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Mixed-use mega venue projects create a whole new ball game for insurers - Business Insurance Skip to content Register for free Search Search Log In Risk Management Cyber Risks Pricing Trends Mergers & Acquisitions Technology Sponsored Content WSIA RISKWORLD Workers Comp & Safety Workers Comp Cost Control Pain Management Workplace Safety International EMEA Asia-Pacific Latin America People Events BI Intelligence Top 100 Agents & Brokers Best Places to Work 2025 Lists Directories Insurance Pricing BI Stock Index Magazine Current Issue Past Issues Subscribe Women to Watch ALL INsurance Resources Risk Perspectives Sponsored Content Webinars White Papers Risk Management Cyber Risks Pricing Trends Mergers & Acquisitions Technology Sponsored Content WSIA RISKWORLD Workers Comp & Safety Workers Comp Cost Control Pain Management Workplace Safety International EMEA Asia-Pacific Latin America People Events BI Intelligence Top 100 Agents & Brokers Best Places to Work 2025 Lists Directories Insurance Pricing BI Stock Index Magazine Current Issue Past Issues Subscribe Women to Watch ALL INsurance Resources Risk Perspectives Sponsored Content Webinars White Papers Risk Management Cyber Risks Pricing Trends Mergers & Acquisitions Technology Sponsored Content WSIA RISKWORLD Workers Comp & Safety Workers Comp Cost Control Pain Management Workplace Safety International EMEA Asia-Pacific Latin America People Events BI Intelligence Top 100 Agents & Brokers Best Places to Work 2025 Lists Directories Insurance Pricing BI Stock Index Magazine Current Issue Past Issues Subscribe Women to Watch ALL INsurance Resources Risk Perspectives Sponsored Content Webinars White Papers Risk Management Cyber Risks Pricing Trends Mergers & Acquisitions Technology Sponsored Content WSIA RISKWORLD Workers Comp & Safety Workers Comp Cost Control Pain Management Workplace Safety International EMEA Asia-Pacific Latin America People Events BI Intelligence Top 100 Agents & Brokers Best Places to Work 2025 Lists Directories Insurance Pricing BI Stock Index Magazine Current Issue Past Issues Subscribe Women to Watch ALL INsurance Resources Risk Perspectives Sponsored Content Webinars White Papers Mixed-use mega venue projects create a whole new ball game for insurers by Matthew Lerner The Sphere, completed in 2023, is a music and entertainment venue in Las Vegas that features a fully programmable 580,000-square-foot LED display, the largest LED screen on Earth./Nick Fox/Shutterstock.com Agents and Brokers , Current Issue , P/C Insurers Aon , Hub International , Marsh & McLennan Mar 1, 2026 As sports and entertainment complexes grow larger and more multifunctional, brokers and insurers must grapple with broader and more complex risk profiles. These so-called mega venues now frequently encompass multiple components, blending live events with shopping, dining and other activities. The largest of the new breed of destinations, such as California’s SoFi Stadium, home to the Los Angeles Rams and Chargers, and Atlanta’s Centennial Yards, are starting to incorporate residential units, opening a new front of risk exposures (see related story below). Others, such as The Sphere in Las Vegas incorporates significant technological features. “It does change the risk profile when you have that kind of mixed use,” said Warren Harper, Atlanta-based global sports and events practice leader and a managing director at Marsh USA, a division of Marsh Risk. Mr. Harper cited the Atlanta Braves Truist Park venue. “You have the baseball stadium, you have shops and restaurants. People go hang out at the Battery just to eat the food, and don’t even go into the game, and you’ve got residential areas surrounding that as well,” he said. The venues require more insurance capacity, said Kelsey Closson, Fort Wayne, Indiana-based vice president of recreation for Aon unit K&K Insurance. “They’re purchasing more liability limits than they have in the past,” she said. In general, liability line sizes have contracted over the past several years, so more work is required to build coverage towers, Ms. Closson said. “The limits are there, it just takes more time than it might have in the past” to build the tower, she said. The emergence of mega venues changes the risk profile compared with legacy stadiums, said Lucy Straker, Charleston, South Carolina-based focus group leader-U.S. political violence and deadly weapons protection at Beazley. For example, mega venues face more complex evacuation and shelter-in-place challenges in the event of a threat like an active assailant, Ms. Straker said. Increasingly, stadium owners buy affirmative coverage for such exposures, she said. Coverage can include pre-incident risk mitigation consulting and crisis management for any event. “The key thing that we stress to our clients, whatever size and scope you are, is that you need to be prepared,” Ms. Straker said. Marsh’s Mr. Harper also stressed the importance of preparation, especially when interacting with stadium security and local law enforcement. “Communication protocols, issue or incident-elevation protocols, all of that should be sorted out and practiced and trained on before the fact, so in case something does go wrong, there’s a clear chain of command and a clear response protocol,” he said. Overlapping and sometimes shared exposures all must be managed. “How do you address things from a public safety perspective and from a security perspective, not only within the venue itself, within the sporting competition venue, but the surrounding areas,” Mr. Harper said, adding that the lines of demarcation must be clear for all involved. Tabletop exercises can help identify exposure scenarios and potential answers to open questions about responsibility and liability, he said. “It does get much more complicated, from a risk and insurance perspective, especially from a claims management perspective,” he said. In addition to overlapping exposures, the complexity of larger venues can lead to coverage gaps, said Rebecca Gitig, Los Angeles-based U.S. head of primary liability for Aspen. “Traditional general liability policies don’t contemplate tech-driven exposures,” she said. “A lot of these mega venues and experiential destinations may utilize a lot of artificial intelligence, so biometric cyber liability and tech errors and omissions coverage are important,” Ms. Gitig said. Such coverages generally aren’t included in GL policies, she said. “If you don’t consider all the available coverages and ensure that they speak to each other, then you’re leaving the insurance open for potential gaps in coverage,” she said. There is a shift from stadium risk to what is referred to as “complex district ecosystems,” which can include stadiums, retail, hotels, residential and transit, said Robert Benvenuto, Chicago-based chief growth officer for Hub International. To help policyholders better represent their risks to insurers, Hub encourages them to enroll in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Support Anti-terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies Act program, which caps liabilities for venue owners and operators that deploy approved technologies to help make facilities more resistant to damage from terrorist attacks. The application process for SAFETY Act certification can be a valuable risk management tool for venues, serving as a comprehensive roadmap for exposure and threat evaluation, Mr. Benvenuto said. Akmal Ali, Washington-based founder and CEO of Aluma Risk, a risk management and security consulting firm that specializes in the SAFETY Act program, was deputy director of the program. Mr. Ali works with Hub to encourage destination venue and stadium clients to embrace the program for its potential benefits in managing exposures and the thorough risk management review provided by the application process. That review can be used to bolster submissions to insurers, he said. Aerial view of SoFi Stadium, Jan. 19, 2026, in Los Angeles./Reuters Venue owners shift approach, restructure coverage to handle complex emerging liability exposures Some of the newest and largest entertainment and sports complexes and venues feature adjacent residential developments, requiring additional insurance coverage. More people and places creates more risk, said Rebecca Gitig, Los Angeles-based U.S. head of primary liability for Aspen. “There’s more common areas to monitor, there’s more escalators, there’s more elevators, there’s more sidewalks, more stairwells. Each of these are a potential source of injury,” she said. “If people are living there 24/7, you have to be ready to plan for those types of risks at any given point.” Venue owners will often set up separate entities or corporations for each element of a complex to “compartmentalize” operations and then buy insurance separately for each unit, said Warren Harper, Atlanta-based global sports and events practice leader and a managing director at Marsh USA, a unit of Marsh Risk. The venue’s residential sections typically have different points of egress than other areas of the complexes, “so you can compartmentalize it that way, and the insurance can follow,” said Kelsey Closson, Fort Wayne, Indiana-based vice president of recreation for Aon unit K&K Insurance. 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