Running an esports event is always stressful. You have to worry about prize pools, players, promotion, publishers and more. In addition to that, there’s an often overlooked aspect from an event standpoint that will become much more common as time goes on. That aspect is esports insurance. Yes, we’re talking about insurance in case stuff happens but for esports. Crazy huh? To be clear, I am not an insurance broker, nor am I authorized to give advice on insurance. However, if you need a referral I can send you off to a trained professional! Contact me for further info.
Esports insurance Types / Scenarios:
Live Events Esports Insurance:
Liability Insurance
OK, I’m a tournament organizer and my co-op student staff member injures themselves while running an errand for me. Ie, they pull a Tony Ferguson and see one of their buddies at the event. In their excitement, they end up tripping over some wires that we had and tears their ACL (ouch). PS this actually happened at a UFC event.
Liability insurance should protect me in this case and in the event my co-op student wants to sue me for negligence or help me pay for their bills in case it’s really bad.
Media Liability
OK, this one should be pretty clear. A social media representative is covering an event for a team. They post some extremely questionable things that was not meant for the team account but their own. As a result, your sponsors are not happy and have dropped you entirely and you may face a potential lawsuit as a result. This may cover off the damages as a results of that negligent tweet (always check your insurance coverage). Another example would be your caster or talent going off the rails and trashing everyone (including your sponsors).
Property Insurance
This one is essentially equipment damage and or theft I believe. There’s a ton of expensive ass esports equipment at LANs. For potential venue damage, it could be something as I damaged the door moving the 60 inch CRT for my fighting game tournament.
Event Insurance
Pretend I rent a venue for 4 days in August. However, during the event, there’s a flood and I need to evacuate the event. Instead of being out of pocket, insurance could potentially protect in this case and offer a refund for the venue. Generally, venues require insurance to run events. Always inquire if they’re covered!
Online Events
Cyber Insurance in esports
This is for the future potentially. You’re a player and you’re contractually obligated to show up to an event. You get hacked / DDOS’d and cannot show. The organizer is pissed off and wants to sue you. This may cover you in that event.
Another scenario would be this. You’re an organizer and you ask for payment info of players. You for some reason decide to store it on your website and you get hacked. Players private info gets leaked (bank records, address etc.) and now they are suing you.
Other Potential Esports Insurance
Errors and Omission Insurance –
An example for this would be, if you’re found negligible for not running the event up to standard and cause loss of income for the event organizers. I think a good example of this would be a group were to be subcontracted and run an absolute dog of an event for a premier company. The premier company would then sue the subcontractor into the ground and this MAY help depending on how negligent the team was.
Cyber & Tech
Usually this is bundled together with errors and omission. Covers off big data leaks, tech security and privacy issues, breaches, crime, third / first party etc. This is more applicable if you run a data site and you have a leak or get hacked. Do you have insurance to cover this?
As we mature as an industry this will become more and more common. I never thought i’d write an article about insurance in esports but here we are! If you need a referral to an insurance broker who can sell this insurance contact me and i’ll put you in touch.