Mutual of Omaha: Don't climb on the swimmer, or else

12 feet tall, 25 feet wide and 16 feet deep

Mutual of Omaha has scrimped and saved enough claims denial dollars to again import two Olympic­sized swimming pools from Castiglione, Italy for assembly in the Century Link Center, with enough left over to extrava­gantly promote its second Omaha Swimvita­tional, which will serve as the trials venue for the 2012 US Olympic team to be sent to the London Olympics.
     Even Mutual's locally famous underground cafeteria (beneath the dome in the picture below) has been redecorated with underwater murals and suspended bubbles.
     The rather creepy whachamacallit has instantly become a magnet for tourists. AKSARBENT saw a group of Japanese fun-seekers snapping away. One, a young woman, posed with her finger inside one of the sculpture's nostrils. Evidently, Japanese women are not as demure as AKSARBENT has been led to believe.
     The trials start Monday and are expected to draw 13,000 people to the Century Link Center even as up to 24,000 people attend the last game/s of the College World Series to be played two blocks away in TD Ameritrade Park. (If you're traveling to NoDo (north downtown) on Monday, for god's sake take a bus.)

     In the 60s Mutual of Omaha became a household name in America via its sponsorship of Wild Kingdom, in which Marlin Perkins, of the St. Louis Zoo, relentlessly pimped Mutual's products (which used to include major medical) with famously awkward segues.

     Even more awkward would have been the revelation to millions of viewers that neither Perkins nor his handsome assistant, Jim Fowler, were insurable, according to the guidelines of the company which sponsored, then syndicated their program.

OCCUPATIONAL RATE CLASSIFICATIONS FOREWORD 

This section of the Mutual of Omaha Underwriting Guidelines is designed to assist in the proper occupational rating classification of applicants for Disability (DI), Accident and Major Medical (MM) insurance engaged in the most frequently encountered occupations...

     CLASS N These occupations are uninsurable due to a history of unacceptable claims experience, excessive accident or health hazards, and little or no earned income or job stability. Examples of risks unacceptable for DI coverage would be Unemployed or Retired persons, Part-time workers (working less than 30 hours per week), active Military Personnel, Airline Flight Attendants and non-salaried Authors or Writers. Examples of risk unacceptable for Major Medical would be Tree Trimmers or Garbage Collectors. See the TPG for each product line to determine which classes are eligible for that coverage type.

How Mutual promoted US Swimming in 2008.
At least nothing moved.

Wretched excess, the sequel: Below, one of Mutual of Omaha's Headquarter buildings, 14 stories and 285 feet high, looks north over Farnam Street and now provides a 70,000 sq. ft. nightly tableau for a six-minute 3D projection mapping presentation promoting the 2012 U.S. Olympic Team Swim Trials. The program loops from 9:30 to 11:30.