FIFA World Cup 2026: Special risks insurance considerations

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The FIFA World Cup 2026 is the most-watched sporting event on the planet. In 2026, the tournament arrives in North America — spanning venues across the United States, Canada, and Mexico — bringing with it an estimated five million visiting fans, the world’s most valuable footballing talent, and a risk landscape of considerable complexity.

For risk professionals, the World Cup represents a concentrated convergence of people-related exposures. Beyond the stadium infrastructure and event logistics, it is the human element — players, coaches, officials, fans — that is often the most nuanced and underappreciated risk consideration. Special risks insurance, encompassing kidnap and ransom (K&R), crisis management, and personal security, is a key risk management tool across stakeholders.

Players and teams: Managing high-profile personal risk

Elite footballers occupy a unique position in the global risk landscape. Their public profiles, substantial personal wealth, and predictable travel schedules create exposures that often extends beyond those addressed by commonly offered sports insurance policies.

Kidnap, ransom, and express kidnapping

With matches scheduled across Mexico — including in Mexico City and Guadalajara — the K&R exposure for players, coaching staff, and their families warrants serious attention. Mexico has one of the highest rates of express kidnapping globally, a crime in which victims are abducted for short periods and forced to make immediate ATM withdrawals or bank transfers before being released. The targets are not always the most famous faces — support staff, agents, and family members travelling in the tournament’s orbit can also be vulnerable.

Special Risks or K&R policies can provide more than financial indemnity. They can offer access to experienced response professionals who operate discreetly alongside law enforcement to manage negotiations, coordinate safe releases, and support affected families. For many, the value of that human expertise can be as important as the financial indemnity.

Athlete fatality and crisis management

Specialized sports and entertainment insurance products are designed to address the realities of elite athletic risk that commonly available policies may not. Policies can extend beyond conventional K&R coverage to include athlete fatality and embedded crisis management services so that if the unthinkable occurs, the team, the governing body, and the athlete’s representatives have ready access to coordinated support.

Cyberbullying and stalking

In professional sport, players who miss penalties, underperform, or become the focus of media scrutiny can face coordinated online abuse campaigns of extraordinary intensity. In some cases, this can escalate to physical stalking — with individuals travelling to tournament venues or team hotels with the intention of confronting players.

Specialised insurance coverage can provide access to psychological crisis response, digital forensics to identify perpetrators, and security consultants who can assess and manage physical threat escalation. For team risk managers, having these resources engaged before a tournament begins can be the difference between an efficiently-managed situation and a crisis.

Attendees and fans: Personal risk away from home

For the millions of supporters travelling to the US, Canada, and Mexico, the World Cup represents an extraordinary experience — and a unique set of personal risk exposures that many will not have considered.

Kidnap and personal safety

Fan travel risk varies significantly depending on which host cities are on the itinerary. For supporters attending matches in Mexican host cities in particular, awareness of the local security environment is essential. Express kidnappings and opportunistic crime targeting tourists in unfamiliar urban environments are ongoing concerns. Travel risk briefings and, particularly for corporate or high net worth travellers, personal K&R coverage can be prudent considerations.

Crisis management and emergency response

Large-scale public events carry an inherent risk of crowd incidents, civil unrest, and terrorism. Fans attending multiple events across different cities and potentially different countries will want to have confidence that their insurance provides crisis response capabilities in addition to post-event reimbursement.

Travel and personal risk policies for attendees should ideally include access to 24/7 emergency response lines, medical evacuation, and, where appropriate, security evacuation support. For corporate travel managers responsible for staff attending the tournament, these features may not only be preferred, but essential.

Tips to stay safe

Break your routine. Vary routes, timings, and transport — predictability can make you a target.
Keep a low profile. Leave the expensive watch and branded corporate gear at home.
Use official taxis rather than hailing off the street. Pre-book and verify your driver.
Be ATM-smart. Avoid cash withdrawals at night or in isolated areas. • Guard your digital footprint. Don’t post your location or itinerary in real time. • Know your host cities. The US, Canada, and Mexico — and the cities within them — carry different risk profiles.
Brief your team before departure. Everyone should know emergency contacts and protocols.
Stay alert in crowds. Stadiums and fan zones are prime spots for opportunistic crime.
If confronted, cooperate. Don’t resist. Valuables are replaceable; lives are not.
Report suspicious activity. Patterns can be more readily detected when incidents are shared.

Planning ahead: The case for specialised advice

The FIFA World Cup 2026 will generate extraordinary memories. For the organisations involved — managing talent, protecting employees, hosting clients or activating sponsorships — it will also generate a level of risk exposure that many commonly available insurance policies have not been designed to address.

The threats are not hypothetical. K&R incidents targeting high-profile individuals and crowd-related crises are documented realities at events of this scale. The question is not whether these risks exist — it is whether your organisation is prepared and protected when they materialise.

The common thread across every stakeholder group is this: the time to arrange specialised insurance coverage and access response consultants is well before departure. In kidnap and crisis management scenarios, the presence of a pre-arranged response framework can be the single most important factor in determining outcomes.

For risk and insurance professionals, the World Cup is a timely reminder that people-related risk is as deserving of specialised attention as property or liability exposures — and has the potential to be as or more consequential.

Marsh’s special risks team works with organisations across the sport, entertainment, travel and corporate sectors to build tailored insurance programmes for high-profile global events. Whether you are deploying staff to the host nations or managing an executive trip to the final match, now is the time understand your exposure and finalise your risk management response.

Speak to your Marsh broker or fill out the form below to arrange a review of your risks.