Those who run restaurants are often some of the most passionate business owners, investing time and money to deliver a high-quality experience to their customers. However, the hospitality industry can be unforgiving, and it’s a constant challenge for owners to deliver exceptional food and service while maintaining profitability. We know there are many common risks for restaurants and hope this list helps reduce your risks. Contact GDI Insurance Agency, Inc. if you would like a comprehensive restaurant insurance quote 209-634-2929.
These challenges are magnified when you consider that risks related to property damage, equipment breakdowns, crime and liquor liability must also be addressed. The list below provides an overview of these restaurant industry risks and more—helping you identify potential blind spots in your risk management and insurance programs.
The Common Risks For Restaurants
Property Risks For Restaurants
One of the common risks for restaurants is property exposures. These exposures in restaurants are substantial and can come from many sources, including equipment failures, food spoilage, natural disasters, customers, employees and other third parties. When discussing property exposures, fire and water damage are of particular concern, and restaurants face an elevated level of risk due to things like open flames, the wide use of combustible items (e.g., tables, chairs and linens), complex HVAC systems, sewer backups and appliances connected to water lines (e.g., dishwashers).
As a California restaurant owner, you are responsible for property that may not be covered by traditional insurance. Inland marine coverage can fill these gaps in commercial property protection. Without an inland marine policy, property that’s unique or valuable, in transit, in your temporary care, stored at fixed (but movable) locations or used to transfer information represent major exposures. Specifically for restaurateurs, inland marine insurance can provide much needed protection for accounts receivable, computer equipment, data and records, food transported to various locations and food trucks.
Equipment Risks For Restaurants
Restaurants depend on functioning equipment to service their customers effectively. In the face of an equipment breakdown (e.g., refrigeration unit leaks and cooking appliance malfunctions), restaurants can experience business interruptions or even prolonged closures. What’s more, equipment breakdowns can even lead to major property damage should an appliance leak or start a fire, compounding the cost for your business.
Download our Loss Control Guide for Restaurants
Crime At Restaurants
Crime can be a challenge for restaurant owners, especially because their operations often have a steady amount of cash flowing in and out. To make matters worse, thieves can strike at any time, leaving owners to recoup any lost funds or equipment. In this day and age, thieves (including your employees) do not need direct access to cash to steal from you—merchandise, supplies and securities are all fair game. What’s more, the location of a restaurant as well as its hours of operation can have a significant impact on its level of crime risk.
Safety and Your Restaurant
Premises liability exposures at restaurants can directly affect patron safety and, when injuries occur at your business, you could be held responsible. Accidents related to slips, trips and falls; burns and scalds; and cuts are common and a major source of concern. Something as simple as a hot plate, a spilled drink or an uneven surface can lead to costly insurance claims following an accident.
Food and Beverages
Food safety is an important consideration for restaurant owners and a primary source of food and product liability. The potential for food poisoning, contamination, spoilage and allergic reactions is ever present, making continued customer safety a challenge. In the event that one of your customers becomes ill due to your food or accidentally ingests a foreign object found in one of your menu items, your restaurant could face legal ramifications and suffer irreversible reputational damage.
Lawsuits related to liquor liability are filed each day, and it’s increasingly common for victims and their families to file suits against restaurants for their role in serving a customer who is then involved in an alcohol-related accident. Making matters worse, all it takes is a single liquor liability claim to put your entire business at risk. Liquor liability exposures for restaurant owners can stem from selling liquor to underage individuals, over-serving patrons and non-compliance with applicable legislation.
Business Continuity
Continuity is critical in business, and there are few things more important than continuous revenue and cash flow, particularly for small to medium-sized organizations. In fact, just one brief business interruption can be incredibly costly for an organization, often leading to serious reputational damages or long-term closures. Common interruptions for restaurants can include natural disasters, fires, food recalls, cyber events, staff shortages and supplier issues.
Cyber Risks for Restaurants
Restaurants are a common target for cyber criminals, as these businesses often process a high volume of credit and debit card information. In addition, employees who are improperly trained on computer and data safety could put your organization at risk to ransomware, viruses, phishing scams and malware. Compounding your exposures, many restaurants offer guest Wi-Fi that, if improperly secured, can put you and your guests at risk of an attack.
Driving Risks for Restaurants
Depending on the services your restaurant offers, employees may be required to operate a vehicle on behalf of your business, creating automobile exposures in the process. While important for daily operations, the improper use of a vehicle can lead to potential accidents and major insurance claims. What’s more, if you allow employees to use their own vehicles for work, standard auto policies are often not enough. Additionally, providing valet parking can also create unforeseen challenges should a customer’s vehicle get damaged.
On The Job Injuries
On-the-job accidents at restaurants can lead to costlyworkers’ compensation claims. Complicating matters, there are a number of risks to account for, including cuts and burns; slips, trips and falls; ergonomic-related hazards; workplace violence; and drive-thru exposures. Things like improper lifting techniques, poor knife safety and inadequate training can all cause your employees to suffer an injury on the job—disrupting your business and negatively impacting your bottom line.
Solutions To Common Risks for Restaurants
While the proper risk management practices can reduce common risks for restaurants, certain exposures, no system is 100 percent effective in ensuring an accident-free workplace. As a result, it’s all the more crucial to work with a qualified insurance broker to not only assess you exposures, but secure the appropriate coverage as well. To learn more, contact GDI Insurance Agency, Inc. today.
California’s Leader in Insurance and Risk Management
As one of the fastest growing agencies in California, GDI Insurance Agency, Inc. is able to provide its clients with the latest and greatest of what the insurance industry has to offer and much, much more.
We are headquartered in Turlock, CA, with locations across the heart of California’s Central Valley, Northern California and beyond to provide a local feel to the solutions and services we provide our clients. We pride ourselves on exceeding our client’s expectations in every interaction to make sure that our client’s know how much we value and appreciate their business. Contact us today 1-209-634-2929 for your comprehensive restaurant insurance quote!
We’ve heard it many times, “A cyber attack won’t happen to my business,” thinking that your business is too small, it couldn’t be a target for cyber crime. Fact is, you are exactly who they are looking for. Small businesses are just as likely to get hacked as large businesses, you just don’t hear about it in the news.
The cyber security community has largely concurred that cyber crime damages will cost the world a predicted 6 trillion dollars annually by 2021. That is doubled from 2016 stats. It is also predicted that a business will fall victim to a ransomware attack every 14 seconds in 2019.
Could Your Small Business Recover From an Abrupt Loss of $256,000?
Because that’s how much a single cyber security hack could cost a small business, according to a recent analysis in Tech Republic. In 2017 data breaches cost companies an average of $225 per compromised record.
You can protect your business in a number of ways. Download our extensive Cyber Security Planning Guide to protect your business from cyber threats. We also offer comprehensive Cyber Liability Insurance, this will help with the large cost of a cyber breach or malware attack.
We fall victim to our own thoughts: if we don’t hear about it happening, we assume it isn’t. That’s dangerous thinking for a small business. While large corporations can bounce back from cyber attacks, it’s much more difficult for small businesses to recover.
It’s never been easier to make your own ransomware. There were 4.3 times more ransomware variants in Q1 2017 than in Q1 2016. Remote desktop is the new “in”, 2/3 of ransomware infections were delivered via Remote Desktop Protocol. Another reason why believing a cyber attack won’t happen to my business is simply not realistic.
Example of Cyber Extortion
A company reported the notice of a ransomware attack. The attack was on the company’s servers AND it’s backup servers, which made restoration difficult. The ransomware was a variant of the Mamba strain, which encrypts the entire hard drive, rather than encrypting individual files like most ransomware variants. Because restoration from backsups was not a viable option, it was determined that paying the ransom (20 Bitcoin)would be the quickest way to address the situation. The firm worked with a bitcoin broker to secure the necessary funds and coordinated the exchange with the attacker.
There was no evidence that information had been stolen from the company’s systems before, during or after the attack and therefore, no legal notification obligations were triggered by this incident. Total payout including privacy counsel, forensics and the ransom payment was approximately $300,000.
Don’t Let Your Business Become A Victim of a Cyber Attack
It’s easy to think that a cyber attack won’t happen to my business, but in reality it’s more likely that your business is exactly what cyber criminals are looking for.
The risk of Cyber attack is real! Your GL insurance policy does not cover Cyber breach. If your business relies on computers/network, computerized equipment/machinery; if you take personally identifiable information (PII) such as name, address, credit and debit cards, social security numbers, financial or medical records, driving licenses, date of birth, mother’s maiden name, biometric information (fingerprint), you need Cyber Liability Insurance coverage.
Cyber Liability Insurance Coverage
A Cyber Liability Insurance Policy can cover:
Data Breach response
Ransom payment
Social Engineering, eCrime
Business Interruption/income loss due to Cyber attack
Costs to notify affected individuals of data breach
Data Recovery costs
Data & Network Liability
Regulatory Defense & Penalties
Payment Card Liability
Forensic and legal costs
Public relations and crisis management
Consequential reputational harm
Education and Loss Prevention Tools
California’s Leader in Insurance and Risk Management
As one of the fastest growing agencies in California, GDI Insurance Agency, Inc. is able to provide its clients with the latest and greatest of what the insurance industry has to offer and much, much more.
We are headquartered in Turlock, CA, with locations across the heart of California’s Central Valley, Northern California and beyond to provide a local feel to the solutions and services we provide our clients. We pride ourselves on exceeding our client’s expectations in every interaction to make sure that our client’s know how much we value and appreciate their business. Contact us today 1-209-634-2929 for your comprehensive cyber liability insurance quote!
Owning and operating a small business can be a fulfilling experience. Years of hard work, risk-taking and financial investments have allowed you to turn your dreams of opening a business of your own into a reality. However, many business owners don’t realize how many exposures they must address to keep their business operating smoothly.
Depending on the specific type of business you manage, there are a number of exposures to consider, including risks related to property and merchandise damage, general and product liability, crime and business continuity. The list below provides an overview of these retail industry risks and more—helping you identify potential blind spots in your risk management and small business insurance programs.
Protect All of Your Business Property
As a business owner, you’ve invested your own money into your building, signage, merchandise and equipment. Just one incident involving any of this property can significantly impact your business’s chances for survival. In fact,property exposures in retail operations can come from many sources, including natural disasters and extreme weather (e.g., lightning and torrential rain), customers, employees and vandalism.
Keep All of Your Business Equipment Maintained
Retail stores depend on functioning equipment to service their customers effectively. In the face of an equipment breakdown (e.g., a power outage occurs or your point of sale system goes down), retail operations can experience business interruptions or even prolonged closures. Specifically, a business owner’s computer, mechanical, electrical and HVAC systems all have the potential to break down, causing major disruptions that can impact your reputation and bottom line.
The Challenge of Crime
Crime can be a challenge for small business, especially as they are the target for a variety of different types of scams. Business owners can have product stolen or damaged by shoplifters. In addition, criminals can easily steal money through robberies, money fraud (e.g., using illegal methods to pay for goods), checkout fraud (e.g., swapping bar codes), refund fraud (e.g., returning a stolen item for cash or credit) and online scams.
Keep Your Business Safe From Falls and Injuries
Because of the high number of individuals entering and exiting your small business, property liability exposures are significant and, when injuries occur at your business, you could be held responsible. Accidents related to slips, trips, falls, equipment and unauthorized access to your building are common and major sources of concern. Something as simple as a wet floor or an uneven surface can lead to costly insurance claims following an incident.
Any time one of your employees is injured on the job, your business could be subjected to expensive workers’ compensation claims. Common sources of on-the-job accidents for retail operations include slips, trips, falls, musculoskeletal injuries caused by repetitive tasks, sprains and strains. Normal, everyday tasks related to stocking shelves, unloading product and climbing ladders can all lead to accidents and, in turn, increased costs for your business.
What You Sell Matters
Your customers expect you to have safe and reliable products, and failing to meet these expectations can lead to huge financial losses. If one of the products you sell harms a customer in any way, they can sue your business, leading to costly legal fees and settlements. These costs can easily reach six figures, making product liability a major concern for retail owners. While you may do everything in your power to ensure your products (e.g., goods, medicines and foods) are safe, mishaps can still occur without warning.
Keep Your Business Open
Continuity is critical in business, and there are few things more important than continuous revenue and cash flow, particularly for small to medium-sized organizations. In fact, just one brief business interruption can be incredibly costly for a retail store, often leading to serious reputational damages or long-term closures. Common interruptions for retail operations can include natural disasters, fires, product recalls, cyber events, staff shortages and supplier issues.
Cyber Crime is Hard on Small Business
Retail operations are a common target for cyber criminals, as these businesses often process a high volume of credit and debit card information. In addition, employees who are improperly trained on computer and data safety could put your organization at risk to ransomware, viruses, phishing scams and malware.
Depending on the services your store offers, employees may be required to operate a vehicle on behalf of your business, creating automobile exposures in the process. While important for daily operations, the improper use of a vehicle can lead to potential accidents and major insurance claims.
California’s Leader in Insurance and Risk Management
As one of the fastest growing agencies in California, GDI Insurance Agency, Inc. is able to provide its clients with the latest and greatest of what the insurance industry has to offer and much, much more.
We are headquartered in Turlock, CA, with locations across the heart of California’s Central Valley, Northern California and beyond to provide a local feel to the solutions and services we provide our clients. We pride ourselves on exceeding our client’s expectations in every interaction to make sure that our client’s know how much we value and appreciate their business. Contact us today 1-209-634-2929 for your comprehensive small business insurance quote!
Benefits of Bundling Commercial Insurance Policies
Bundling commercial insurance policies has many benefits for businesses. Insurance carriers realize that offering additional lines of coverage to an existing customer is less expensive than trying to attract new customers. They also know that the more lines a given customer has, the longer they’re likely to stay with them.
While bundling commercial insurance policies is beneficial to insurance carriers, it is also highly beneficial to their customers. Similar to how bundling your personal home insurance and auto insurance policies may give you a discount, bundling your business policies can provide benefits way beyond cost savings.
Simplified Bookkeeping
Most businesses require a number of
insurance policies in order to properly insure their operations, including:
Keeping up with that many policies isn’t an
easy task for business owners. Therefore, bundling multiple policies with the
same carrier simplifies things for bookkeeping purposes. Besides having fewer
bills to keep track of every month, it also makes it easier come renewal time
if the bundled policies renew at the same time each year.
Your HR department will also appreciate
having one number to call when you’re hiring a new employee, have claims
questions, are adding a location or making any other business decisions that
impact your insurance.
Fewer Agents to Educate
Properly insuring your business requires explaining to your insurance agent exactly what your business does and the exposures that come with it. But without bundling your policies, you have more agents to educate, which takes time. The fewer agents you have to work with, the better equipped they’ll be to help identify and address your exposures.
GDI Insurance Agency, Inc. is your broker that has extensive experience in business insurance packages. Contact us today 209-634-2929 for your comprehensive business insurance package.
Assurance That Your Policies Work Together
There may be circumstances when two of your
business insurance policies have to work together. For example, you may assume
that something not covered by your commercial auto policy would be covered by
your commercial umbrella policy. However, many umbrella policies will only
extend above an auto policy if the insurance company offering it has a
specified financial strength rating. If your carrier’s rating falls below a
certain grade, your umbrella policy may not cover an auto loss. That’s just one
type of problem that could arise if you keep your policies under separate roofs,
with separate agents.
Less Security Risk
When obtaining insurance, business owners
are required to divulge sensitive personal information about their employees,
as well as financial information about the business itself. When dividing your
policies among multiple agents, you’re basically providing all that information
to more people than you would have to if you’d bundled your policies with one
agent. And in doing so, you’re increasing the risk of highly sensitive
information ending up in the wrong hands.
Better Pricing For Bundling Commercial Insurance
Bundling your business’s insurance policies allows your insurance professional to give you access to multiline discounts that help boost your bottom line. Contact GDI Insurance Agency, Inc. to see if any of your insurers offer multiline discounts. We can give you estimates for bundling your policies with each carrier.
California’s Leader in Insurance and Risk Management
As one of the fastest growing agencies in California, GDI Insurance Agency, Inc. is able to provide its clients with the latest and greatest of what the insurance industry has to offer and much, much more.
We are headquartered in Turlock, CA, with locations across the heart of California’s Central Valley, Northern California and beyond to provide a local feel to the solutions and services we provide our clients. We pride ourselves on exceeding our client’s expectations in every interaction to make sure that our client’s know how much we value and appreciate their business. Contact us today 1-209-634-2929 for your comprehensive business insurance quote!
Employment-related lawsuits are a growing concern for employers of all sizes. As costs for litigation and damage awards climb, experts predict that employment liability will only become more complex. As a result, it is critical for employers to understand strategies to reduce small business EPL exposures and options to manage the risk.
Use These Strategies to Reduce Your Small Business EPL Exposures
Two effective risk management strategies include solid human resources practices and employment practices liability (EPL) insurance coverage, a policy used to cover your risk due to the ever-changing legal and employment environment.
There are three common employment-related lawsuits today:
Wrongful termination: The discharge of an employee for invalid reasons.
Discrimination: The denial of equal treatment of workers who are members of a protected class.
Sexual Harassment: When a worker is subject to unwelcome sexual advances, obscene or offensive remarks, or the failure to stop such behavior.
Employment Practices liability (EPL) insurance works hand-in-hand with your internal employment practices to provide the necessary resources to defend your company against a suit or to pay a claim. To best understand the strategies to reduce your small business EPL exposures and risk, it’s important to know the potential sources:
Recruitment
practices
Employment
applications
Employment offers
Employee orientation
Annual conduct
reviews
Enforcing
performance policies
Termination
Improper
documentation of the above items
To limit your
exposure, engaging in solid human resources practices is an important strategy
in reducing your company’s liability.
To verify your HR policies and best practices, conduct a thorough HR audit:
Verify that the Employee Handbook outlines all policies and terms of employment in clear and concise language
Require employees to sign an acknowledgement form for receipt of Handbook.
Develop training for supervisors including interview skills, performance reviews and a “zero-tolerance” policy.
Employment law
is often complex and varies depending on the jurisdiction. Well organized and
credible documents can demonstrate fair treatment, deter litigation, ensure
employee honesty and—should litigation occur—demonstrate the employer’s
actions.
In addition to
having the appropriate employment policies and HR best practices in place, EPL
insurance coverage is another useful risk management tool used to defend
against a suit or pay a claim. In fact, evidence of desirable practices and
policies will be required to obtain EPL coverage. Typically, the insurance underwriter
will require a copy of your employee handbook, which should cover the following
policies:
Sexual harassment
Discrimination
Equal opportunity
Disabled employees
and accommodations
Grievances
Employee discipline
Termination
Performance
evaluations
Internet
usage/employee privacy
Pregnancy leave
Internal job
postings
Hiring and
interviewing
Alternative dispute
Resolution/arbitration
Employment-at-will
Employment
application form
In addition, you
are usually required to provide the most recent annual report or SEC 10-K, the
list of entities proposed for the coverage, and most recent EEO-1 reports.
EPL insurance works hand-in-hand with your internal employment practices to provide the necessary resources to defend your company against a suit or to pay a claim. As with all of your risk-management needs, GDI Insurance Agency, Inc. is committed to assisting you in assessing your employment-related policies and helping you with strategies to reduce small business EPL exposures Call GDI Insurance Agency, Inc. today at 209-634-2929 to learn more about our effective risk management services.
Employment Practices Liability Insurance: Crucial for Small Businesses
According to a recent study, more than half of all claims filed for employment-related liabilities are against employers with fewer than 50 employees. Alarmingly, the study also reveals that not even 2 percent of small businesses have employment practices liability (EPL) coverage. This is why finding strategies to reduce small business EPL exposures is so important.
High Price Tag
Employment-related
claims can be extremely costly, especially in cases that drag on for years.
With a slow economy and increasing adoption of worker-friendly laws, these
cases are on the rise—in fact, discrimination claims have increased
significantly in the last 20 years. According to data from the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission (EEOC), most claims are based on race, sex, age and
disability. Many small businesses cannot afford to pay these costs and keep
their company afloat.
What Puts Small Businesses at Risk?
Understandably,
it can be much more difficult for small businesses to defend themselves against
employment-related claims because they tend to have fewer resources and a
different work environment. Small businesses are particularly at risk for
employment-related claims for the following reasons:
Many have a minimal
staff and lack of in-house counsel and/or full human resources department to
rely on
Overall lack of
extensive recordkeeping on employee performance
More intimate
working environments may cause personal riffs during layoffs
An Affordable Solution
Fortunately, with employment-based lawsuits on the rise and the economy’s sluggish upward climb, EPL coverage is becoming more affordable. More insurers are beginning to offer EPL insurance policies with comprehensive coverage to smaller businesses to protect them in tough times. In fact, EPL insurance is becoming so important to the success of small businesses that it is being offered at more affordable prices and being tailored specifically for those smaller companies. With the average cost of an employment lawsuit exceeding $270,000, the potential return dwarfs the initial cost of EPL coverage. Talk to GDI Insurance Agency, Inc. to learn if this risk transfer option is right for your business.
California’s Leader in Insurance and Risk Management
As one of the fastest growing agencies in California, GDI Insurance Agency, Inc. is able to provide its clients with the latest and greatest of what the insurance industry has to offer and much, much more.
We are headquartered in Turlock, CA, with locations across the heart of California’s Central Valley, Northern California and beyond to provide a local feel to the solutions and services we provide our clients. We pride ourselves on exceeding our client’s expectations in every interaction to make sure that our client’s know how much we value and appreciate their business. Contact us today 1-209-634-2929 for your comprehensive employment practices liability insurance quote! #justaskgrant
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