As the summer sporting season gets into full swing, top events like the Olympic Games and Euro 2004 will be hoping that the weather turns out to be more clement than the notoriously fickle insurance market.
Major sports events have become multi-billion dollar, profit-making showcase enterprises, making ever more costly financial protection against cancellation a must.
Although countries hosting the Games or broadcasters have taken out insurance over the years, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has insured itself against cancellation for the first time for the Athens Olympics in August.
"It's better to have this and not need it, than to need it and not have it," IOC finance commission chief Richard Carrion explained.
"I'd be less than honest if I didn't say that terrorism wasn't a big factor," he added.
But insurers, for whom earthquakes and floods have always been a concern, were worried about terror strikes years before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York rattled markets.
The IOC had to fish around for a decent policy and price with a Lloyds syndicate. And the Olympic overseers were also lucky that they had endorsed the deal in February, a month before the train blasts in Madrid.
"I think it would have been very difficult to go out and get the capacity then. Fortunately we had found enough capacity so the price was not altered," Carrion said.
UEFA, European football's governing body, has not insured itself against cancellation of June's Euro 2004 tournament, although the Portuguese hosts have taken precautions for an undisclosed amount.
"We shopped around. We never found anything that was really adequate in terms of cancellation or postponement insurance," said UEFA spokesman William Gaillard.
Unlike the Olympics, UEFA's financial exposure is more limited because it has other tournaments to provide revenue through the years.
And other countries in Europe are equipped to take over organizing the flagship four-yearly event within months, according to Gaillard.
"There could be a revenue delay. But it would take place eventually -- barring Europe collapsing into the Atlantic Ocean," he added.
In 2001, Axa Insurance sent FIFA into a tailspin after the Sept. 11 attacks when it cancelled US$850 million worth of cover just before the World Cup in Japan and South Korea because of security concerns.
After quickly cobbling together cover with another insurance company for an undisclosed premium FIFA now shuns insurance and hedges against cancellation on financial markets.
Insurers say the more difficult climate for big sports or entertainment events now is a better reflection of reality than the buyer's insurance market that existed in recent years.
"There was a soft market and many events were covered by insufficient premiums. We did not participate in some risks because we thought they were not sufficiently priced," said an insurance expert who asked not to be named.
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