Restaurant Insurance in Massachusetts

What insurance coverages should restaurants look for?

While the exact coverage needs of restaurants can vary some, both property coverages and liability coverages are usually in order. Property coverages normally safeguard assets. Restaurant liability insurance coverages normally protect against lawsuits.

Some examples of property coverages that restaurants, depending on their situation, might want are:

• Commercial Building Coverage: Often protects a restaurant’s physical premises, including the building, parking lot, and any outdoor seating areas, if the restaurant owns its building.
• Tenant’s Betterment Coverage: Often protects improvements a restaurant makes to a leased space, usually covering both front-of-house and back-of-house build-outs that the restaurant pays for.
• Commercial Contents Coverage: Often protects kitchen equipment, dishes, POS systems, furniture, decorations, and other non-permanent items in a restaurant.
• Food Contamination Coverage: Often protects ingredients and prepared foods against certain causes of spoilage spoilage, such as power outages.

Some restaurant liability insurance protections that restaurants often get are:

• General Liability Coverage: May protect against common “slip and fall” accidents where a third party is injured, and usually also covers false advertising and defamation.
• Liquor Liability Coverage: May protect against incidents involving overly intoxicated customers, often including common accidents, fights, sexual assaults, DUI accidents, and alcohol poisoning.
• Product Liability Coverage: May protect against serious illnesses caused by incorrectly stored or prepared food, and usually also covers food-caused injuries such as choking.
• Umbrella Liability Coverage: May protect against lawsuits that cost more than the limit of an underlying restaurant liability insurance coverage.

Do restaurants need special insurance when hosting private events?

Many restaurant policies can cover private events that are hosted at a restaurant. Finding coverage for hosting events like major birthday parties, major anniversary celebrations, rehearsal dinners, nonprofit fundraisers, and corporate parties usually isn’t difficult. 

However, not every restaurant policy provides sufficient coverage for these types of events. It’s usually not hard to find coverage, but it’s still important to make sure that a chosen policy has all of the protections that are needed.

An insurance agent specializing in restaurant policies can check how well a particular policy would cover private events held at a restaurant.

How much are the insurance premiums for a restaurant?

The cost of insuring a sit-down restaurant varies, being affected by factors like size, location, menu offerings, annual sales, and claims history. 

To find out how much insurance will cost in a specific situation, restaurants can work with an independent insurance agent. An independent agent will be able to check quotes from a number of different insurance companies.