Entering his senior year at Texas A&M, Ogbuehi was set to move from right tackle to left tackle, a position so vital that there is a best-selling book and a hit movie about it called “The Blind Side.” The Aggies’ starting left tackle in 2012 was drafted second over all and signed a contract guaranteeing $21.2 million over four years. Their starting left tackle in 2013 was drafted sixth over all and signed for $16.4 million.
Ogbuehi could have entered the professional ranks after last season, and he probably would have been drafted around 10th, according to Gil Brandt, a former Dallas Cowboys player personnel executive and a draft analyst.
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But Ogbuehi elected to return for his senior year, and shortly after, the ESPN draft expert Mel Kiper Jr. said Ogbuehi could go as high as second over all in this year’s draft. Ogbuehi was reassured, he said, by Texas A&M’s offer to buy him loss-of-value insurance, which aims to restore likely future earnings that are lost to injury.
Asked in October if the insurance had proved decisive, Ogbuehi, who received a bachelor’s degree in August, said that it had. Without it, he said, he “most likely would have gone to the draft.”
But Ogbuehi tore his anterior cruciate ligament in the Liberty Bowl in December, and last week he was selected 21st, by the Cincinnati Bengals. Under the N.F.L.’s rigid collective bargaining agreement, that will probably reduce his contract to about $8 million in guaranteed money over four years, according to the website Over the Cap.
Still, Ogbuehi does not stand to collect on his insurance, his agent, Ryan Williams, said. Because most income is taxable but the insurance’s benefits are not, a player typically must fall precipitously in the draft for the policy to take effect.
“Although we believe he would have been drafted higher in 2014, he’s pleased with the outcome this year,” Williams said.
Loss-of-value insurance has been available to any college athlete who could afford it, but colleges have recently begun paying for premiums out of their student assistance funds, which the N.C.A.A. allows. Florida State reportedly paid for a policy for its Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback, Jameis Winston, who was the No. 1 overall pick this year. Georgia paid for a policy protecting running back Todd Gurley, who was drafted 10th. After word surfaced that Texas A&M had paid for Ogbuehi’s, Oregon paid for policies for several players, including the Heisman winner Marcus Mariota and cornerback Ifo Ekpre-Olomu.
To the extent that loss-of-value insurance helps persuade elite athletes to return, it is a boon to their teams, which get to use their talents for another season. But Ogbuehi’s story highlights the perils of top athletes who extend their college tenure, during which they may be compensated only by a scholarship. In many cases, they cannot enter professional leagues because of age restrictions. N.C.A.A. rules barring agents and requiring players to declare for drafts soon after their seasons end make a tough decision even more difficult, some observers say.
“The N.C.A.A. doesn’t make it easier,” said Warren Zola, a professor and executive director at Boston College’s business school. He cited the declaration deadline and the prohibition of the hiring of agents.
Loss-of-value insurance addresses this problem, in theory, by protecting against losses that may result from an extra year out of professional sports.
The insurance is available for several other college sports, notably basketball. The Kentucky star Nerlens Noel had it but reportedly did not try to collect after he tore his A.C.L. and was drafted sixth over all. But given football’s especially high injury rate, in college it is most relevant to that sport.
In January, the five autonomous conferences voted to allow athletes to take out loans with future earnings as collateral in order to pay for loss-of-value insurance — something they were already able to do for disability insurance, which protects against the sort of injury that would preclude a future as a professional athlete (neurological trauma is an example).
From one perspective, liberalized loss-of-value insurance is another step toward better treatment of college athletes.
“We’re definitely aware of it,” an official in an N.F.L. front office said, adding that it was frequently a “win-win” when linemen, like Ogbuehi, developed further by spending more time at the college level.
But critics say loss-of-value insurance is little more than window dressing. If a player’s draft stock declines because of poor performance — as arguably happened to Ogbuehi, who moved back to right tackle midseason — a player is not protected. Also, the insurance does not account for the fact that staying in college moves players one year further from free agency, when they can negotiate larger contracts.
“It transfers the risk; it does not eliminate it,” Jill Wieber Lens, a law professor at Baylor, and her husband, Joshua Lens, the Baylor athletic department’s director of compliance, wrote of the insurance last year in The Mississippi Law Journal.
No college player is known to have collected on loss-of-value insurance. Marqise Lee, a Jacksonville Jaguars wide receiver who played at Southern California, has sued the insurance giant Lloyd’s of London over his $5 million policy. His lawyer declined to comment.
“If it’s highly unlikely to actually collect, then maybe once again this becomes a great benefit people talk about that really doesn’t enhance the welfare of the student-athlete,” Zola said
.Athletes’ luck with loss-of-value insurance could change soon, however. Ekpre-Olomu, the Oregon cornerback, had a loss-of-value policy purchased for him by the university, Athletic Director Rob Mullens said. The policy was worth $3 million, with Ekpre-Olomu slotted for the late first round, according to ESPN.
Ekpre-Olomu tore his A.C.L. in December and was drafted in the seventh round.
Williams, who also represents Ekpre-Olomu, declined to comment, citing confidentiality language in the policy.
For 25 years, the N.C.A.A. has offered a program through which elite players could buy disability insurance. Very few have collected, an N.C.A.A. spokeswoman said.
Loss-of-value is bought as a rider to total disability insurance. Premiums tend to cost about $8,000 to $8,750 per $1 million of value for personal total disability, and $5,250 to $6,000 per $1 million of loss-of-value insurance, said Ryan Stromsborg of Parq Advisors, an insurance agency that has many athletes as clients.
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At the time a policy is written, the insurer and the insured agree on where the player is expected to be drafted. To collect, Stromsborg said, an injury or illness must be “material and lasting.”
“When there’s a claim, there’s basically two aspects that are front and center,” Justin Siegel of Parq Advisors said. “The first is, was the player materially injured, and did that affect the projected amount of income? Second is, was everything disclosed?”
According to the complaint filed by the Jaguars’ Lee, Lloyd’s rescinded his disability policy because, the company said, he failed to disclose certain health information, which Lee denies. A lawyer representing Lloyd’s did not reply to a request for comment.
Defenders of the insurance argue that the lack of collections is not necessarily an indictment. The nature of insurance is that most policyholders do not collect. Few homeowners cash in on fire insurance, for instance.
Given that universities benefit, the Lenses suggested that it would be appropriate for universities to pay for more policies.
“The ability to have this type of insurance could provide more of an incentive to return for their senior year,” Joshua Lens said. “If that helps provide another option for a student-athlete, we’re all for that.”
Mullens, the Oregon athletic director, said it was incumbent on universities to educate athletes about the benefits and downsides of the insurance.
“There are some people out there who use this as an opportunity to sell a product for a commission, and we want to make sure our student-athletes are fully informed,” he said.
In an interview in October, Texas A&M Coach Kevin Sumlin explained why he thought it made sense for Ogbuehi to return for another year, and for the university to buy him loss-of-value insurance.
“You’re coming back, working on these things that we have gotten from the N.F.L. scouts — strength level, things like that — you can move up,” Sumlin said, referring to the draft and how rookie contracts were rigidly delineated, “and that’s money you can’t make up, because all those contracts are slotted now.”
Sumlin added: “The question would be, what about injury? So now, with the insurance, that takes away a lot of the ‘What if?’ ”
But not all of that uncertainty can be eliminated, Zola said.
“There is no doubt that financially, if you are projected to be a top pick, you can’t get enough coverage or protection to make returning to college economically feasible,” he said.
Correction: May 13, 2015
An earlier picture with this article was published in error. It showed the injured Oregon tight end Pharaoh Brown on crutches, not cornerback Ifo Ekpre-Olomu.
