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Mayor Richard M Daley seeks to assure Chicagoans with insurance for 2016 Olympics
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The Chicago 2016 Olympic logo.
As the Olympic 2016 deadline nears, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley is seeking to assure taxpayers with one big item meant to give taxpayers peace of mind: insurance.
Mayor Richard Daley's Olympics team has fashioned a unique package of insurance for the 2016 Summer Games designed to protect taxpayers from an array of unforeseen events such as a terrorist attack, a stadium collapse or even a pandemic.
But insurance can't protect against human incompetence, poor performance or corruption, and there's still the unsettled issue of potential cost overruns at the proposed Olympic Village.
Despite assurances that taxpayers would be protected by added insurance policies -- promises made by Daley after agreeing this summer to an unlimited financial guarantee backing the games -- no insurance fully protects the city from the overruns that have plagued previous high-profile projects.
The Mayor and his team led by Patrick Ryan, have developed some innovative and "out of the box" ideas that will insure the games of its biggest fear with taxpayers: financial collapse.
Members of the team, led by insurance titan and Daley friend Patrick Ryan, even have developed novel policies that they said would protect taxpayers from the financial collapse of corporate sponsors and building contractors.
"This is all about sharing of risk between the public sector and the private sector in a different model than what other cities have done," said David Bolger, chief operating officer for the city's Olympic bid.
"What we've tried to say is we think there's a better approach where we share the risk. ...The burden's not all on the taxpayers," he said.
The heat will turn up as the International Olympic Committee meets in Copenhagen on Oct. 2, where the 100-plus members vote on the 2016 host city. And insurance is the buzzword. Chicago City Hall Examiner.
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