Lost Olympic medal? There’s insurance for that!

Snowboard virtuoso Shaun White once misplaced his Olympic medal. This year, a major national carrier is picking up the bill.

Insurance News

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The ginger-haired, snowboarding wunderkind Shaun White once misplaced one of his two Olympic medals. It later emerged that his mother—distressed by the dirty ribbon—had taken the gold medal to the drycleaners to be cleaned.

The medal came back, fresh as new, but for other, less fortunate Olympians, a lost medal doesn’t come with a replacement—unless the athlete files a request through the US Olympic Committee and foots the bill themselves.

That won’t be the case for 2014 and 2016 Olympians and Paralympians, however. Liberty Mutual Insurance has partnered with the US Olympic Committee to provide a “road to medal replacement” for those on the “Road to Sochi.”

According to the insurer, it plans to “protect our athletes’ greatest reward” by insuring every gold, silver or bronze medal brought home by an American.

“For Team USA athletes who have dedicated their lives to their sport so they can someday rise to the podium, a medal is the ultimate reward for their hard work and training,” said Liberty Mutual spokesman Paul Alexander. “Every medal is meaningful to our country and the athlete who earned the right to wear it, and we are proud to support and protect what matters most to people…[including] a medal won during the Sochi 2014 Olympic and Paralympic Games.”

Liberty Mutual will reimburse athletes for the cost of a missing or damaged medal, insuring Olympians are “not financially responsible to replace their treasured prizes.”

Olympic medalists will likely appreciate the peace of mind that comes with protecting their piece of gold. Speedskater Patrick Meek, however, told USA Today he plans never to have need for such a payout if he wins a medal.

“My friend Travis Jayner doesn’t consider his Olympic medal his. It’s the US’s,” Meek said. “He passes it around. It gets chipped. He gives his medal for people to hold. That’s what I would do. It’s the nation’s medal.”

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