Insuring Your Restaurant

Restaurant owners face a lot of risks. From injuries due to kitchen accidents to patron sickness due to foodborne illness, you’ve probably thought about the worst-case scenarios. Have you done anything about them, though? The restaurant business brings enough stress – don’t add to it!

Having the right insurance in place can help you protect your property from damage, your staff from medical expenses, and your restaurant from a lawsuit. The type of insurance necessary will vary, depending on the location of the restaurant and other factors, and business owners may need to carry other insurance policies to satisfy bank loans and mortgage lenders.

Read on to understand what kind of insurance you may need.

What Insurance Do I Need for My Restaurants?

As a restaurant owner, you face many risks both in and outside your operation. A severe storm can shut down your establishment, as can failed suppliers, downed utilities, food recalls, and traffic disruption. Equipment breakdown can cause food spoilage, a data breach can compromise your patron’s personal data, slips and falls can cause liability issues and workers injured in the kitchen can result in significant Workers Compensation claims.

Liability Insurance

General Liability Insurance covers the legal fees that can easily bankrupt a restaurant, such as the cost of attorney fees, witness fees, court expenses, and more. After a lawsuit, General Liability for restaurants can be the difference between never opening your business doors again and weathering the storm still on your feet.

BOP or Business Owner’s Policy

Many carriers bundle together several different insurance policies into one product that allow you to customize your coverage. Typically, a Business Owners Policy will include general liability and property insurance.  Depending on the nature of your business, other coverages that may be appropriate to add to your BOP include:

• Business Income – helps cover the loss of income when you can’t run your restaurant or food business because of covered property damage. Comprehensive General
• Liquor Liability Insurance Coverage- You're careful when you serve liquor in your restaurant, but sometimes a customer may drink too much and start a fight or cause an accident. Liquor Liability Coverage can help with your legal costs, court fees, and civil damages resulting from the sale of liquor at your restaurant.
• Food Contamination Insurance Coverage- Cleanliness in restaurants is key. However, even the most careful chef could unintentionally serve contaminated food. Food Contamination Coverage helps pay for lost business income, costs for cleaning and sanitizing equipment, replacing contaminated food, and testing employees when a covered restaurant is closed by a public health authority due to contaminated food.
• Spoilage Protection - if there is an extended period of loss of power, ingredients and stock may end up being unusable, either through spoilage or death (i.e. flowers, plants, fish). That is spoilage coverage extends beyond food-based risks to other types of perishable stock that could be rendered useless as a result of a mechanical breakdown or power outage. The power outage could be on your business premises or off premises.
• Employee Dishonesty — Covers direct physical loss of business personal property, including money and securities caused by dishonest acts committed by employees

Workers Compensation

Workers compensation insurance covers medical costs and a portion of lost wages for an employee who becomes injured or ill on the job. Workers compensation insurance also protects companies from being sued by employees for workplace conditions that can cause an injury or illness.

For some states, it is required that you obtain a workers compensation plan. If you are an operating business and it is required by your state to have this type of policy, it is important to get one as soon as you have an employee.

If your state does not require this type of insurance coverage, you may still want to consider it so you can protect the business from this type of lawsuit and protect your business reputation.

Commercial Auto Insurance

Commercial Auto Insurance, also known as business auto insurance, helps your business cover the financial costs resulting from an auto accident if you or an employee is found at fault. Commercial auto insurance helps pay for damaged property and medical expenses – even in the event of a fatal accident.

Cyber Liability Insurance

When a data breach occurs, quick action is important to help restore the public’s confidence if you’re a business victimized by a cyber-attack. Cyber liability insurance and data breach insurance help cover costs like notification, identity protection solutions, public relations, legal, liability and more depending on the coverage you choose. 

Let us help you make an informed decision about your business insurance needs.  Our licensed agents specialize in helping small businesses obtain the best coverage at the best price, give us a call today at 888-834-8619.