Gourmet food stores are a great place to get gourmet foods like cheese, crackers, condiments, homemade pasta, ethnic food, canned and frozen foods, sauces, and a variety of herbs and spices. Each gourmet food store will sell a different selection of items. As a gourmet store owner, your primary risks tend to be regarding your food, which can include food spoilage and food contamination. You will need to get gourmet food store business insurance to protect your gourmet food store from these risk exposures.
Types of Gourmet Food Store Insurance
Because you have multiple risk exposures, you should choose from multiple business insurance policies. These gourmet food store insurance policies are the most prevalent to your business.
Gourmet Food Store General Liability Insurance
General liability includes three areas of coverage: product liability, premises liability and completed operations. If a customer becomes ill from eating contaminated produce you sold them, the medical costs are covered by product liability. If another customer trips and falls in your store, the costs are covered by premises liability. Completed operations is for any services you provide, such as baking a custom-made cake.
Gourmet Food Store Spoilage Coverage
Food spoilage typically occurs if you lose power or something else causes your refrigeration or freezer units to stop working. This may mean thousands of dollars in product destroyed. If you had spoilage coverage, the policy will help cover the loss from these types of incidents.
Gourmet Food Store Food Contamination Coverage
At your gourmet food store, you rely on having fresh foods available to serve to your customers. If food is contaminated by ingredients that are raw or contain parasites, it could destroy your entire inventory. If something happens to cause contamination, food contamination coverage will help cover the loss.
Gourmet Food Store Commercial Auto Insurance
If you or your employees are running errands or attending trade shows, you should have your car covered by a business auto policy. This is a commercial insurance policy including the coverage you choose, such as bodily injury, car damage, property damage, theft and vandalism. So if you have theft coverage and while parked at the trade show, merchandise is stolen from the vehicle, it will be covered by the business auto insurance policy.
Gourmet Food Store Business Property Insurance
Unexpected events like fire, flood, natural disasters or severe weather conditions, could all cause damage to your gourmet food store. Any one of these events could quickly damage your food and beverages, and cause damage to your property. If that happens, business property insurance would help cover the costs. If there is a natural disaster causing your electricity to go out and refrigerator to shut off, the spoiled food would be covered by the policy.
Gourmet Food Store Cyber Liability Insurance
If you sell gourmet food items from an online store, consider getting a cyber liability insurance policy. This will protect you from certain cyber crimes you are at risk for. You may have dishonest individuals paying with stolen payment methods, or causing a virus on your website to harm you and your customers. If you face litigation from a customer who was harmed from an attack, you can use the cyber liability policy to cover these costs.
Gourmet Food Store Workers’ Compensation
Your employees are at risk for work-related injuries, such as repetitive motion injury, back or shoulder pain, or injuries from accidents like slips and falls. To protect them, make sure each employee is covered with a workers’ compensation policy. Not only is it required in most states, but it helps workers pay for medical costs associated with their injury.
Gourmet Food Store Crime Insurance
Your gourmet food store is at risk for crimes from employees, passersby and customers. This may include stealing money out of the cash register by an employee, being vandalized in the middle of the night or having items stolen from your store. If you experience embezzlement from an employee, you may be suffering a significant loss in income. Luckily, crime insurance helps to cover this type of loss.
In order to fully protect your specialty food store, you should be choosing a variety of gourmet food store insurance policies. Look at your biggest risks and slightly less common risks and get those covered first, followed by the least common ones.
