As a store’s owner or manager, you’ve probably witnessed the whole spectrum of insurance claims. Slip and fall accidents that are fake or theft, refrigerators crashing on the hot days of the year, it’s all part of the business.
The frequency and variety of these events are why owners of grocery stores use insurance more often than other business owners. Claims are more likely when you deal with many perishable food items and thousands of people visiting your establishment daily.
Why Is Insurance Necessary for Grocery Stores?
Here are the most frequent justifications for purchasing insurance at grocery stores before we delve into the various types of insurance plans that they require:
Landlords Require Insurance
Suppose the structure where your store gets located is not your property. In that case, the landlord or property management company may require an insurance policy for liability and include it as an added insured to the procedure.
Landlords require this because, as property owners, they bear significant liability. If accidents or injuries occur at your business, your insurance policy will defend and compensate for lawsuit costs.
Franchise Partners Require Insurance
Like landlords, a grocery store franchise chain will frequently get wrapped up in lawsuits involving one of its stores. For that reason, we see insurance requirements from the franchisor that require the franchisee to carry specific insurance policies with certain insurance limits.
Grocery Stores Have a High Claims Frequency
Grocery stores have more claims than other types of businesses. These claims typically do not involve an enormous amount of money. Still, there are a lot of them, primarily relating to slips and falls or injuries that happen on the premises. And frequent claims, even with small or medium levels of financial liability, start to add up quickly.
Grocery Retailers Frequently Face Frivolous Lawsuits
The higher claims frequency naturally includes more fake claims. Grocery stores are more susceptible to fraudulent and frivolous claims than other businesses.
What Kinds of Insurance Protections Do Grocery Stores Require?
General Liability
The general liability insurance policy is one of the most essential protections grocery stores require to safeguard their businesses. This policy will cover bodily and property injuries that occur within your premises or when selling a product.
The general insurance policy of liability will cover the vast majority of the claims filed by grocery stores. These kinds of claims typically have a small amount of money. However, they could be significant in severe or prolonged injury.
Commercial Property
Grocery stores are full of inventory that is valuable. Between the shelves of groceries items, computers, and even refrigeration equipment, you may have millions of dollars of inventory. Commercial property insurance protects your property from fires, theft, natural disasters, and more.
Workers Compensation
The employees of grocery stores replenish shelves, operate at the registers, and run the store. Since these are typically physically-based jobs that require a person to be present, they are liable for a significant amount. The purchase of a worker’s compensation coverage that covers specified medical expenses for employees who sustain injuries while working for your business gets mandated by law in many jurisdictions for supermarkets.
Cyber Liability
As a business with many payment transactions and relies upon the up-time of the computer systems, a cyber liability policy is becoming more important for grocery stores every year.
When ransomware infects modern point-of-sale (POS) systems, they lock you and your staff out and generally results in the loss of sales for the time required to restore your systems.
Additionally, attacks on your computer require a forensic examination to determine the type of data loss and whether any data contained personal information regarding your customers.
A cyber liability insurance policy protects you from these risks. It covers the loss of income you incur when you recover from an attack.
Employment Practices Liability
Grocery stores usually have more employees and a greater turnover rate than other sectors. It puts the stores at risk whenever an employee gets hired, not hired, or fired. It is possible for a lawsuit relating to employment, including discrimination, wrongful firing, retaliation, or numerous other issues.
Insurance for employment practices and liability (EPLI) is a policy that covers incidents related to employment or that happen during the time you and your team operate your business.
Summary
Store owners in the grocery industry face more claims than other business owners; it’s just an everyday thing. Insurance is required to protect yourself from the many legal claims at your store and ensure you own a massive amount of inventory.
If you’re looking for an insurance agency with expertise in the insurance of grocery stores and dealing with pertinent issues in the business, let us know. We can help.
Commercial Insurance Ottawa can find coverage for damage or loss of inventory, equipment, or the structure itself. Contact us at (613) 454-5640 or email us at info@commercialinsuranceottawa.com for a commercial or business insurance quote.