Restaurant Insurance – Part 9 EPLI Coverage

This is part 9 of our 10 part series on how to insure your restaurant. This section deals with an insurance policy that is not well understood and even less often purchased. This is the EPLI insurance policy and EPLI stands for Employment Practices Liability Insurance. This is a coverage that every restaurant owner with employees should consider purchasing.

EPLI coverage nicely fills some gaps in coverage that your business owners policy or your commercial package policy leaves. Specifically these have to do with some intentional actions that you take with your employees for which you may later be found liable and owe for damages. The most common types of EPLI claims are for wrongful termination, sexual harassment, and discrimination. Now you might say to yourself that you don’t need this coverage because you would never do any of those things. But what you must consider is that you might be accused of doing one of these acts. And if so, then you will have to defend yourself and the defense is not a cheap process. So even if you didn’t want to purchase the insurance for the judgment because you think you would never commit one of these acts, consider that you might want to purchase the insurance to pay for your attorney to defend you.

EPLI can be purchased as a separate policy, or in some cases can be added to your existing package or businessowners policy. If you purchase it as an add on, be sure that you understand if the protection has a sublimit of coverage that is lower than your general liability limit and also check in to be sure that defense costs are included. Last of all, if defense is included, be sure to find out if that is unlimited and outside of the policy limit, or if defense costs are counted against your total liability limit.

There is one more thing to consider. Most EPLI policies are claims made based policies, whereas your general liability protection is usually occurrence based. With a claims made policy, you need to report the claim within the policy period so if the claim rears its head after you have cancelled the policy, then you will find yourself without coverage. To protect yourself from this situation, you should laundry list your potential claims at the end of each policy term and submit that list to your insurance carrier.

EPLI protection may seem like a real specialty coverage for just a few but the truth is, with the layoffs that many restaurant owners have had to resort to in the past few years, this is a must have protection. At Clinard Insurance Group, in Winston Salem, NC, we want all of our clients to be informed insurance consumers. We encourage you to call us and ask questions regarding this or any other blog article that we have posted. We specialize in helping restaurant owners buy insurance for their restaurants and we understand that not all restaurants are the same. We don’t want your insurance policy to a square peg jammed into a round hole, so we have created 5 different restaurant insurance programs to help you better select the one that meets your needs. We have a fine dining restaurant insurance program, a casual dining restaurant insurance program, a fast food restaurant insurance program, a bar and grill and tavern insurance program and a special insurance program for caterers. If you need help with your restaurant insurance, please call us, toll free, at 877-687-7557 or visit us on the web at www.TheRestaurantInsuranceStore.com.

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