Off Licence and Wine Merchant Insurance

In this trade the security conditions are not advice attached to the policy, they are the policy, and a breach after a theft is a declined claim.

Because the stock is compact and resellable, insurers underwrite the premises rather than the turnover. Expect requirements on shutters being down and locked, an alarm set and in some cases monitored, glazing to a specification, a safe for cash, and sometimes a limit on how much spirit value may be left on open display overnight. Each of those is checkable after an event: a shutter that was not fully down, an alarm that was not set because a member of staff did not have the code, or a display that held four times the permitted value.

So the right approach is to read them before signing and to make them workable in practice. A warranty that a member of staff will move all spirits to a locked store every night is useless if the last person out is alone and it takes forty minutes. Say so and negotiate something achievable rather than accepting a condition the shop will quietly breach. A slightly higher premium with a condition you can meet is worth far more than a cheaper policy that will not pay.

This is the exposure that no policy fully answers and that owners should understand clearly.

A premises licence permits the business to sell alcohol. It can be reviewed following complaints, police representations, an underage sale or a pattern of problems, and the outcome can be conditions, a reduction in hours, suspension or revocation. None of that is an insured peril: insurance does not replace a licence, and business interruption generally responds to damage rather than to a licensing decision. A shop that loses its licence has lost its business while its stock and premises are intact.

So the protection is operational. A refusals register kept and used, a till prompt or an age verification policy applied to everybody who looks under the threshold rather than to those who look young, staff trained and that training recorded, CCTV covering the till and retained long enough to be useful, and a cooperative relationship with the licensing authority and the police rather than an adversarial one. The commonest route to a review is a single underage sale in a test purchase, which is entirely preventable by a policy staff actually follow.

A merchant holding a serious wine range has a stock problem that general retail insurance is not written for.

Fine wine is valuable per bottle, appreciates, is affected by storage conditions, and in some cases is held for customers rather than owned. Heat damages it without breaking anything, so a failed air conditioning unit or a hot summer in an unsuitable store can reduce the value of stock that still looks perfect. A theft takes the highest value lines first because they are identifiable. And where bottles are stored for customers, that is somebody else's property in your custody.

So the position needs stating rather than assuming. Declare the premium range and its value, establish whether it is subject to its own limit or conditions, confirm whether damage from a storage or temperature failure is covered or only breakage and theft, and check how wine held for customers is treated because a general stock figure will not reach it. Where the value is significant, specific conditions about storage and security are reasonable and worth meeting rather than avoiding.

The employers' liability and personal safety side of alcohol retail is driven by who is in the shop and when.

An off licence trades into the evening, frequently with one member of staff, and it sells to people who may already have been drinking. The realistic incidents are a refusal that turns into abuse or an assault, a robbery at closing, a theft confronted by a lone member of staff, and an argument over an age challenge. Staff are also young and part time in this sector, which makes training and clear rules more important rather than less.

So the rules need to be explicit and supported. Nobody chases a shoplifter out of the shop, refusals are logged and backed by the owner rather than argued, a panic alarm or a phone to hand, a till that is not a cash mountain by closing, and a lone working arrangement including how somebody raises an alarm. Insurers ask about lone working directly in this trade, and a shop that can describe its closing procedure presents very differently from one where the last person out decides what to do.

The security warranties are the whole placement. We are an FCA regulated broker and will not tell you we are the best choice. These are the questions that decide it.