Restaurant insurance for the whole operation.

Restaurants are among the more complex small businesses to insure, because the exposures are genuinely varied and the margins leave little room to absorb a loss. Fire in a commercial kitchen, spoilage when refrigeration fails, injury to guests and staff, and liquor liability where drinks are served all need to be handled — and the one that closes a restaurant most often is not fire but the weeks of lost trade afterwards.

Hood systems, fire suppression and what carriers require

Commercial cooking under a hood is the single largest property exposure, and carriers underwrite it closely. Most will expect a working automatic suppression system over the cooking line and documented professional cleaning of the hood and ducts on a regular schedule.

Those service records are not administrative box-ticking. A grease fire following a lapsed cleaning schedule is precisely the claim an insurer will examine hardest, and keeping the paperwork is the cheapest protection available to you.

Spoilage and equipment breakdown

A walk-in cooler that fails on a Friday night can destroy a weekend of stock. Standard commercial property cover responds to named perils damaging the property itself; it does not automatically pay for food spoiled because a compressor died.

Equipment breakdown cover handles the mechanical and electrical failure, and spoilage cover handles the stock inside. Both are inexpensive relative to the loss, and both are commonly missing from restaurant policies bought on price alone.

The income, not just the building

After a fire the property policy rebuilds the kitchen. Business interruption cover pays the rent, the payroll you want to keep and the profit you would have made during the months it takes. For a leased restaurant with fixed costs, that is usually the larger number by a wide margin.

Set the indemnity period realistically. Rebuilding a commercial kitchen and re-permitting it rarely takes three months, and a policy written for three months will stop paying while you are still closed.