- Mar 15, 2019

What you need to know before buying business insurance for your restaurant and bar.

With foodies, food blogs, food vlogs, food post on social media, pop-ups, and food reviews on Yelp we all can agree everyone loves food.

If you love cooking and seeing people happy eating your yummy food, you may be inspired to start your own restaurant and bar.

Many of our clients have this dream of owing their own restaurant, but that dream can soon become a nightmare when slapped with a lawsuit. Everything you worked so hard for can come crumbling down, if you don't have the right coverage on your restaurant business insurance policy.

Not all insurance policies are the same, you definitely want to make sure to have the right coverage to protect yourself and business. Here are some key coverages.

General Liability: coverage that protects against bodily injury, property damage and personal injury claims made by someone else. Here are some examples on a restaurant General Liability policy that protects your restaurant:

Injuries sustained by patrons while at your restaurant
Injuries that occur off premises due to your services
Property damage caused by you or your employees
Advertising
Products and Completed Services (food poisoning)

There are specific coverages that are not included on a basic General Liability policy for your restaurant and bar. You want to make sure to have the following coverages included on your restaurant General Liability policy:

Liquor Liability: if you serve alcohol this coverage is essential. Liquor liability protects your business from bodily injury or property damage caused by a drunk or intoxicated person served by your staff.

Assault and Battery: you definitely need this coverage especially if you serve alcohol at your restaurant and bar. This coverage protects you if someone gets into a fight in your business, whether that's customer to customer or customer to employee. This coverage essential if you own a bar, club, or lounge.

Employment Practices Liability Insurance: Also known as EPLI, provides coverage to owners from employees wanting to sue for harassment, discrimination, and wrongful termination.

Workers Compensation Insurance: if you have employees you need Workers Compensation insurance. In the state of California it's required you have Workers Compensation insurance if you have one or more W2 employees. This will protect you if an employee get's injured on the job. Without this coverage the owner would have to pay out of their own pocket for the employee's medical cost and loss wages.

Owning a restaurant is a great business, but accidents do happen and you want to make sure when it does, you're properly covered without any disruption.

We work with many insurance carriers to provide the best coverage and best rates for restaurant and bars.