Restaurant insurance checklist before you open in New York

1. What the lease requires (before you get keys)

The landlord's insurance clause is the first deadline. Almost every commercial lease in the Capital Region requires:

• General liability, usually $1,000,000 per occurrence and $2,000,000 aggregate, sometimes more for larger spaces.
• The landlord as additional insured, by endorsement on the policy. A certificate that merely lists them as certificate holder will be sent back.
• Property coverage on your tenant improvements, equipment and stock, and sometimes on the landlord's glass.
• A certificate of insurance delivered before occupancy, and renewed every year.

Send me the lease before you sign it. Some clauses ask for things no carrier will write, and it's easier to negotiate them out than to explain later why you can't comply.

2. What the law requires (before the first shift)

• Workers' compensation from the first person who works for you, including part-time staff, family and, for a for-profit business, volunteers. Restaurant class codes carry meaningful rates because kitchens produce burns, cuts and slips; a clean first year starts building your discount.
• Disability benefits and Paid Family Leave, one policy, required once you've had an employee on 30 days in a calendar year. Buy it with the workers' comp so the timing takes care of itself. Details in hiring your first employee in New York.
• Commercial auto if the business owns a vehicle. New York's minimum liability limits apply, and a delivery van needs far more than the minimum.

3. What the risk requires

Liquor liability

If you serve alcohol, this is the policy that matters most and the one most often missed. Under New York's Dram Shop Act, a restaurant that serves a visibly intoxicated person, or anyone under 21, is liable to third parties that person injures afterwards: the other driver, the pedestrian, the family. General liability excludes it entirely. Liquor liability covers the defence and the damages. No statute requires it, but most landlords and lenders do, and a single Dram Shop claim can exceed a restaurant's entire value. Premium is based on alcohol sales as a share of revenue, so a wine list at a bistro costs far less to insure than a late-night bar.

Property, spoilage and equipment breakdown

A walk-in that fails on a Friday night is a five-figure loss of stock. Standard property coverage doesn't pay for spoilage from equipment failure or a power cut; the spoilage endorsement does. Equipment breakdown covers the compressor, the hood system and the POS hardware themselves. Both are inexpensive additions to a restaurant BOP and both get used.

Business interruption

If a kitchen fire closes you for two months, property coverage rebuilds the kitchen but doesn't pay the rent, the payroll you want to keep, or the profit you didn't earn. Business interruption does. Choose a period of restoration that reflects how long permits and contractors actually take in this region, which is longer than people assume.

Hired and non-owned auto

For staff who deliver or run errands in their own cars. Their personal policies exclude it; yours needs the endorsement, or a claim from a delivery accident lands on the business uninsured.

Cyber and payment data

Card processors push liability for a breach onto the merchant. A modest cyber policy covers forensics, notification and the fines the card brands impose, and increasingly landlords and processors ask for it.

Employment practices liability

Restaurants have high staff turnover and are a frequent source of wage-and-hour and harassment claims. EPLI covers the defence, which is where most of the cost is. Worth a quote once you're past a handful of employees.

What it costs

For a single-location restaurant in the Capital Region, the package (GL, property, interruption, spoilage, equipment breakdown) plus liquor liability and workers' comp is priced on square footage, revenue, alcohol sales and payroll. Two restaurants with the same menu can differ by a factor of three depending on whether they have a bar, a fryer under a suppression system, and a clean claims history. I'll quote from your projections and reprice at the first renewal on actual numbers.

What I do

Restaurants are the largest part of my commercial book. I review the lease clause, bind the policies in the order above, issue the certificates the landlord wants, and handle the claim when a customer slips or the compressor dies. Turkish-speaking owners can do all of it in Turkish. Request a restaurant quote, or read the restaurant insurance page for coverage by coverage detail.