Spring Training and complex insurance risk

In Florida, teams are a little more spread out between JetBlue Park in Fort Myers, Publix Field in Lakeland, and CACTI Park located between Jupiter and Boca Raton. (You could call these the two locations "baseball triangles," not to be confused with the Bermuda Triangle.)

Insurance considerations

From an insurance perspective, it's a logistical nightmare. You have 15 teams that head to Arizona and 15 teams that head to Florida, each with a 26-man active roster and associated coaches. You've got a large number of multi-million-dollar athletes, all within a very small geographic region. So the accumulation risk is incredibly high.

The policy period in effect for this heightened risk starts February 20^th and goes through Opening Day, which is March 25^th. So, if there's a related loss on February 19^th or March 26^th, it would not be covered under this special policy or policies.

Arizona minimum limits for auto insurance are $15,000 for property damage and $25,000 for bodily injury per person. Florida minimum auto limits are $10,000 for property damage. And since Florida is a "no-fault" state, no bodily injury coverage is necessary. Many choose to carry minimum limits coverage of $10,000.

Anyone who watched the Kevin Costner movie For the Love of the Game may think Spring Training is like college Spring Break, with crazy wild parties and all the associated silliness. In reality, these players are more likely to be injured in an unfamiliar gym than by falling down the stairs because they are inebriated.

It is worth noting that recreational marijuana use is now legal in Arizona but illegal in Florida. In Arizona, you have to be 21 to legally use, so any of the recently drafted high school players/early college players should steer clear of it.

Worker's compensation takes an interesting stance here as well. Technically, since the players and staff are off-site at a work event for a month, they are always "in course and scope" of their workers' comp policy. However, does that extend to a 2am early morning decision to drive to Waffle House? With a manuscript policy, you could specifically write in certain times/locations/activities that are clearly team-related, and simply provide a blanket exclusion for all other activities.

Florida's law excludes professional athletes from filing a claim, so that creates additional jurisdictional complexity for those athletes.

One final insurance concern: Temporary structures. We have all seen (but hopefully never been involved in) dramatic scaffolding collapses, bleacher collapses, and/or roof collapses. Temporary structures create challenges related to the premises owner, the subcontractor who installed the temporary structure, and the company that's responsible for ongoing maintenance while the structure is in place.

Insurance professional takeaways

Risk managers, carriers, and brokers who manage any of the issues that arise during Spring Training should ask themselves the following questions:

• What types of claims have we experienced in the past?
• Is there anything different about the facilities, contracts, people, or other details between 2025 to 2026?
• Are there any unique or different risks that we face this year versus prior years?
• What levels of risk are we comfortable absorbing ourselves, and what types/levels of risk should we transfer to other parties?
  

Opinions expressed here are the author's own.

See also:

• Baseballer's mold lawsuit is a lesson in insurance burden-shifting
• Take me out to the ball game? Only if sureties are there first
• The best U.S. cities for pickleball enthusiasts in 2026