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Insuring the Big Game: Managing Third-Party Risk for Events

Insuring the Big Game: Managing Third-Party Risk for Events

| Don Halliwell

By Don Halliwell

With the “big game” around the corner, there are questions flying everywhere and there is an absolute ton of noise on the issue. 

Who will win? Will the halftime show be controversial or entertaining? The coin flip?

Bookies have odds for virtually everything – even the color of the Gatorade bath. And at the end of the day what is risk management if not a calculated bet. 

With all eyes on the game itself… the question nobody is asking: what actually goes on behind the scenes to put on the biggest spectacle on the planet?

I was speaking just the other day with a risk manager for a major stadium. Facilities large and small have to constantly juggle outside vendors. You have the common ones – security, janitorial, etc. and then you have some very nuanced ones that, I imagine, only get amplified for events on the scale of the big game.

How do you suddenly onboard, say bomb-sniffing dogs, or specialized bird control services? Non-permanent seating, television crews? While making sure they’ve all got the right insurance coverage in place so that your facility isn’t left picking up the bill.  

It’s a compounding problem for venues because you’ve got multiple tenants and they have vendors.

So it begs the question – if you’re a large stadium like SoFi or Raymond James, or even a smaller venue, how do you onboard these new vendors week-in, week-out without burying yourself under a mountain of monotonous paperwork? And how do you properly transfer  the risk?

Well the answer for the person I was speaking to, and I imagine many of you reading this, is: “I’ve got a folder on my desktop that holds certificates and contracts and once they’re in there - they sit… and there’s a lot of back and forth .” 

My mouth hit the floor. How do you manage renewal dates and make sure the insurance is current? The answer for major vendors, they set a calendar reminder. Fine. 

And the crux of the problem is drumroll

In their words: 

The risk of having non-compliant vendors onsite is too high for you to ignore it, but the burden of managing this takes you away from making sure the show goes on like clockwork. 

If managing COIs is the “worst hour of your day” – reach out to your broker and ask them how TrustLayer can help. Or drop us a line, we’d love to help you automate your process and take certs off your plate. 

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