The insurance experts of World Insurance are committed to providing restaurant owners like yourself with quality restaurant general liability coverage in New York. In order to take the absolute best care of you, your employees and your investment, it’s essential that you have the right amount of liability insurance. But just how do you determine how much coverage your restaurant needs? We’re glad you asked.
The Hard Truth
The truth of the matter is that it can be nearly impossible to determine a concrete number for how much liability insurance your restaurant needs. The reason for this is liability exposure is essentially an unknown science. You likely won’t know for sure how much insurance you need until an accident occurs, and by then it’s too late. For instance, a single slip-and-fall accident can result in anything as simple as a sore knee to something as major as a brain injury that leaves an individual unable to work for more than a year.
We don’t say this to alarm you, simply to make you aware of how much variance is involved with restaurant general liability coverage. Being forewarned is most certainly being forearmed.
Understand How Your Current Coverage Works
Understanding the coverage you have now (if any) also helps you to get a better idea of how much liability protection you need. Take a look at your policy and you’ll see you have an occurrence limit and an annual aggregate. Your occurrence number is for individual and subsequent incidents while the annual aggregate number is reserved for when your restaurant suffers several unconnected incidents. Between these two numbers, it’s your occurrence limit you’ll want to use as your overall coverage number.
Where Problems Occur
Restaurant owners run into problems with restaurant general liability coverage in New York when their coverage amount isn’t enough for a settlement amount. Should your three-million dollar liability coverage not be enough for a six-million dollar settlement, you’ll either have to go to court or pay the difference out of pocket, which could financially ruin you as well as your business.
Pack an Umbrella
While there may not be a concrete number for how much liability coverage you need for your restaurant, there is something called umbrella insurance that can go a long way to help. With an umbrella policy, you’ll be able to extend your liability limits. What’s more is that this type of policy can help you in the event your business suffers an incident that’s not currently covered on your restaurant insurance plan. Should you ever find yourself in over your head for an incident that outweighs your current liability coverage, you’ll see for yourself why it’s called an umbrella policy. Know that this extra protection is available in increments of a million dollars.
Talk With Your Insurance Agent
Besides knowing how your liability coverage works and getting umbrella insurance, the next best thing you can do to make sure your restaurant is protected against liabilities is talk with your insurance agent. No one knows more about how your restaurant works and the extent of protection you need, and no one knows better how the insurance industry operates. Schedule a consultation with your agent if it’s been a while since you’ve discussed your coverage needs, and be sure to update your agent should your current needs ever change. The only way your agent can make sure you and your restaurant are fully covered is if he or she knows what needs to be covered.
Never underestimate the importance of having enough liability protection. You’ve worked hard to open your restaurant, now make sure you do what you can to keep it open and in your possession.