Restaurant Insurance – Company Cars and Your Employees

Many restaurant owners out there have vehicles that are owned in the corporate name. This can run the gamut from personal cars for the restaurant owner to vans used for pickups and deliveries. These vehicles, titled in the business name should always be insured on a commercial auto policy in the same business name. There is a wrinkle in the coverage protection in this instance that can leave an injured employee without any coverage and could perhaps, leave your restaurant vulnerable.

I’m not talking about DOC protection which of course is another dangerous wrinkle when your restaurant has company owned cars. To learn how to protect your personal assets from that particular coverage gap, watch my DOC for restaurant owners video.

The problem that I want to address in this particular blog really relates to the risks of injuries that could occur to one of your employees. Sure, you have workers compensation insurance in case one of them gets injured. If not, read my blog on why you need to buy that coverage even if the law doesn’t require it. But the problem that can occur with a company owned vehicle and your employee is best described with an example.

Let’s say you send out an employee to make a delivery and since it is the last one of the night, you tell them to just drive the van home and bring it back when they come to work tomorrow. Now, assume that on the way home, after the last delivery was made, they have an accident that is their fault. Also assume that your employee is injured in this accident. Many restaurants do not offer health insurance to their employees so now where is this employee going to get the money to pay for his or her medical bills due to this accident? Well, the simple answer would seem to be that you just file a workers compensation claim for those injuries. After all, the employee was on the job. Wasn’t he? Well, in North Carolina we are seeing that type of claim denied by insurance companies. The argument is that when the employee is using the vehicle for personal use (in this case driving home from work), then that employee is not covered by workers compensation.

Now what are the downsides for you, the employer? First of all, your employee may face overwhelming medical bills and may not be able to afford the help needed to get back to work as quickly as otherwise might be the case. Also, there is some risk to you, the employer that a sharp attorney may find a way to drag you into a long, drawn out legal case due to the fact that your vehicle was involved. The final result for you is unclear and difficult to prognosticate but suffice to say, this is a situation that you want to be aware of and avoid if possible. I don’t have an insurance solution for you except to say that if your employee has life insurance, health insurance and disability insurance then most of the gaps will be covered. If not, the best advice is to make sure that you don’t provide company owned vehicles for your employees’ personal use.

Clinard Insurance Group, located in Winston Salem, NC is an agency with a niche specialty in helping restaurant owners in both North Carolina and South Carolina with their restaurant insurance needs. We have developed specialized programs for several different types of restaurants so that you don’t have to buy a one size fits all policy for your restaurant. We have a specialized insurance program for catering companies, a fast food restaurant insurance program, a bar and grill and tavern insurance program, a unique fine dining insurance program and a casual dining restaurant insurance package. If we can help you with your restaurant insurance questions, please feel free to call us, toll free, at 877-687-7557, or visit us online at www.TheRestaurantInsuranceStore.com.

This article was created from source material which can be found online at www.RestaurantInsuranceGuy.com.

Restaurant Insurance – What Does Facebook Have To Do With Your Insurance Rates?

Most savvy restaurant owners know that it is no longer enough just to have a web page. You need to have a mobile version of that page and for sure you had better have a place on Facebook. In fact, most people under age 25 are more likely to do a Facebook search for your restaurant than they are to search on Google. And the Facebook platform really allows restaurants to keep an open, flowing and connected form of communication with their clientele. But very few restaurant owners have taken even a moment to consider how their Facebook site might affect their insurance rates.

Let me start by saying that if you are leaving your restaurant insurance with the same company year after year and never shopping your restaurant insurance policies in the marketplace, then it may take much longer for the ensuing discussion to apply to your restaurant insurance policy. While it is true that some insurance companies will do reviews of restaurants prior to renewing their existing policies, this renewal review process is much lighter duty in general and affects a small percentage of restaurants in any given year. But what about the day you decide to switch agents or switch companies either for better service or a better product or just to save money? Well, when that day comes you don’t want your Facebook page to bite you in the butt.

Restaurant insurance pricing, just like most every other commercial insurance policy is pretty fluid. Sure, the companies will file their base rates on their product with the state authority. In North Carolina, rates are filed with the NC Insurance Commissioner’s Office. But they also file a list of schedule credits, which are just credits that they can choose or not choose to apply to their policies. In truth, very few restaurants are paying the full filed rates on their policies; most enjoy some level of scheduled credits that reduce their rate by some percentage from the base rate. And most important of all for the restaurant owner, is that the application of these credits is based on the underwriter’s comfort with how you are running your dining establishment.

In the old days, before the internet, all an underwriter had to go on was the application submitted by the agent, and perhaps a photo or two. But then came the internet and the underwriters started verifying the application information with the information found on the restaurant website. All of that worked pretty well and could actually work in the restaurant owner’s favor. Then came Facebook. And let’s face it, Facebook is a social media platform and the key word here is social. So many restaurants use their Facebook page as a way to show how much fun it is to visit their place of business. But it is important for the restaurant owner to understand that insurance underwriters are visiting there as well.

If you, as the restaurant owner, are not actively involved in operating your Facebook page, then you may be leaving yourself vulnerable to higher insurance rates on your restaurant insurance policy. Now, it may be worth it to show people dancing on the tables or having a big time at your establishment, if it brings in more business. But there may be a future hidden cost in your insurance policy that you are not counting on. My advice is to maintain your Facebook page in a way that won’t scare off a stodgy underwriter’s personality. If that makes the page to banal for your tastes and ambitions, then just be sure to recognize that you may see higher restaurant insurance rates in the future.

Clinard Insurance Group, Inc, is an independent insurance agency located in Winston Salem, NC. We specialize in insuring all types of restaurants all across North Carolina and South Carolina. Since not every restaurant has the same insurance needs, we have created 5 distinct restaurant insurance packages. We have a fast food restaurant insurance program, a bar and grill insurance program, a casual dining restaurant insurance program, an insurance program for fine dining restaurants and even a specialized insurance program for caterering companies. If we can help you with your restaurant insurance questions, please call us, toll free, at 877-687-7557, or visit us on the web at www.TheRestaurantInsuranceStore.com.

When writing this article, we pulled extensively from a source article which can be found on our restaurant insurance blog site at www.RestaurantInsuranceGuy.com.

Restaurant Insurance – Your Promotions And Your Restaurant Insurance Policy

In the restaurant business, the name of the game is getting customers to enter your doors and open their wallets. Restaurant owners are very savvy in this regard and there are many creative approaches to promoting used by different owners to increase their business and their profile in the community. One of the great things about running a restaurant, is the freedom that you have, as a business owner, to dream up and implement promotions for your establishment. But when you are coming up with ideas, don’t forget to consider the insurance angle.

There is really no limit, beyond what you can dream up, to what you can offer your clients to get them in the door spending money with you. I suppose if you can get it by the health department, you could have dwarf bowling, or keg midgets or even goat dancing contests if you thought it would help you increase sales. But don’t make the mistake of planning these promotions without considering the impact they may have on your restaurant insurance program. You don’t want to find out at renewal, or worse yet, after a large loss or accident, that what you were doing conflicts with your insurance plan or causes the insurance company to regard you as a higher risk.

Let’s take a quick look at some of the more common promotions and how they might affect your restaurant insurance policy. One of the most common is drink promotions. There are happy hours, ladies nights, half price drink nights and drink specials. Each of these can be a successful way to increase your sales but it is important to keep an eye on the ratio of liquor sales to food sales. There is a tipping point, beyond which your restaurant begins to look more like a bar to the insurance company and this can drive up the price of your liquor liability insurance or worse yet, can cause you to fall out of a preferred restaurant program, into one for higher risk establishments at a significant increase in premiums. That may be ok if you gain enough revenue to overcome the additional insurance costs, but you shouldn’t go into a promotion flying blind on the insurance impact.

Another revenue enhancer that we see establishments trying is adding delivery services for their customers. There are auto insurance and some workers compensation implications here that should be considered before you make these changes to your restaurant. These include impacts on your protection and coverage as well as on your rates.

We also see restaurants staying open a bit later and essentially turning their establishment into a bar after they stop serving food. Often they add a dance floor and DJ or have other live entertainment. These changes will all have large impacts on your restaurant insurance program and it is best if you bring in your agent for consultation and advice on the front end of these decisions. If you move forward without notifying your agent, you will lose the opportunity to factor in these changes in your overall return on investment for this plan, and you may find yourself in a position where you could even have trouble obtaining insurance protection at any price.

Restaurant insurance is a unique and tricky kind of policy and there is no doubt that you need a restaurant insurance specialist helping you with your insurance program. If you have the right agent and can form a partnership with your agent in helping you plan for the insurance impact of any major changes or promotions that you plan to implement, you will have a better big picture view on the true costs of your promotion or changes.

At Clinard Insurance Group, located in Winston Salem, NC, we specialize in restaurants and we understand them. I have owned 4 restaurants in my lifetime so I know what restaurant owners struggle with day to day. I also know that not every restaurant has the same insurance needs so I developed 5 specialized insurance programs for the 5 broad categories of restaurants. I have a specialized program for catering companies, a bar and grill and tavern insurance program, a fast food restaurant insurance program, a fine dining restaurant insurance program and a casual dining restaurant insurance program. If you need help with your restaurant insurance, please feel free to call me, at 877-687-7557 or visit my web page online at www.TheRestaurantInsuranceStore.com.

The source information for this blog can be found in full at the blog located at http://www.restaurantinsuranceguy.com/.

Restaurant Insurance – Part 8 The Umbrella Policy

This is part 8 of our 10 part series on insuring your restaurant. This article deals with a policy that is only purchased by about 20% of restaurant owners. That is the commercial umbrella policy.

The commercial umbrella policy is a liability policy that adds an extra layer of protection over and above your underlying liability policies, such as your general liability insurance, your workers compensation insurance and your commercial auto insurance. This policy provides a quick, convenient and usually inexpensive way to increase your overall liability protection on all of your underlying policies at once.

The commercial umbrella policy will have underlying limits requirements for your above mentioned underlying liability policies. In some cases it is cheaper to raise the underlying limits of your other policies and in other cases it is cheaper to keep them low and add the umbrella policy. You should take the time to go over this in detail with your agent so that you can make the choice that is best for your restaurant. Once your policy is issued, always check to make sure that all of your underlying policies are listed on the declarations page of your umbrella policy so that you know it is adding additional liability protection to all of your policies.

Most every commercial umbrella policy will have a self insured retention listed on the declarations page of the policy. This self insured retention acts like a deductible but it is a bit trickier than the deductibles that you are used to. Policy forms vary, so check with your agent to see if the self insured retention applies to all claims that are filed against your policy, or just to those where the umbrella policy provides the first dollar of protection. That is possible because of the wording of the umbrella policies, in some cases there may be additional protection provided by the umbrella policy that is not provided by any of the underlying policies.

One last thing to take a look at is whether defense dollars (money paid to attorneys to defend your case) are included in the total policy limit or are outside the limit and therefore unlimited unless noted otherwise. This could dramatically change the outcome for you if most of your claim was defense costs to fight the claim.

The commercial umbrella policy is a unique policy that is not used often by most restaurant owners. But every restaurant owner should take a close look at the umbrella policy to see if it provides protection or benefits that they need to be properly insured.

At Clinard Insurance Group, in Winston Salem, NC we make it a part of our job to help insurance consumers out there become informed consumers. We specialize in insuring restaurants and we have programs to help our restaurant owners with every policy they purchase on their restaurant and for their personal needs. We are truly a one stop shop. We have created special niche programs for 5 different types of restaurants. We have a fine dining restaurant insurance program, a casual dining restaurant insurance program, a fast food restaurant insurance program, a tavern and bar and grill insurance program and a special program for caterers insurance. If we can help you with your restaurant insurance needs, please call us, toll free, at 877-687-7557 or visit us on the web at www.ClinardInsurance.com.

The source data for this article can be found in articles at www.RestaurantInsuranceGuy.com.

Restaurant Insurance – Part 7 – Workers Compensation Insurance

Workers compensation insurance is an integral part to any NC restaurant insurance program. But, due to the relatively low cost of this protection for restaurant owners, it is often overlooked. This 7^th part in our 10 part series takes a closer look at workers compensation and highlights several key elements of this policy that a restaurant owner needs to understand in order to best protect his business, his workers and his cash flow.

First of all, this discussion will be directed to and focused on North Carolina workers compensation insurance for restaurants. Some of what you may learn here will apply in other states but for the sake of this discussion, we are focusing on NC rules and regulations.

The first question that a restaurant owner might ask would be if he or she even needs to buy work comp insurance for their restaurant. The answer is an unqualified yes. But here are the rules. In NC, you are only required to purchase work comp insurance on your business if you have 3 or more employees. Also, you can choose to include or exclude corporate officers and owners. But here’s the catch. Not being required to purchase the policy is not the same thing as avoiding the exposure. If you don’t purchase the policy, you will still be required to pay all claims. Without the policy you are just deciding to pay all the claims yourself out of your own pocket. This is almost universally a bad idea.

The insurance policy itself is a statutory based policy. This means that the policy follows the NC work comp statutes which spell out what is covered and to what extent. The workers compensation rules and rates in NC are controlled by the NC Rate Bureau. The claims process is handled by the NC Industrial Commission.

Your actual workers compensation costs will be based on your payroll. Each classification of worker will have its own rate. To get your policy started you will estimate what your payroll will be for the year for each different classification that applies to your restaurant. At the end of the policy year, the insurance company will perform an audit of your payroll and an adjustment to the final premium will be made. If you had overestimated your payroll then you would be due a refund and if you had underestimated it, you will owe an additional premium. Under estimating is risky and can leave you with a bad cash flow situation that I call the audit trap. To understand the audit trap better, read my blog here.

Another aspect of your workers compensation policy to consider is that over time, most workers compensation policies are experience rated. This is done when the NC Rate Bureau assigns you an experience modification factor. This factor modifies your rate either up or down, depending on your past loss experience. This is a strong incentive for you to manage your risks and minimize your claims. To learn more about how this works, visit my blog on this by clicking here.

One more point that I would make to restaurant owners who are setting up their workers compensation insurance is that they take the time to consider using a mono line workers compensation company for this policy. Recently we have seen a rise in these companies which write only workers compensation insurance. Often their expertise and specialization allows them to provide better back to work programs as well as more effective loss control programs. They are also more likely to offer a pay as you go program for your billing.

While workers compensation insurance will rarely be the biggest ticket item in a restaurant owner’s insurance program, there are several areas in this policy where the restaurant owner can reduce risk and save money by using the right company and the right agent. At Clinard Insurance Group, in Winston Salem, NC we specialize in helping restaurants all across North Carolina and South Carolina. And since not every restaurant is the same and we don’t think you should have to pay for prepackaged coverages you don’t need or miss out on the coverages you do need, so we have created 5 different restaurant insurance programs for our NC and SC clients. We have a fine dining insurance program, a casual dining insurance program, a fast food insurance program, a bar and grill and tavern insurance program and a special insurance program for caterers. If we can help you with your insurance needs, please feel free to visit us on the web at www.ClinardInsurance.com or call us, toll free, at 877-687-7557.

The source information for this article was pulled from articles which can be found on line at www.RestaurantInsuranceGuy.com.

Business Income Insurance for Restaurants

Running your restaurant business involves risk of course and you can look around you and see the things you need to insure in case of a large loss like a fire. Dishes, equipment, furniture, supplies, all of these seem obvious. But there are also some hidden, less obvious things for which you should insure. This article will help you understand one of the tools for covering these hidden assets and liabilities – The Business Income Insurance Form.

These days, most restaurant owners have a package policy called a businessowners insurance policy as the centerpiece of their insurance program. This policy can cover the building, your contents, any improvements and betterments that you have made to the building as well as more esoteric items like employee theft and employment practices liability insurance. One of the coverages that is often included in this packaged policy is Business Income Insurance.

Business Income insurance coverage is triggered when you have a covered loss that is large enough to close down your operations for some period of time. During this time of shut down, you will have ongoing expenses that will continue even though you are not bringing in revenue. This can vary from rent to monthly fees on equipment leases and marketing products as well the profits that you lose by being out of business. In addition, there are also extra expenses that you will incur in order to try and expedite the process of getting back into business more quickly. These can be temporary rental of a new location, overnight shipping costs etc.

Sadly, few restaurant owners take the time to understand before a loss is how this built in Business Income coverage will affect their employees. Policies vary of course but the most common language in North Carolina business owners policies for restaurants will allow you to continue to pay for employee payroll as long as you can put these people to work in some capacity, even if that is helping you get back in business quicker. If keeping your employees available to you after you have been out of business for 4 or 5 months is important, then you should tailor your Business Income protection to make sure that ongoing payroll expense is included. In some cases this may mean that the businessowners policy is not the right form and you may need a true commercial package policy that will allow a more customized business income plan.

Last of all, I would be remiss in this discuss if I didn’t mention to you the importance of putting together a disaster plan before the disaster strikes. Take the time to think about what types of things could put you out of business temporarily and how you would deal with that particular situation from a non insurance standpoint. Take the time review what is available to you in terms of disaster recovery plans and do a bit of pre-disaster study of some of the companies out there that specialize in restaurant disaster recovery and restoration programs.

At Clinard Insurance Group in Winston Salem, NC, we specialize in helping restaurants across North Carolina and South Carolina with their restaurant insurance programs. We go a step further with our Partners Page which helps our clients find new customers from our customer base. We understand that not all restaurants are the same and they don’t all need a one size fits all insurance plan. For that reason we have established 5 different restaurant insurance programs; the fine dining insurance program, the casual dining restaurant insurance program, the fast food insurance program, the bar and grill insurance program and a specialized program for caterers. If we can help you with your NC or your SC restaurant insurance needs, please visit us on the web at www.TheRestaurantInsuranceStore.com or call us, toll free, at 877-687-7557.

The source information for this article was pulled from articles which can be found at www.RestaurantInsuranceGuy.com.