Kathmandu. The FIFA World Cup 2026 is unlike any sporting event the insurance industry has seen before. The event, which will be held in 16 cities across Canada, the United States and Mexico, is expected to have 6 million people and more than 100,000 security personnel deployed in three countries. This presents a huge risk management challenge. <\/p>\n
Torrence Brownyard, president of Brownyard Group in Bay Shore, New York, said the insurance industry is not taking the challenge lightly. “One estimate would be the equivalent of 80 simultaneous incidents,” Brownyard said. \u2019<\/p>\n
Brownyard’s message to ticket platforms and broadcasters for any Canadian entity involved in the competition to security contractors and local vendors working in Vancouver or Toronto is clear that existing coverage is almost certainly not enough. “Most standard policies will not be enough to cover this risk,” he said, adding that specialty insurance and non-enlisted carriers will have to intervene to meet specific needs. \u2019<\/p>\n
General liability is usually the first line of defense. But, Brownyard warned, “there are exclusions in many general liability policies, especially for large events.” \u2019<\/p>\n
Brownyard says insurance is a must for any organization involved in this World Cup. “Terrorism is at the top of the list of concerns faced by security firms. Then there’s crime and cyberattacks,” Brownyard said, adding that there are some incidents happening in Mexico that raise concerns about cartels. \u2019<\/p>\n
The full scope of property insurance, business disruption, terrorism, cyber liability, event cancellations and international and foreign liability coverage is vast. This is important because the competition is spread across three countries. Canadian insurance brokers should note that many domestic sellers may not have policies that extend beyond Canadian borders. Which prioritizes cross-border coverage verification. <\/p>\n
Cyber and Pandemic Threat High<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n }<\/p>\n The Paris Olympics provided a clear glimpse of what large-scale global events can do. During those games, cyberattacks targeted organizations involved in broadcasting, ticketing, fan apps and digital infrastructure. Brownyard said the risk was high, even if it wasn’t as big as it was at the World Cup. “Cyber liability needs to be given serious consideration, especially for organizations involved in ticketing, broadcasting, websites, apps or other digital infrastructure related to events,” he said. \u2019<\/p>\n Equally important is the risk of cancellation of the program due to health risks. Trade barrier policies often contain pandemic-related exclusions. This could prove to be financially disastrous for companies that have invested heavily in deals related to the World Cup. With people arriving from countries around the world, including the Canadian host city, Brownyard described the possibility of an outbreak as a current and real concern. “COVID has been around for a few years, but the uncertainty is real,” he said. It wasn’t for the previous World Cups. \u2019<\/p>\n While coverage is necessary to reduce risk, Brownyard said insurance alone will not cover all liability. “Legal strategies should also be used,” he said, adding that where possible, organizations should engage in risk mitigation through agreements, indemnity clauses and harmless agreements, while removing liability from their operations. \u2019<\/p>\n Workforce management is another pressure point. The sheer scale of the World Cup means that many organisations will have to significantly increase staffing. Brownyard also warned that cuts to recruitment, screening and training would increase their liability. “Putting untrained or unqualified people in situations that could cause harm is a serious risk in itself,” he said. \u2013Agency<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kathmandu. The FIFA World Cup 2026 is unlike any sporting event the insurance industry has seen before. The event, which will be held in 16 cities across Canada, the United States and Mexico, is expected to have 6 million people and more than 100,000 security personnel deployed in three countries. This presents a huge risk […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":302207,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45031,45044,45159],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-302233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banner-news-en","category-international-news-en","category-news-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302233"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":302234,"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302233\/revisions\/302234"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/media\/302207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}