If you are a restaurant and are offering food delivery as part of your services, there are significant risks that go along with the rewards of increased revenue and client counts that delivery can bring. Thankfully, those risks can be managed with commercial auto insurance that ensures your business doesn’t encounter an unexpected, uncovered, and likely expensive claim.
It’s important to know that if there is an accident during delivery, someone is injured, or property damage occurs to another vehicle or other property, your Restaurant is liable for that injury or damage. Commercial auto claims are both expensive – they cost businesses $70,000 on average and frequent, the annual accident rate for commercial fleets is around 20%
Not having the right commercial auto insurance for your Connecticut restaurant could be devastating, read on for information on how to avoid this situation.
3 Commercial Auto Insurance Considerations For Restaurants
If your Connecticut Restaurant Owns the Autos
If your Restaurant owns or leases the vehicles used to deliver food, it’s essential to make sure you have a Commercial Auto policy with those vehicles specifically listed (scheduled) on the policy. The liability coverage for your business follows the vehicles listed on your policy, so if a vehicle your company owns is delivering food and is scheduled on the policy, you have coverage up to the limits you selected.
If Personally Owned Cars are Used for Delivery
If another vehicle is being used to deliver the food, such as a vehicle personally owned by an employee, you should ensure you have Hired and Non-Owned Auto Liability coverage for your business. Hired and Non-Owned Auto Liability responds if an accident occurs with a vehicle you hired or a vehicle the firm does not own but is used for business purposes (like food delivery).
Everyone Needs Hired and Non-owned Auto Coverage
If you already have a Commercial Auto policy, you want to make sure that the policy includes Liability coverage for Hired and Non-Owned vehicles. This is a separate coverage from the liability coverage provided to your owned and scheduled vehicles. If you don’t already have a Commercial Auto policy, you may be able to purchase a separate policy for Hired and Non-Owned Automobiles or add the coverage to an existing Business Owners or Commercial Package policy.
The Last Word
Offering delivery can positively impact your business – increasing sales, setting you up for return visits, and more. You need to be aware of and manage the associated risks. And it’s not a “set it and forget it” activity – your insurance program needs to be carefully reviewed and managed regularly because as you grow your business, your risks evolve with it.
An experienced InsureGood Advisor can help you review your delivery operations and determine what auto insurance is appropriate for your growing restaurant. And our Protect360 program can help you develop driver management and loss prevention programs that decrease your losses and expenses.
We need your restaurant in our community – we’ll help you ensure it’s adequately protected.
