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.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS