Boston 2024’s pledge to shield taxpayers from cost over-runs is drawing scrutiny, as organizers hope to cover those costs with insurance.
Boston 2024 Chairman Steve Pagliuca says they don’t expect any cost over-runs. Developers are expected to buy their own insurance policies, and Boston 2024 would have a blanket policy with a $128 million premium.
“And it’s going to be multiple layers of insurance to protect the taxpayers if anything goes wrong on the revenues or the expenses,” he says.
But where they’d find such insurance is an open question. “From what we’ve seen, it is a pretty new and novel concept,” says Dan Hodge of the UMass Donahue Institute, which recently published an analysis of a Boston 2024 Games.
Hodge says that may be why there aren’t many details about the insurance plan, including how much it’s worth and what specifically it would cover.
“As I understand, they’re trying to work towards finding actual insurers and putting an actual program like this in place.”
Boston 2024 says they are retaining a broker to seek proposals and begin negotiations for insurance coverage.
