Most restaurant owners work their way through the maze of insurance policies that they need based on an agent’s recommendations.  If they have selected an insurance agent with experience insuring hundreds of other restaurants like theirs, then they will most likely encounter a suggestion from their agent that they purchase liquor liability insurance.  Let’s take a quick look at this protection to see what is involved in this type of policy.

First of all, this protection is expensive.  And although this may sound counterintuitive, if it seems expensive, then you probably need it.  The marketplace for liquor liability insurance is very competitive and the profit margins are not huge.  That means if it sounds expensive, then this is a demonstration of how risky it would be for you to forgo this insurance policy.  Some experts estimate that only about 35% of those who need this coverage are actually buying it.

Secondly, I want to mention here that if you are a restaurant as opposed to a true drinking establishment, you want to shop carefully for your liquor liability insurance and make sure that your underwriter fully understands your specific situation.  There are rates for bars and rates for restaurants, as you can well imagine, the bar rates are much higher than the restaurant rates.  The type of rates you are offered is usually decided by measuring the percent of your alcohol sales to your food sales.  Watch out here, if you are a fine dining restaurant, then you could be trapped into bar liquor liability rates because you are selling expensive wines.  This is an example of how using an experienced restaurant insurance agent can save you a lot of money.

Now, what should you look for in terms of the specific  coverages on your liquor liability insurance policy?  Find out if the defense costs in the policy are included as part of the limit of protection, or are unlimited an outside of the liability limit.  This could be very important if you face a large claim.  Often defense costs are as much as the limit itself and you don’t want to run out of insurance protection, and the defense attorney’s help midway through a claim.

The majority of the liquor liability claims against bars and restaurants are the result of fights.  Be sure that your policy includes coverage for assault and battery.

Are your employees included in your liquor liability coverage?  Do you know?  If you sell alcohol, then some of your employees will drink it, even when it is against your rules.  You want to be sure that employees are covered as patrons in case their drunken behavior generates a claim against your restaurant.

Last of all, read the definitions carefully to be sure that you have coverage for damages that are not physical.  People can file claims against you for all kinds of mental anguish in the event of a fight or other physical or verbal outburst in your restaurant.  You don’t want to come up short because your liquor liability policy has restricted coverage for non-physical damages.

Clinard Insurance Group is the restaurant insurance agent for NC and SC restaurant owners.  Our experience and huge list of restaurant clients means we can offer you the protection that you want at rates that will blow your mind.  We have 5 different restaurant insurance specialty programs so that you don’t have to buy coverages that you don’t need to subsidize the wider program.  We want our clients to be informed insurance buyers and we will take as much time as you need to make sure that you are comfortable with your choices.  Please give us a call, toll free, at 877-687-7557 or visit us on the web at www.TheRestaurantInsuranceStore.com.

As an agent with hundreds of restaurant owners as customers, I sit at a crossroads between the insurance buyer and the insurance underwriter.  With my finger on that pulse, I can often divine subtle changes in the restaurant insurance business.  Sometimes the message is in what the underwriter is saying or asking and other times the message lies in what the underwriters is not saying or not asking.  This article is a quick look at the state of affairs in North Carolina restaurant insurance programs with the hope that a heads up warning will help restaurant owners stay a little bit ahead of the game as the rules change before their eyes.

Most of what I am hearing from my restaurant insurance underwriters is that their appetite for buying up accounts is waning.   Of course, by buying up I mean pricing those accounts at something below an expected profit point.  The losses have mounted up a bit against the insurance companies and as such, they are less interested in cut rate pricing in order to obtain the smaller sized, single location accounts.  The pricing for the multi-location, fast food restaurant insurance is still in a downward spiral, but the Mom and Pop establishments are likely to experience rate increases over the next few years.

A quick look at the most common types of insurance losses that we are currently seeing reveals first of all that the weather has taken its toll on insurance company profits in the restaurant insurance arena.  Hail storms, tornadoes and other weather related claims have damaged roofs and rooftop equipment.  The bottom line for many companies who specialize in writing small restaurant accounts is that these accounts are starting to show up as losers on their books.  As such we are getting the beginnings of some rule tightening and other knee jerk reactions that are typical of underwriting companies who have suffered more losses than they intended.

Another interesting but disturbing trend is the increase in the frequency of medical payments claims and liability claims with large loss reserves.  When I dig around in the details of some of the claims I am appalled by the notion out there by many restaurant patrons that incurring an injury on a restaurant’s premises is a big payday opportunity for them.  We even had a claim where an obese woman was transferring from her car to her wheelchair in a perfectly level and well maintained and lit parking lot and she basically missed the chair and landed on the pavement.  She has now hired an attorney and is going after the restaurant owner for $25,000.  It’s crazy.  And that is only one of dozens of similar claims going on with many of our clients.  Does a poor economy lend itself to more of this type of behavior?  I don’t know but it is discouraging.

So what can you, the owner of a small restaurant, do to protect yourself from these potential claims and potential rate increases?  Well, first of all, make sure that you are doing business with an independent agent who lives and breathes restaurant insurance.  An agent like this will have more than one go to market for your business and should be able to use that to help you get lower rates.  Also, this type of agent will better understand the trends in restaurant insurance in your area and will better know how your policy should be set up in the first place.

Next, make sure that your own house is in order.  Look around for places in your restaurant that might tempt fate and leave you with one of those bogus, costly and time consuming liability claims.  Are there places where a customer could trip, or slip or hurt themselves somehow?  If so, take steps to regularly look for and fix these areas.

At Clinard Insurance Group, located in beautiful Winston Salem, NC, we insure over a hundred restaurants all over North Carolina and South Carolina.  We want restaurant insurance buyers out there to be informed consumers.  We freely share this kind of information because we truly care about restaurant owners.  Restaurants are a very important niche business for us.  If we can help you with any of your restaurant insurance questions, or if you would like a quote on your restaurant insurance, please call us, toll free, at 877-687-7557, or find us on the web at www.TheRestaurantInsuranceStore.com.

Food contamination for restaurants is a relatively rare occurrence among the nearly 1 million eating establishments in the United States.  But, just one food contamination claim has the potential to drive a restaurant into bankruptcy.  For this reason alone, it is very important that restaurant owners take the time to be sure that they have adequate insurance protection against this risk, and that they understand exactly what it takes to trigger their policy into action if they do have a food contamination loss.

For so many restaurant owners, when they purchase their restaurant insurance, they don’t really take the time to carefully study the food borne illness and food contamination clauses in their policy.  In fact, most restaurant owners don’t even question the limit of protection offered by their policy, they just accept it and move on.  This is because if they have food contamination coverage, it is part of an add on menu of additional coverages and comes with its own predetermined sublimit.  In most cases the sublimit is about $10,000 but how can that one size fit the needs of every restaurant out there?  Of course it cannot.  So what you must do is take some time to make a good estimate of the loss of income that you would suffer if your restaurant had a food contamination event.  Then seek out the restaurant insurance program that will allow you increase that limit of coverage to a number that more accurately reflects your restaurant’s true exposure.  There are insurance companies out there that can take this limit much, much higher.

The next part of this insurance coverage that the restaurant owner needs to understand is the trigger that will activate the coverage.  The most common definition of food contamination in restaurant insurance policies is one that includes the occurrence of food poisoning, or the suspected food poisoning of one of more of your customers resulting from tainted food purchased from you.  Often the definition also includes a communicable disease transmitted by one of your employees.  Now, be sure to take it a step further and read the definition in the policy of communicable disease.  Often this definition refers to bacterial microorganisms that are transmitted by food.  Be careful here; this kind of definition implicitly means that viruses transmitted are not covered.

On the broader side of the spectrum, some policies have a trigger that may be as broad as an announcement made by a board of health or other governmental authority.  In some cases even a media announcement can trigger the coverage.   Shop around for these more broad definitions because a media announcement even without the board of health announcement could be enough to destroy your restaurant, or at the very least require you to spend a lot of money to protect and restore your reputation.

So what are some of the sublimits within the food contamination protection that you should look for and evaluate?  There are at least 3.  First of all, there is the cost of cleaning and decontaminating your equipment and the cost to replace the tainted food.   Next you should consider the additional advertising expenses associated with protecting and restoring your restaurant’s reputation.  Last of all you may need protection for expenses incurred for the inoculation of your restaurant patrons.  Each of these protections may or may not exist in your food contamination protection and each will have its own sublimit.  Review those sublimits carefully to be sure that what you are buying is adequate to do the job.

It should be clear, just by studying this one loss exposure that every restaurant owner could face, that buying restaurant insurance is a much more complex process than just looking for the lowest price.  In fact, restaurant owners need to seek out an agent that specializes in restaurants, one that can bring the kind of expertise and experience to the relationship that will help the restaurant owner fully understand and evaluate exactly what he or she is buying.  At Clinard Insurance Group, we insured over 100 restaurants all across North Carolina and South Carolina.  We have developed 5 different restaurant programs to help meet the varying needs of the restaurant owners out there.  From our fine dining restaurant insurance package, to our casual dining restaurant insurance program, not to mention our fast food restaurant insurance program and our bar and grill insurance program, and even our caterers insurance program, we have a policy that will help you sleep well at night.  Give us a call with any of your restaurant insurance questions, toll free, at 877-687-7557 or visit us on the web at www.TheRestaurantInsuranceStore.com.

With many fires, particularly smaller ones, the damage caused by smoke can exceed the damage caused by the fire.  Often times, restaurant owners are baffled by where the smoke damage occurs and what is damaged by the smoke.  Understanding exactly how smoke moves in a fire and where it causes damage can be helpful to any restaurant owner who may have experienced a fire loss.

To get a better understanding of smoke behavior we have to take a look at the 4 factors that drive the behavior.  These four factors are the temperature, the surrounding environment, the particle ionization and the airflow pattern.  Let’s take a quick look at each one.

Temperature is a big determinant of smoke behavior because hot air rises and the temperature of smoke lifts it upward.  Smoke will climb until it is blocked by a ceiling or overhang.  The densest concentrations of smoke damage will typically be just above where the fire was the hottest.   The hot air will be cooled by the outside walls and the windows which are cooler.  As this happens, the colder air will fall to the floor to be heated again by the fire.  This convection of air will deposit much of the smoke on to the walls and the windows where the hot smoke cooled.

The surrounding environment will also have an impact on where the smoke particles and residues land.  As I mentioned above, much of the residue will deposit on the windows and walls since they are cooler.  This means if you have drapes or curtains in your restaurant and you have a smoky fire, you will want to check the inside of your drapes and window treatments.  You may find damage there where none is apparent on the outside of the window treatments.  In addition, as the heated air expands in a fire, it will push smoke into closets and other seemingly closed spaces.  The air in these spaces will cool the gases of the fire and leave behind smoke damage inside closets and nooks.  Check these carefully after a smoke damage event.  One other place where smoke damage can occur that may not be obvious is in the duct systems in your restaurant.  The temperature gradient may pull smoke and gases into the ductwork where they cool and leave behind residue and particulate matter.

What is actually burned in a restaurant fire will have a big impact on the particles found in the smoke.   And the kinds of particles in the smoke will affect which surfaces they will be attracted to and on which they will deposit.    For instance, combustion of plastics often results in particles that carry a stronger charge than burned organic materials.  As a result, smoke from burned plastic tends to accumulate in cobweb type patterns in corners and at the junctions of walls and ceilings.

The airflow pattern in your restaurant will also affect where the smoke deposits its damage.  Think of the smoke as water flowing in a stream and every obstruction that it runs into will pick up some accumulation of the particles.  Be careful to check the insides of drawers and cabinets for damage as the flow of the smoke may have put them in the path of damage.  Again, due to the large temperature gradient from the inside to the outside of a cabinet or drawer, the smoke particles might have cooled and deposited in these spaces.  You want to find all of this before you settle with your restaurant insurance claims adjuster.

Having a better understanding of the character of smoke damage will help a restaurant owner more quickly discover damage after a smoke event.  This can lead to a little bit less stress in a very stressful time.  At Clinard Insurance Group, located in Winston Salem, NC, we want all restaurant owners to be informed insurance consumers.  We insure hundreds of restaurants, all across North Carolina and South Carolina.  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.