That’s what I don’t get. Why wasn’t the insurance company given the cash from the start?
The insurance company paid off the bank’s claim, in exchange for which they had title to the embezzled assets. When the assets were recovered they belonged to the insurance company, not the bank, who were “made whole” by accepting the insurance payment. In the not unlikely event that the assets had depreciated, the insurance company would have been out of luck. I recall reading about other cases like this in the U.S. where the insurance company happily kept the full value of the appreciated asset.