Number 81. That is where Garrett Nussmeier ranked on the New York Times board before the 2026 NFL Draft.
Number 249. That’s where the Kansas City Chiefs selected him, 168 picks later, in the seventh round.
Unfortunately, the income protection product the specialty Lloyd’s market built specifically for that kind of slide, pre-draft loss-of-value coverage, does not apply to his situation.
The threshold requires first-round projection. Nussmeier’s board position put him in Round 3. That is one round too low, and 168 picks too far from where LOV stops. The disability insurance gap this creates extends across the full 2026 draft class at every tier, as covered in the income protection exposure facing every 2026 NFL rookie from Day 1 through Day 3.
Pre-draft loss-of-value coverage is the specialty market’s answer to what happens when a highly rated prospect falls on draft night. The underwriter sets a loss threshold based on the player’s projected contract value.
For a consensus top-10 pick, that threshold might be set at $13 million in expected rookie contract value. If the player falls far enough, to the third or fourth round, a claim begins to accrue, making up the contract differential up to the policy maximum.
The product exists because draft slides are real, they cost players millions in guaranteed money, and the specialty Lloyd’s market saw the actuarial case for addressing them.
The product is also limited to players projected in the first round. For players and advisors working through income protection for professional football players at the pre-draft stage, that boundary is where the LOV conversation stops, and it stops before it reaches the players whose slides are often the most dramatic.
Garrett Nussmeier, the Louisiana State University quarterback who entered the 2026 draft cycle as a consensus Round 3 projection, was selected 249th overall by the Kansas City Chiefs on a compensatory pick traded from Indianapolis to Pittsburgh and then to Kansas City. His four-year contract is worth $4,365,480 total, with a signing bonus of $120,480 and $915,120 in Year 1. The slide from his projected slot to his actual selection was 168 picks. Pre-draft LOV does not cover it. The product’s first-round threshold is the line Nussmeier’s board position did not cross.
Where the Pre-Draft LOV Threshold Actually Sits
Pre-draft loss-of-value coverage is not structured around how far a player falls. It is structured around where he was projected to land. A player projected in the first round who falls to the third round may have a claim. A player projected in the third round who falls to the seventh does not, regardless of how large the slide is in absolute terms.
The threshold has grown more conservative over the past decade as underwriters absorbed a high volume of claims.
Eric Chenowith, the chief executive of Leverage Disability and a specialty broker with 13 years of placement experience across all six Lloyd’s coverholders operating in the United States, described the current mechanics directly: a player projected number one overall now must fall out of the first round entirely before any pre-draft LOV benefit triggers.
Thirteen years ago, a consensus top-five pick who fell to pick 15 in contract value might have collected. That threshold no longer exists. Underwriters today want to see a material drop, not five spots, not ten spots, but a round-level fall.
For a player like Nussmeier, the pre-draft LOV conversation never opened. His board position required Round 3 contract value, not first-round contract value, and the specialty market does not write pre-draft LOV against Round 3 projections. The income protection options available to professional athletes at his tier do not include the product most directly responsive to what actually happened to him on draft night. The structure of that market, including which coverholders operate, how they price coverage, and where pre-draft LOV fits within it, is examined in how the specialty Lloyd’s disability insurance market for NFL players is structured.
Cade Klubnik, the Clemson University quarterback selected 110th overall by the New York Jets in Round 4, is in the same position. His four-year contract is worth $5,463,709 total, with a signing bonus of $1,218,709. His pre-draft LOV eligibility is identical to Nussmeier’s: zero. Klubnik was not a first-round projection. The LOV threshold was never available to him.
What the Specialty Market Does Offer at This Tier
The absence of pre-draft LOV eligibility at Day 3 does not mean the specialty market has nothing. It means the relevant products are different, and the sequencing is different.
Permanent total disability coverage is available to Day 3 picks after they make the 53-man active roster. The roster condition is an underwriting requirement, not a timing coincidence. A player who is released in final cuts before the regular season has not established a professional earning trajectory the specialty market can underwrite against. PTD requires demonstrable professional income to replace. For Nussmeier and Klubnik, that conversation belongs in the weeks after the roster cut, not at the draft table. Quarterbacks price favorably for PTD, approximately $8,000 to $10,000 per million of coverage, relative to linebackers, defensive linemen, and running backs, because the position carries a lower physical contact profile.
For players who never reach that cut, the window closes before PTD ever applies. Zach Brunner, founder of Flurry Sports, described a player he knows personally who followed that arc: “He was the classic example. Star high school quarterback, went to play Division I football, barely snuck into the NFL Draft. He got to play in the preseason a little bit, and that was about it. Never heard from again, really. I think he sells insurance now.”
Critical injury coverage is structured differently. CI pays a named benefit on a specific qualifying injury, from $50,000 for a torn hamstring to $1 million for an ACL tear, Achilles tear, or Tommy John surgery, without requiring career-ending disability. It can be stacked alongside PTD and is the most accessible specialty product available during the period between signing and the roster cut. A Day 3 quarterback who initiates the coverage process at signing and gets CI in force before training camp has addressed the named-injury risk during the preseason window. PTD addresses the career-ending risk once the roster condition is satisfied.
Neither product addresses what the draft slide itself cost. The contract differential between Nussmeier’s projected Round 3 slot and his actual Round 7 contract is in the millions. Pre-draft LOV was designed for exactly that differential. It stops one round short of where his projection sat.
The Rate That Locks in Before the Career Does
One feature of non-cancellable disability coverage matters specifically at Day 3. Underwriting occurs at application, not at claim. A policy issued to a player is non-cancellable for its term. The underwriting terms, the rate, the exclusions, and the coverage structure, are set once, based on the player’s medical history and professional status at the time of application.
For a seventh-round quarterback, the application moment is also the cheapest moment. He is as young as he will ever be. His injury history is as clean as it will ever be. His professional profile is that of a Day 3 pick, and his premium is priced accordingly. If his career develops, those terms do not reset.
Brock Purdy, the Iowa State University quarterback selected 262nd overall as Mr. Irrelevant in the 2022 NFL Draft by the San Francisco 49ers, became the team’s full-time starter and led San Francisco to the NFC Championship Game in his first season. The financial reality behind that arc was more constrained than the outcome suggests.
“He had a roommate because he couldn’t afford to live in San Francisco without one,” said Zach Brunner, founder of Flurry Sports, in an interview for the Income Protection Journal. “He wore a polo and jeans while teammates wore expensive outfits. He was certainly protective of what he did off the field, protective of his health on the field, so he could get to that second contract.”
Dak Prescott, the Mississippi State University quarterback selected 135th overall by the Dallas Cowboys in Round 4 of the 2016 draft, won the AP Offensive Rookie of the Year award and signed a subsequent extension that placed him among the highest-paid quarterbacks in the league. A CI or PTD policy purchased against their Day 3 profiles would have been underwritten against those profiles permanently.
Pre-draft LOV would not have applied to either player. Purdy was not a first-round projection. Prescott was not a first-round projection. The product the specialty market built for draft slides stopped before it reached them. What remained was the same set of tools available to Nussmeier and Klubnik: PTD after the roster cut, CI before it, and underwriting terms set at the moment when the rate was lowest and the career had not yet defined itself.
The income protection market for professional football players has a ceiling on what it will do for a player whose board position puts him in Round 3. It has no floor on what that player’s career might become.