Restaurants & Cafes: How To Protect Your Business

As a restaurant or cafe owner, you need to get business insurance coverage to protect yourself from the everyday risks of running your business.

Having restaurant insurance will cover you against various risks, including accidents sustained on your premises, theft of goods, cash or property, damage done to your property and legal fees.

The type and amount of insurance you need will depend on the size of your business and how you run it. For example, a small cafe on a beachfront offering snacks and drinks will need very different insurance needs to a busy city centre restaurant with 500 covers.

1. What is restaurant insurance?
2. What does restaurant insurance cover?
3. Commercial restaurant insurance
4. Pop up restaurant insurance
5. Cafe insurance
6. Conclusion

What is restaurant insurance?

You may run a tight ship in your kitchen, but accidents will happen. Kitchen or waiting staff may slip on accidental spills or dropped food. Your restaurant insurance cover is designed to protect your business from such accidents, whether it is an employee or a customer claiming an injury.

Restaurant and cafe insurance can be broken down into many different sub-sectors depending on the type of catering business you operate. So this guide will look at the different kinds of restaurant and cafe insurance you can buy and what it covers.

What does restaurant insurance cover?

Public and product liability insurance is one of the most popular products for the restaurant and cafe industry. This type of cover protects you from a customer or member of staff getting injured or becoming ill because of your business.

It also covers you against property damage. For example, if a customer catches the sleeve of their designer leather jacket on a door handle and they make a claim against you to cover the repair or replacement of that jacket.

Public and product liability insurance is a great place to start to cover your restaurant or cafe business. Then you can add any additional insurance cover that may suit your business, such as insurance for restaurant employees in the form of employers’ liability insurance and cover for your essential tools, equipment and stock.

As a general rule, restaurant and cafe owners should seek adequate insurance in the form of:

• Contents insurance: This protects against something happening to your restaurant’s fixtures and fittings or essential operational equipment.
• Employers’ liability insurance: This will cover you should anyone fall ill or get injured while working for your restaurant or cafe. If you employ staff, you are usually required by law to have employers’ liability insurance.
• Legal expenses insurance: If you have to pay legal costs while running your restaurant or cafe, this cover is essential to protect your business.
• Personal accident insurance: This provides you with excellent coverage if you or anyone you have covered on your policy has an accident at work or elsewhere that will put you out of action.
• Public liability insurance for restaurants: If you or your employee injures a customer or damages their property.
• Restaurant building insurance: This will cover your repair or refurbishment costs should something happen to your restaurant premises.
• Stock insurance: If something happens to your prepared food, raw ingredients, or other essential materials, such as a fridge or freezer break down, flood or water leak causing food spoilage, you will be covered.

Commercial restaurant insurance

You can get personally tailored commercial restaurant insurance cover to suit the needs of your pub, cafe or restaurant. There is no need to seek out and pay for separate insurances such as public liability or employer’s liability, as you can get different insurance elements rolled into one policy.

Your insurance policy can be tailored to include cover for public liability insurance to protect you against compensation claims made against your business by customers or members of the public. Employers’ liability to cover your restaurant employees, contents, stock insurance and more all under one comprehensive policy.

Commercial restaurant insurance provides a flexible approach to offer restaurants a tailored solution to meet their insurance needs. It is suitable for all commercial restaurant and cafe settings, including pubs, coffee shops, takeaways and ice cream parlours.

Pop up restaurant insurance

Pop-up restaurants are a popular way for budding entrepreneurs to test their products on the public quickly and cost-effectively. However, you must get proper insurance coverage to protect yourself and your business idea.

The pop-up sector is worth around £2.3bn to the UK economy, and its popularity is growing fast. But just like permanent restaurant businesses, pop-up restaurants need business insurance to operate safely.

While there are not many dedicated pop-up restaurant insurance solutions on the market, you can arrange temporary business insurance and include the cover you need in your policy.

You should consider taking out insurance to cover all risks within your pop-up restaurant, even if you don’t need to buy building insurance to protect your premises.

The transient nature of pop-up restaurants often makes life difficult for business insurance providers. But you can build a temporary insurance policy for your pop-up restaurant by building in elements based on:

• Restaurant size
• Risk to customers
• Staff numbers
• Stock value
• The duration of your pop up
• Type of activity

The one thing we would advise you to do if you are thinking about launching a pop-up restaurant is to give yourself plenty of time to think about your insurance needs and have your insurance in place before you launch the business.

Rushing your insurance planning can lead to making mistakes that could cost you dearly once you are up and running.

Cafe insurance

The cafe insurance UK marketplace can be as complicated as any other business insurance sector. Whether you run a coffee shop or small bistro, you will face a unique set of risks that will need to be covered.

Cafe insurance costs are essential, and you will need coverage to protect your business from accidents and any other unplanned expenses such as fridge or freezer breakdowns, theft and vandalism etc.

You need to think about not just public liability and employers’ liability insurance. It is also about arranging cover to protect your cafe from other significant disruptions, such as a flood or fire, and protecting your stock, materials and essential equipment from loss or damage.

Getting a cafe insurance quote is quick and easy to do online. And remember to include employer’s liability cover if you employ staff and public liability insurance to protect your business. Beyond these two essential elements, you can tailor your policy to meet the needs of your business.

Conclusion

If you’re working in the restaurant and cafe industry, it’s essential to have adequate insurance coverage. However, the insurance needs of each business can vary greatly. That’s why it’s important to compare business insurance options to find the right coverage for your specific needs. For instance, a sole trader running a small beachfront cafe that sells drinks and snacks could benefit from very affordable public liability cafe insurance, which can provide coverage up to £2,000,000.

But a family-run licensed restaurant may need to have public liability of up to £2,000,000, plus employers’ liability of £10,000,000 and cover their stock for up to £5,000 to meet their business needs better. Expand your knowledge of business insurance and learn about the different coverage options available at Brisco Business.

Stephanie Lowndes

Stephanie is a digital marketing masters graduate with extensive customer service experience gained in the retail and hospitality sectors. Stephanie is currently a marketing executive at Brisco Business.

All articles by Stephanie Lowndes