Restaurant Insurance – Understanding The Basics

If you are considering opening an eating establishment, then one of the hurdles you will have handle is purchasing restaurant business insurance. You will need to know what types of insurance policies you might need and how they will affect your business. This article approaches this problem from an overview perspective and covers really the basic outline of the types of insurance policies that you should consider. For more details on any of these types of policies, you may want to read more of my restaurant blogs at www.RestaurantInsuranceGuy.com.

Property Insurance – You will need to consider coverage for your building and your contents. If you don’t own the building, check your lease to be sure that your landlord is requiring you to carry coverage on the building. Also, if you are a tenant, be sure to carry a high enough limit to replace all of your contents in a total loss. Also, don’t forget to include enough building coverage for the improvements and betterments that you make to the building itself in order to decorate the restaurant as yours.

Liability Insurance – You will need protection for your company for premises liability in case someone is injured on your premises. A good example of this would be someone who slips on a wet spot and is injured in your restaurant. In addition, you will need products liability for injury caused by the product you sell, that is the food. This would protect you if someone breaks a tooth on a meal or claims food poisoning as a result of eating at your establishment.

Business Interruption Insurance – This coverage will provide your lost income and ongoing expenses that occur while your business is out of business due to a covered loss such as fire or tornado. It is very important to have this protection to make sure that once you rebuild, you are still able to stay in business.

Mechanical Breakdown Coverage – What happens if your air conditioner stops working in the middle of July? No one will visit your restaurant and suppose it takes 5 days to order the part and get the air conditioner repaired. How will you deal with the loss of earnings that occurred during this time? This protection solves that problem. For more detailed information on mechanical breakdown coverage visit my blog by clicking here.

Liquor Liability – If you sell alcoholic beverages then this protection is a must. You can be sued by a third party if they are injured by one of your patrons who may have imbibed an adult beverage while visiting your establishment. These claims can be huge and can come out of nowhere so it is very important that you don’t overlook this protection.

Automobile Insurance – This is a no brainer if you purchase a vehicle in the company name. But even if you don’t you need this coverage. At the very least you need non-owned auto protection in case you ask one of your employees to run an errand for you and they have an accident while on that errand.

Workers Compensation – In NC the rules say that you don’t have to purchase a workers compensation policy if you have 3 or less employees. But what most don’t realize is that you are still on the hook for paying all claims yourself if you don’t purchase a policy. For more help with workers compensation rules and audit tips, be sure to visit my general blog at www.InsuranceAnswerGuy.com.

Life Insurance – You may need additional life insurance to cover the money that you had to borrow to set up your business, or you may want to fund a buy out in the case of your death with a key man life insurance policy.

Disability Insurance – don’t forget to protect yourself in the event you become disabled and cannot work for a period of time.

Many of these coverages can be combined into one package policy so that you won’t have 10 or 15 different policies to keep up with. The best way to handle your insurance needs is to seek out an insurance agent that specializes in restaurants, one who knows the ins and outs of insuring restaurants and already insures 100 or more of them. At Clinard Insurance Group, in Winston Salem, NC, we specialize in restaurants and write them in both NC and SC. We understand that not every restaurant is the same and so to avoid making you a square peg jammed into a round hole, we have designed 5 different insurance programs for different types of restaurants. We have a program for casual dining restaurants, one for fine dining restaurants, one for fast food insurance, one for the bar and grill or tavern insurance and one for catering insurance. If you would like 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 articles found at www.RestaurantInsuranceGuy.com.

Restaurant Insurance – Don’t Forget The Workers Compensation Policy

Restaurant insurance can be found in many different forms. One coverage that restaurant owner should have is workers compensation insurance. In North Carolina, the law states that if you have fewer than 3 employees you don’t have to purchase workers compensation insurance. But what this rule doesn’t tell you is that not buying a policy could put your very company at risk.

In NC, the workers compensation law does give you an out if you have less than 3 employees. In fact, there are no real teeth in the law that will catch and find employers who have 3 or more employees who also don’t purchase a workers compensation insurance policy. So, yeah, you could go years without purchasing a workers compensation policy for your restaurant. But that would be a very dangerous choice. Here’s why:

Although the law may not require that you actually purchase a workers compensation insurance policy, it will require that you pay all of the claims yourself just as if you were the insurance company. Workers compensation benefits in North Carolina are statutory. That means that exactly how much gets paid for each type of illness or injury has already been determined by state law. This means if you are paying out of your own pocket for a claim, you will not have the opportunity to determine how much you are going to pay.

So, using the loophole in the law to avoid buying a workers compensation policy only gets you out of paying the policy premium. It does not get you out of paying the costs of any and all claims. And these claim costs can be enormous. Imagine coming up with $100,000 to pay for injuries that resulted in permanent disability, then paying disability payments for years after that for one of your employees. Pretty scary huh? So even if work comp insurance seems expensive, you should realize that purchasing it is a no brainer because going bare means you are pretending to have the assets of an insurance company. For most restaurant owners, that just isn’t the case.

At Clinard Insurance Group, in Winston Salem, NC, we specialize in both North Carolina restaurant insurance and South Carolina restaurant insurance. We want all of our clients to be informed insurance buyers and we work hard to help them understand all the ins and outs of the restaurant insurance policy. It doesn’t matter if your establishment is fine dining, casual dining, fast food, bar & grill or even catering, we understand your business and we have a program that can help you. Please call us, toll free at 877-687-7557 or visit our Restaurant Insurance Page.

The source information for this article was pulled from articles found at the restaurant answer guy blog site.

The Hidden Trap of Spoilage Coverage on Restaurant Insurance Policies

Spoilage coverage…I’m sure most of you don’t really give it a second thought. Most restaurant insurance policies “throw in” $5,000 or even $10,000 of coverage. Even the policies that don’t automatically include it have a relatively cheap endorsement to add it. But that coverage could disappear just when you need it if you didn’t take notice of the stealth clause that voids your protection. Has your agent explained this little known protection stealer to you?

The first area to take a little time on is to answer the question, how much spoilage coverage do you actually need? Most agents will just ask “how much spoilage coverage do you want?” or some will just throw in an arbitrary number and go with it…but do you know how much is enough?

I’ve developed a pretty straightforward formula that will give you a good indication of how much you need. I invite you to give me a call if you want to find out more and I’ll be more than happy to share this formula with you.

The other BIG issue with spoilage is what I call the “stealth clause”. On the declarations page you’ll see your coverage amount and deductible and you think all is well and good and then a freezer bites the dust on you (of course the day AFTER you get your steak order!) and you call in the claim. The insurance company adjuster shows up and asks you for your written refrigeration contract….What? no one said anything about having a written maintenance agreement. The adjuster then proceeds to show you where, buried on page 127 section C subparagraph 2 that the spoilage coverage only applies if you have a written refrigeration maintenance agreement in place and then he denies your claim.

This “stealth” clause is more common than you think. We have companies that understand that maybe you maintain your refrigeration yourself ( I know I did when I had my restaurants and I still have the Freon gauges and a jug of R12 in the basement.) This is just one of the items on our proprietary checklist that we go through with you to insure you have the protection that you need at the most competitive price.

This blog just points out one of hundreds of reasons why you should only purchase your restaurant insurance policy from an agent who specializes in restaurants insurance. If your agent doesn’t handle at least 25 or more restaurants, then you probably aren’t dealing with a specialist and what your agent doesn’t know could hurt you financially.

At Clinard Insurance Group, in Winston Salem, NC, we specialize in both North Carolina restaurant insurance and South Carolina restaurant insurance. We want all of our clients to be informed insurance buyers and we work hard to help them understand all the ins and outs of the restaurant insurance policy. It doesn’t matter if your establishment is fine dining, casual dining, fast food, bar & grill or even catering, we understand your business and we have a program that can help you. Please call us, toll free at 877-687-7557 or visit our Restaurant Insurance Page.

The source information for this article was pulled from articles found at the restaurant answer guy blog site.