The Toronto Pan Am Games begin the summer of 2015 – but the work on putting together an insurance package for more than 10,000 participants has already started.
“It will be bigger than the 1976 Olympics, with 51 sports in 40 to 50 venues in 17 different municipalities, with more than 10,000 athletes, coaches and officials,” says Mark Woodall, president and CEO of Special Risk Insurance Managers. “The Summer Olympics and Asian Games are the only ones larger. We’re talking about a lot of human beings and a lot of co-ordination.”
Special Risk Insurance Managers were one of some 30 individual companies bidding on the right to insure the Games, and the only one with a head office located outside of Ontario.
“We won the right to be the liability and accident providers for the Games,” beams Woodall, “which is a coup for our organization. But now, the amount of work to be done between now and then will be phenomenal.”
Woodall is counting on his past experience as a representative of Lloyd’s insurance.
“I represent them in Canada. I’ve been dealing with Lloyds for over 20 years, so there is a real trust between Lloyds and myself that we will do things right,” he says. “They insured the 2010 Winter Olympics (Vancouver); they insured the Greece Olympics (summer 2004); they insured the World Cup; they insure many of the Formula 1 events.”
At the peak of the Games, there will be 1,000 Pan American vehicles on the road, and a multitude of buses. (continued.)
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“It will be a big risk. Moving them around with traffic is huge,” says Woodall. “I was in Toronto just recently, and the Gardiner Parking Lot, the Don Valley Parking Lot (jokingly referring to the notoriously busy bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway) I grew up in Scarborough, and I got to tell you – things have changed dramatically in the 20 years I’ve been out here.”
Beyond the issues of transit between venues, dealing with the unique issue of language and accessibility to insurance information will need to be addressed.
“We’re going to have to create a website for all of their medical assistance. Deal with numerous languages, just for the claims,” he says. “There will be a dedicated website for the insurance information, because we are going to insure the volunteers, coverage for the participants. We just haven’t finalized with the organizing committee how that is going to be set up – but it is being set up as we speak.”
Woodall himself had insured the Canadian Football League through Lloyds for a number of years, and understands that if there is a negative experience associated with insurance – it can reflect on the sport itself.
“The key thing is with the Games, that if you have a negative experience that is associated with insurance, it can detract significantly from the Games itself,” he told Insurance Business online. “When you have the amount of people that you will have at these venues, you are going to have incidents – people slip and fall and be injured. You are unfortunately going to have things fall on people, you are going to have some claims, there’s no question about it. (continued.)
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“The key thing is not only selling the right policy, but making sure you have the right claims process in place to immediate deal with that, so it doesn’t become a distraction to the games.”
Such an incident that was contained was just prior to the Vancouver Winter Olympics, when Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili died during a training run.
“Without that being handled in the manner in which it was, it could have had a significant negative impact on the Games itself,” says Woodall. “But the Olympic committee, and the insurance company, handled it very well.”
It is that example that instills confidence in Woodall, who welcomes the insurance expertise from the Vancouver Olympics on the Pan Am Games team.
“The same guy who handled the Games claims will be handling the claims program for the Pan Am Games,” he says. “And that is the strength of Lloyds. They see so much; I have many large accounts throughout Canada that are high risk, and we have the experience to deal with them. I’ve been dealing with Lloyds for over 20 years, there is a real trust between Lloyds and myself that we will do things right.”
Insuring events like the Pan Am Games isn’t for everyone, Woodall points out, as insurers can do everything right and still come out on the short end of the stick.
“Doing things right doesn’t always mean profitable,” he says. “We’ve had scenarios where we’ve done everything right and still lost money on them.”
But his relationship with Lloyds is based on an intimate understanding of the risk involved, he says. (continued.)
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“Lloyds will ask, ‘Did we do it right? Yup. And we lost money? Unfortunately yeah.’ But Lloyds understands the risk. They understand that you are going to have good days and bad days,” says Woodall. “And that is the difference between Lloyds and the domestic insurers, as we call them.”
He points out that big ticket items like the Pan Am Games attracts insurers, purely from a premium perspective.
“Some are attracted by the premium levels. But they don’t always understand what they are writing,” he says. “An example is if you are insuring a business, and someone comes in and a customer slips and falls, then that’s covered. But when you insure your business and an employee gets injured, that’s not always covered. In sports, you are insuring everybody. And when you get hit with a claim, it’s a good one!”
Using the CFL as an example, when a player gets injured, they can sue their employer, and the policy will cover.
“It is what is called participant coverage,” says Woodall. “Very few people in Canada actually write participant coverage. I’ve been doing this since around the late 1980s.”
Besides experience insuring sports teams and events, Woodall is one of the rare few who has worn both claims and underwriting hats.
“I’ve worked both the claims side and the underwriting side for over 20 years,” he says. “So I see what happens with certain accounts. And have the ability to hopefully do it and do it right.”
