2025 Super Bowl LIX: Insuring the Big Game
By Michael Giusti
With the 2025 Super Bowl right around the corner, the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles aren’t the only ones with high stakes. An army of insurers, risk managers, and underwriters also are keeping a close eye on everything going on, hoping it will all go according to the playbook.
Insurance plays a big role in major events like the Super Bowl. From insuring the stadium infrastructure to protecting attendees, teams and vendors, insurers are involved in mitigating all types of risks surrounding the big game.
Plans to insure Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans, which will be held Sunday Feb. 9, began years in advance. And beyond making sure risks are insured, underwriters have been working closely with the event organizers and risk managers to try to prevent a claim in the first place.
This team has been evaluating everything from how to avoid slip and fall accidents while fans are entering and exiting the stadium to what the plan would be to evacuate the venue if it lost power or otherwise had to be cleared. They have been working on plans for how to prevent performers from opening the broadcast network up for a defamation claim or from starting a fire with their in-show pyrotechnics. And they have even been working on preventing and responding to worst-case scenarios of terrorism, like the New Years Day attack on Bourbon Street.
Insuring the Super Bowl is a team sport itself — no single insurer will shoulder all the risk. Different insurers will protect against property damage, while others will protect against event cancelations, and others business risks. Even within some categories, risks are split between multiple insurers.
Insurance for the stadium/game
Luck smiled on New Orleans when it delivered the historic snowstorm three weeks before the Super Bowl, rather than during the big event. Had the 10 inches of snow fallen on the city — which doesn’t even own a single snowplow — in the days before the game, chaos would have ensued.
If a weather event did cancel the game, event cancellation policies would kick in to help cover much of the costs already spent by the league and the host committee in their pre-event planning, as well as to help make plans to relocate or postpone the game to a later date after the snow melted.
When it comes to the stadium itself, the Super Dome, the NFL, the teams, and many other entities with risk exposure will carry general liability policies. These general liability policies are typically written in layers, meaning a primary insurer will pick up the first $10 million or so, and then a second insurer would take another tranche, and so on.
The general liability policies offer protection ranging from bodily injuries to spectator safety, to damage to the venue, to defamation or advertising injury, and even copyright infringement, among other relevant areas.
The media liability portions of the policy protect the various stakeholders in case the performers defame someone or commit a copyright violation during their performance. It would also cover any fines or penalties resulting from something like a wardrobe malfunction.
The advertising liability would kick in if a million-dollar ad spot failed to air or something else goes wrong with them.
The host committee, the league, and the teams also will be carrying directors and officers liability coverage – in case something goes wrong with the event and the executives are blamed for being negligent.
When it comes to terrorism, the insurers typically aren’t on the hook directly. Instead, the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act created the federal Terrorism Risk Insurance Program, which backstops private insurance coverage and covers terrorism in much the same way as federal flood policies pick up the risk for flood damage.
Insurance for the players and the teams
It makes sense if you think about it, but the athletes playing on the field are employees doing a job. So, their injuries are covered by the teams’ workers’ compensation programs just like anyone else injured at the workplace.
If a player is injured, workers’ compensation — along with the player’s team-provided health insurance — will pay for everything from the MRI to the X-rays, and even the rehab program.
Workers’ compensation will also cover a portion of the player’s salary while they are unable to play, though nowhere near the multimillion-dollar paychecks most people think of. For that, the players’ contracts are typically guaranteed by the team while they are rehabbing their injury. However, after the injury is rehabbed, or if the player is deemed to be injured to the point they cannot return, the team is only on the hook for the rest of that year’s pay (plus any money in the contract that is guaranteed, such as a signing bonus.)
At that point the team can cut the player, and the rest of the contract is void.
For the guaranteed money, the teams can buy insurance policies to keep them from having to pay out for a player who can’t hit the field — which many more are doing now than in years past. These contract insurance policies are expensive, but they ensure the team isn’t on the hook for the tens of millions of dollars found in today’s contracts.
As a bonus for the team, if a contract is insured and the team gets reimbursed by the insurer, the way the NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement is written, that money doesn’t count against the team’s salary cap.
Insurance for the entertainment
When people think of the Super Bowl, many just think of the 60-minute game along with their legendary ads — and maybe Taylor Swift. But Super Bowl festivities last for more than a week, with things like fan experiences, festivals, concerts, parties, and a whole slew of things around the city that need insurance.
For all of these activities, special events insurance policies go a long way to protect everyone involved.
For the on-field entertainment during the game, entertainers typically are responsible for their own insurance and that of their support staff. That would include liability coverage in case they accidentally do damage to the stadium – whether that be the playing field where their stage was rolled out for the halftime show, or whether it is a fire risk from pyrotechnics.
They would also carry workers’ compensation in case a roadie or a backup dancer were to be injured during the performance.
They likely also have to carry their own media liability coverage in case a performer were to perform a song that hypothetically defamed a rival, resulting in a suit against the performer, or even the TV network for airing it, or the league for inviting them.
Insurance for the fans
If people are lucky enough to attend the game in person, there are a few insurance policies they might consider buying to mitigate their risk.
For attendees, travel insurance can cover their trip to and from the host city, as well as the accommodations while they are there.
Ticket insurance is available from a few insurers as well as through some ticket marketplaces that would step in if an accident or other unavoidable event kept the attendee from attending the game. Though ticket insurance doesn’t typically cover an event that gets canceled. For a canceled event, ticketholders generally need to pursue a refund from the venue.
Homeowners and auto insurance can help protect tailgaters if something were to happen at a pre-game celebration. Homeowners policies protect against liability in case the fan damages anything or hurts anyone. Comprehensive auto policies protect against damage to the vehicle.
Health insurance would have to kick in if an attendee were injured, though if the event is outside their home health care network, the health portion of a travel insurance policy would be handy to keep those bills from piling up.
Fans can even “insure” their bets, though calling it insurance is a bit of a stretch. Bet insurance is not insurance in the traditional sense. Instead, it is offered by the sports book to protect against things like longshot parlays that don’t come completely to fruition.
There is even fantasy sports insurance for instant fantasy games in case a particular player ends up getting injured.
Often these policies pay out in credits for future bets, rather than cash. But even if they pay cash, they are more of a promotion than a true insurance policy.
If the fans can’t attend in person but still want to celebrate the action, there are still some relevant insurance policies they might keep in mind.
If the Super Bowl party is at someone’s home, homeowners insurance would step in to protect many of the risks here. Homeowners’ policies would cover injuries to the guests as well as any damage to the home by something like a kitchen fire or a chair flying through a sliding glass door.
The medical payments provision of the homeowners policy would offer the homeowner protection if someone at the event had to be rushed to the emergency room due to something like a medical allergy from something in the dip, or if they were to fall off the couch, breaking a hip.
Medical payment provisions are for smaller no-fault claims if someone is injured or becomes ill in the home. They cover up to a limit – often $5,000 — as a good-faith gesture to ensure the issue is cleared up amicably and a lawsuit might be avoided.
In some states the party host is liable if a guest overindulges in their home and then gets into an accident as they were driving home. In these cases, the homeowners policy would typically protect the homeowner with what is called a social host liability provision.
If the host rents the home rather than owns it, renters insurance policies generally include all the protections a homeowners policy would.
If the event is being held outside the home – say a neighborhood recreation area or in the street for a block party, the owner of the venue, such as the homeowners association, would have a general liability policy. But it is also a good idea for the sponsors of the event to look at a special events insurance policy that could protect them if something were to go wrong and they were held liable.
Insurance for businesses
If businesses wine and dine clients by bringing them to a suite at the Super Bowl, they need to make sure their corporate policies extend to the venue. Some business insurance policies specify that they only cover specific geographic locations. In that case, they may need to buy a separate policy or a floater to cover the off-site activities, just in case something goes wrong and one of the business guests gets injured.
Each Super Bowl vendor will be required to carry their own policies, ranging from liability to workers compensation.
And back at home, if a business were to use the game as a way to run a promotion based on the outcome of the event – say they would give away every mattress sold in January if a particular team won – then they could take out prize indemnity insurance, which would cushion the blow if they had to pay out that award.
For bars and restaurants, their general business liability insurance policy or a business owners policy would protect the establishments in similar ways a homeowners policy would protect a host in a home – damage to the venue or an injury to a patron or liquor liability. They also need to consider workers compensation for their employees.
Let the games begin
Although the risk managers and the insurers are working overtime making sure every contingency is covered, the biggest insurance story coming from the Super Bowl actually has to do with something that happened across the country. State Farm announced it was going to pull an ad it had planned to run during the game. Instead, it said it wanted to focus its efforts on the California wildfire recovery.
But for the rest of the industry, the focus is going to be on making sure everything goes off without a hitch.
Michael Giusti, MBA, is senior writer and analyst for InsuranceQuotes.com
