Wine stores not only sell a wide range of wines like cabernet, pinot noir, and merlot, but also champagne and beer. In addition, wine stores often carry accessories, such as bottle openers, wine racks, chillers, corkscrews, coasters, and more. If you are opening a wine store, you should first consider what your risks are so you can purchase the right types of wine store insurance. Wine shops are susceptible to theft from customers and employees, along with damage to your products from an unexpected event, and injuries caused to customers while they are in your store. Take these risks into consideration when choosing wine store insurance.
Types of Wine Store Insurance
The following insurance policies cover all the risks your wine shop might be exposed to. Purchase the policies that will offer your store the best coverage available.
Wine Store General Liability Insurance
General liability insurance protects your company from injuries that occur in your store. If a customer comes in and slips on the floor shortly after a spilled bottle of wine wasn’t cleaned up adequately, she could sprain an ankle or even cut her hand on glass from a broken wine bottle. Since it occurred in your wine store, it would be your responsibility. With general liability insurance, you have excellent coverage against this type of liability. General liability typically includes personal injury, products liability, and completed operations.
Wine Store Liquor Liability Insurance
As a wine store, it is essential that you get a liquor liability insurance policy. If you have a customer that comes into the store and is intoxicated from alcohol he purchased from you, he has a higher chance of injuring himself, or others, in your store. This could result in a lawsuit as the injury occurred in your store. Liquor liability will ensure protection against injuries caused from the purchase of alcohol.
Wine Store Product Liability Insurance
Aside from other types of liability insurance policies, you should also make sure you’re covered by products liability. The products you sell could potentially cause an injury or illness if they’re contaminated or defective and you didn’t realize it when you sold it. If those defects cause illness or damage somehow to your customer, they could hold you responsible. Product liability will offer protection against the cost of damages and any impending lawsuit.
Wine Store Commercial Auto Insurance
Business auto insurance is a type of auto policy specifically for vehicles used during business hours. The vehicle could be owned by you or an employee and used for any type of business errand like making a bank deposit, picking up supplies or visiting your vendor. These are considered business-related and therefore any accidents would be covered by the business auto insurance policy. This includes damage to the vehicles involved in the accident and bodily injury.
Wine Store Business Property Insurance
Since most of the items in your wine store are made of glass and fragile, any natural disaster or extreme weather condition would damage them easily. This makes business property insurance that much more important. If there is a hurricane, snow storm, or fire that damages your shop or contents, the repairs and replacements are covered by the policy.
Wine Store Cyber Liability Insurance
Many wine stores also sell items online and if that’s the case for you, you should have a separate insurance specifically for cyber crimes. Even with proper safety precautions, experienced hackers can still get behind these security measures and take precious data or put viruses on your website. To protect your business from these crimes, get a cyber liability insurance policy.
Wine Store Employee Theft Coverage
Employee theft, whether it is money or alcohol, is a significant threat to your wine store and should be covered properly. A separate employee theft insurance policy can be purchased in addition to other policies to ensure you have proper coverage from the loss.
Wine Store Workers’ Compensation
Your workers should also be covered with worker’s compensation insurance as it protects employees and your business. If an employee is cleaning the back room and cuts their hand on broken glass, the medical costs will be covered by worker’s compensation. Having the policy also prevents the employee from successfully suing your company or damages.
Wine Store Crime Insurance
Your store is at risk for a multitude of crimes, including theft, shoplifting, embezzlement, and vandalism. You can’t always prevent these crimes from occurring, but you can get coverage to help replace items that were stolen by purchasing a crime insurance policy.
Whether you sell top-shelf wine, imported beer, or a selection of other spirits, you want to protect your business the best way you can. These wine store insurance policies are going to give you the widest range of coverage.
