Paris 2024 Olympic Games: absence of event cancellation insurance

The Paris 2024 Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (OCOG) has not underwritten insurance to cover the risk of total or partial cancellation of the event.

This follows the increase in the cost of this coverage after the losses incurred at the Tokyo 2020 Games, which were postponed to 2021 because of Covid-19.

As a reminder, the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics resulted in losses amounting to 2 billion USD for insurance companies.

The rising cost of insurance against this type of risk, the lack of reinsurance capacity with the withdrawal of the major reinsurers, and the increase in the risks of natural disasters, pandemics, terrorism and riots are also among the reasons preventing the OCOG from obtaining cancellation coverage.

The Allianz group, the official insurer of the Paris Olympics, which will be held from 26 July to 11 August 2024, estimates that the total cost of the event will be 8.3 billion EUR (9 billion USD).