Anthony Watmough denied insurance payout for career-ending injury, Parramatta must pay $1.2 million

EXCLUSIVE: ANTHONY Watmough has been denied any insurance payout for his career-ending injury, forcing Parramatta to stump up $1.2 million for the remainder of his contract.

ANTHONY Watmough has been sensationally denied any insurance payout for his career-ending knee injury, forcing Parramatta to stump up $1.2 million for the remainder of his contract.

In a rejection letter sent to Watmough, obtained by The Daily Telegraph, insurer QBE deemed the knee injury that ended his career a little over 12 months into his four-year Parramatta deal was “pre-existing”.

But faced with paying out Watmough’s contract for 2017 and 2018, Parramatta angrily dubbed QBE’s denial of his claim “outrageous”.

The insurer’s decision has massive implications for all NRL clubs: creating a ticking time bomb for other players hit with career-ending injuries, and potentially clubs liable for millions of dollars in payouts that they thought were covered by the insurer.

The letter that sealed the Eels fate.

Watmough’s insurance claim is believed to have been the first potential seven-figure payout for a player’s career-ending injury since QBE became the insurer for the top 25 players at each club in 2014, in the wake of Alex McKinnon’s on-field accident that left him a quadriplegic.

If, as is now expected, Parramatta is itself now forced to fund Watmough’s contract, it will leave the club a record $11 million-plus in the red for the 2016 season.

But in one piece of good news for Eels fans, the NRL says Watmough’s massive payout will not be included in the 2017 and 2018 salary caps, despite QBE’s ruling: freeing the club to buy marquee players.

An NRL spokesman said QBE’s decision did not override the NRL’s ruling in May that Watmough’s injury was career-ending: “If we determine a player has suffered a career ending injury we can exclude that player’s payments from the salary cap.”

The letter sent this month directly to Watmough from QBE states that his claim was denied because “your inability to play in the NRL or any other professional league is the result of symptomatic, pre-existing degenerative changes to your left knee”.

Watmough retired earlier this season with a knee injury.

“In the circumstances, we have determined that you are not eligible for the benefits claimed under the policy.”

But when contacted on Thursday night, Parramatta’s administrator, Max Donnelly, was furious.

“It’s outrageous,” he said. “Why the hell do we have insurance?”

With the ex-Eels and Manly forward’s claim denied, it raises serious questions about the comprehensiveness of career-ending insurance for the game, and therefore their financial exposure of clubs could be much greater than previously thought.

One NRL club official said on Thursday night: “ACL and PCL knee injuries go with the territory in the NRL. So does that mean if players have another knee injury which ends their career, QBE won’t pay? If that’s the case, no club in the NRL will be untouched by this. It means many players are potentially uninsurable.”

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Parramatta maintains Watmough suffered his career-ending injury in February this year, in a “friendly fire” pre-season training mishap with Eels teammate Beau Scott.

But QBE rejects this claim in its letter to Watmough: “Prior to the accident you were experiencing ongoing symptoms and disability relating to your left knee,” the insurer states. “For example, notes from the club physiotherapist … show that before the accident you were receiving injections of Marcaine to your left knee prior to games.”

Marcaine is a drug used to decrease feeling through injection around a nerve in the area of injury.

QBE also lists four dates this year — January 18 and 25, and February 1 and 3 — in which it claims Watmough’s left knee was “intermittently symptomatic”, citing notes by the club physiotherapist.

The NRL introduced the QBE insurance scheme for the top 25 players at each club for career-ending injuries in July 2014, four months after McKinnon’s horrific injury in a Newcastle Knights/Melbourne Storm match.

Originally published as Anthony Watmough denied insurance payout for career-ending injury, Parramatta must pay $1.2 million