If the mission had succeeded, they would've been able to test it a little longer and then received 0 money back. Early test termination yields $10 mil.
Either way they're still paying the premiums. I have a feeling, though, that the premiums will be going up after this.
If they have a policy at all going forward. I'm actually very curious which insurance company wrote up a policy like this and what the structure looks like (not that we'll be able to get access to that info, but still..)
There are very few insurance carriers on earth that write "specialized risk" like this -- it was most likely one of very few large multinational carriers or, more likely, a Lloyd's syndicate.
The problem is that these very same carriers are, somewhat ironically, exceedingly risk-averse. They pat themselves on the backs and tell each other how smart they are when their bets go well ("Ha! We got $2M in premium for that satellite launch and didn't have to pay out a penny") and they are very quick to play Monday Morning Quarterback when their bets go wrong, especially when it's the first launch ("Johnson, you are a foolish underwriter. How could you write that risk? Get off the risk immediately.")
As frustrating as it is, I wouldn't be surprised if they either cancelled the policy (if the policy covered multiple launches) or non-renewed after this failure and claim the risk profile changed or something like that.
Another tidbit from the last article: the form of deductible on such a policy.
"Orbcomm [...] said the insurance policy covering the six satellites includes a one-satellite deductible, a condition Orbcomm filled early this year when one of the spacecraft suffered a power failure."
Maybe. The launch manifest lists "ORBCOMM - Multiple Flights" between 2012 and 2014. Their insurance will probably go down if their sats are the primary payload.
