Michigan State University has more than $300 million in liability insurance coverage to help offset the cost of the $500 million legal settlement for victims of Larry Nassar, according to MSU’s top legal counsel.

The challenge has been getting the insurers to pay up, says Robert Young, MSU’s general counsel and vice president for legal affairs.

The university is now in mediation with insurance companies that provided liability policies during the two decades of Nassar’s employment with MSU. Nassar molested hundreds of patients as a MSU sports-medicine doctor from 1997 until he was fired in 2016.

Mediation is expected to be completed in late February, Young said.

Last May, MSU agreed to pay $500 million to settle lawsuits filed by Nassar victims, and the money was paid in December. Michigan State financed the settlement with bonds, which they hope will be partially reimbursed by insurance settlements.

To that end, Michigan State filed a lawsuit in July against 13 insurance companies that held MSU liability policies. That suit, filed in Ingham County Circuit Court, is on hold until the conclusion of mediation, Young said.

United Educators, which provided MSU with liability insurance from 2000 to the present, is the company that provided the most liability coverage, Young said.

In its lawsuit, MSU noted that United Educators “actively promoted its policies' coverage of the types of claims at issue in this case.”

United Educators' “coverage highlights” include liability coverage for “sexual or physical abuse or molestation” and added personal injury coverage for sexual harassment to its plan in 1999 “recognizing this would have (UE’s general liability policies) encompass the sexual-assault related nature of Title IX claims,” the suit said.

But in the Nassar case, United Educators has been “grotesque in its refusal to pay its indemnity or pay for our defense," Young said. “We fronted the entire cost of defense. This has all been in the university’s nickel.”

A spokesperson for United Educators declined comment.

Young said that MSU’s ongoing litigation with insurers is the big reason that Michigan State was claiming attorney-client privilege on some communications sought by William Forysth, the special prosecutor leading a state investigation into Michigan State’s handling of the Nassar controversy.

Forysth accused Michigan State of “stonewalling” the state investigation, citing overuse of attorney-client privilege as an example.

Young’s response: Once attorney-client privilege is waived in one circumstances, it’s waived in all circumstances, which means any documents shared with Forsyth’s team must be made available to others, including the insurers that MSU is suing.

“I’m sure our insurance carriers would love to know what advice we’re getting from lawyers” in regards to the Nassar situation, Young said.

“We have more than $300 million in insurance benefits that should be paid to us,” Young said. “There’s no reason for us to walk away from that" or do anything that would undermine MSU’s lawsuit against the insurers.

Insurance companies named in the lawsuit and the periods in which they insured MSU are: