First, the case I was referring to is not the 1991 settlement you cite. It is the punitive damages litigation in a separate case that resulted in a $5 billion award in 1994 -- three years AFTER the litigation in the separate litigation you cite. Exxon appealed that punitive damages award and obtained a supersedeas, or appeal, bond covering the $5 billion potential liability, with a premium payment of $60 million. After taking its appeal all the way to the supreme court, the punitive damages award was reduced to $500 million in 2008. If Exxon had won a complete reversal of the punitive damages award, the plaintiffs would have been on the hook to reimburse Exxon for the $60 million premium. But the court held that despite having 90 percent of the original punitive awards reversed, the fact that it was only a partial win meant that Exxon wasn't entitled to reimbursement of its bond premium.
In any event, the point I was making, and that you apparently missed, is that Exxon was able to get a supersedeas bond covering a $5 billion judgment for a premium payment of less that 1.5 % of the amount of that liability. And its almost certain that the premium cost to Trump for his $90 million bond from Chubb isn't the 10 to 20 percent some posters are suggesting, but far less -- probably under $1 million.
I'm not sure why you think that the cost of the bond is the sum of the verdict plus the premium cost. The cost of the bond is what one pays to get an appeal bond.
If you are interested, you can find information about the history of the various cases that arose following the Exxon Valdez disaster and, in particular, the punitive damages litigation, from the following opinions-- just a few of the many decisions in the long history of the case.
2001: Ninth Circuit decision on appeal of 1994 award of $5 billion in punitive damages. In re Exxon Valdez, 270 F.3d 1215 (9th Cir. 2001)
https://casetext.com/case/in-re-the-exxon-valdez-3 2009:
2008: Supreme Court directs the lower court to reduce the punitive damages award to $500 million --Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker, 554 U.S. 471 (2008) https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-219.ZO.html
2009: The Ninth Circuit implements the Supreme Court's decision reducing the punitive damages award and discusses reimbursement of costs, including the appeal bond premium: In re The Exxon Valdez https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-9th-circuit/1105469.html
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