cale Hooker.