Pub Insurance

Pub insurance is normally a combined package: buildings if you own the freehold, contents and trade fixtures, wet and dry stock, money, glass, public and products liability, employers' liability for your staff, and business interruption for lost income if you cannot trade. For a pub specifically, three covers matter more than the headline price: loss of licence, deterioration of stock, and a business interruption indemnity period long enough to actually rebuild.

It should, but it is often not included as standard and has to be asked for. Loss of licence cover responds if your premises licence is suspended or revoked other than through your own misconduct, and it pays for the reduction in the value of the business, with some wordings also covering lost income. For a pub the licence is effectively the business, so losing it is a bigger financial event than a fire. We put it in the terms we present rather than leaving you to notice it is missing.

Yes. Glass cover is included on the pub policies we arrange and covers the shopfront, windows, mirrors and glazed fittings. It matters more in a pub than most trades, because a broken shopfront is a security and trading problem before it is an insurance one, and replacing a large pane runs to several thousand pounds. What differs between insurers is how the claim is handled: some wordings provide a replacement service with an emergency call-out, others indemnify you once the work is done. If a fast call-out matters to you, say so and we will check the wording rather than assume, because it is not standard across every insurer.

Pub insurance starts at around £500 to £600 a year including insurance premium tax for a smaller pub, and rises from there with the size of the building and the trade. A tenanted community local with modest turnover is a very different risk to a freehold gastro pub with a full kitchen, letting rooms and a late licence, and the premiums reflect that. What moves you within the range is whether you own the freehold or lease, your turnover and wages, the split between wet and food led income, your licensed hours, whether you have letting rooms or hold functions, and your claims history over the last five years. Escape of water and accidental damage claims are common in older pub buildings and affect the figure more than owners expect. These are ball park figures rather than a quote, so tell us the tenure, turnover and trading pattern and we will give you a real one.

It is not a legal requirement but no pub should trade without it, and your premises licence, landlord or pub company will almost always require it, commonly at £5 million. Public liability covers injury to customers and damage to their property, which in a pub most often means slips, falls on steps and glass injuries. Products liability sits alongside it and responds to the food and drink you serve. Employers' liability is a legal requirement as soon as you employ anyone, including casual and part time bar staff.

The cover is the same package but the rating changes materially once food becomes a significant part of the income. A commercial kitchen brings fire risk from the extraction system and the range, which insurers will expect to be professionally cleaned and certificated at least annually, and it brings products liability exposure for food poisoning. Gastro pub insurance therefore needs the kitchen, the extraction and the food stock properly reflected rather than being written as a wet led pub that happens to serve meals.

Deterioration of stock cover responds where refrigeration or cellar cooling fails and stock is spoiled, including where the cause is a power failure at the supply. In a pub this is one of the more frequent claims. Stock should be insured at cost rather than retail, and at peak levels rather than an average, because a claim over Christmas is settled against the sum insured you declared.

Employers' liability is the only insurance required by law, as soon as you employ anyone, with a fine of up to £2,500 for each day you are uninsured. Everything else is required by contract or by prudence: a lease or mortgage will require buildings cover, your pub company or landlord will require public liability, and your premises licence conditions may specify cover levels. In practice a pub without loss of licence and business interruption has left its two largest financial exposures uninsured.

Yes, and it needs to be declared. Letting rooms bring guests staying overnight, which changes the liability position and can bring the Hotel Proprietors Act into play for their belongings. It also affects the fire risk assessment and the escape route requirements. A pub with four letting rooms is a hybrid risk and should be underwritten as one rather than squeezed into a standard pub schedule.

Often, yes. Escape of water, accidental damage and theft claims are common in pub buildings and do not by themselves make a risk uninsurable. What underwriters want to see is what changed afterwards: a replaced roof, new plumbing, upgraded security, or a change in how the cellar is managed. Present that properly and there are insurers who will look at it. We work with distressed and difficult claims histories rather than turning them away.