Restaurant Insurance Requirements in Texas

Alcohol decides a restaurant’s insurance file

Restaurant insurance requirements in Texas arrive from three directions: the lease a landlord wrote, the permit the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission issued, and the exposures an underwriter reads off the menu and the hours.

The share of annual sales that is alcohol is the first figure an underwriter asks for, and it decides which market ever sees the submission. A dining room pouring wine with dinner and a late bar with a short menu are two different files.

Aulona Insurance Group places Texas Business Insurance and writes food and beverage classes: Restaurant and Bar Insurance.

Liquor liability sits outside general liability

General liability answers the guest who slips and the property of others a restaurant damages, and it leaves out what a drink does once served. Liquor liability is bought as its own policy.

Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code §2.02(b) opens a statutory claim against an alcohol provider only where both elements hold: it was apparent to the provider that the person served was obviously intoxicated to the extent of presenting a clear danger to himself and others, and the intoxication was a proximate cause of the damages. Both have to hold at once.

General Liability Insurance is the contract the program attaches to.

Seller training and the hours you pour

Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code §106.14 keeps an employee’s unlawful sale off the employer only where three conditions hold together: the employer required the employee to attend a commission-approved seller-training program, the employee attended it, and the employer did not directly or indirectly encourage the violation. Training records belong in the submission.

What the room does after dark:

• The hour the kitchen closes and the hour the bar closes
• Each person who serves, and the date that person finished a commission-approved program
• Live entertainment, a dance floor or a cover charge

A room that becomes a night club after midnight is a class the agency does not write.

The hood, the walk-in and the fit-out

Commercial property on a restaurant answers the equipment and the build-out, and two items lead: the hood and duct system over the cooking line, and the food in the walk-in. Spoilage and equipment breakdown are endorsements, not part of the base form.

Values an underwriter needs:

• The hood and duct system, its last cleaning date and its suppression system
• Fryers, ranges, refrigeration and the dish machine, at replacement cost
• The build-out the restaurant paid for, since a landlord insures the leased shell alone
• Food and beverage stock, with the alcohol inventory counted on its own
• Whether a utility service interruption endorsement is attached, since a feeder failure empties a walk-in

Business Owners Policy Insurance carries the property and the liability on one form.

Kitchen and front-of-house payroll

Workers compensation stays elective for most private employers in Texas under Texas Labor Code §406.002, so the account turns on whether the owner elected it. A non-subscriber has to notify the Texas Department of Insurance, Division of Workers’ Compensation in writing under Texas Labor Code §406.004. Payroll is rated by job, not by head count.

• Kitchen payroll, front-of-house payroll and delivery payroll, reported separately
• Tipped wages, owners drawing a wage, and anyone paid on a 1099
• Which staff drive during a shift, and whose vehicle each takes
• Burns, cuts, slips and strains from the past three years, with dates and costs

Workers Compensation Insurance goes to a market of its own.

Delivery runs and catering jobs

Delivery turns a property and liability account into one with an auto exposure, and a personal auto policy excludes the business use behind it. A driver in a personal car is still the restaurant’s exposure.

List the driving:

• Every vehicle titled to the restaurant, by VIN, and what it does
• The drivers, with a license number and birth date for each
• Staff who deliver or fetch supplies in their own vehicles, the non-owned and hired auto exposure
• Catering work off site, and who moves the equipment and the food
• Any third-party delivery platform, and what its own coverage answers

Commercial Auto Insurance is marketed on the same submission.

What the landlord’s lease makes you carry

A restaurant lease fixes the limits a tenant carries and puts the landlord on the policy, and many demand liquor liability on top. The lease sets the floor, not the owner’s judgment.

From the insurance clause:

• The per-occurrence limit and the aggregate limit the lease names
• The liquor liability limit, where the lease calls for one
• Whether the landlord is added as an additional insured, whether subrogation is waived, and whether the wording is primary and non-contributory, each an endorsement on the policy rather than a line typed onto a certificate
• The name and address a certificate shows, and when it is reissued

Under Texas Insurance Code ch. 1811 a certificate reports a policy and cannot alter it: Certificates of Insurance in Texas.

Paperwork for the recorded call

Every commercial account at Aulona Insurance Group begins on a recorded call with Luka Cenaj, the agency’s licensed principal, who works through the menu, the alcohol share and the hours.

Bring to that call:

• The entity’s legal name, the name the restaurant trades under, and its federal tax ID
• The TABC permit, and the seller-training record for everyone who pours
• Opening dates by location, and prior policies with expiration dates
• The declarations pages in force, with spoilage and liquor limits already bought
• A loss run, or a written account of the last three years of claims
• The lease, the payroll split, the driver list and the kitchen values

Nothing is quoted or bound ahead of that call, and the call can run in Albanian.

Where Aulona Insurance Group is not the right fit

Aulona Insurance Group writes four package lines, the business owners policy, general liability, commercial property and professional liability, and several food and drink classes have no market there.

• Night clubs, whatever the kitchen looks like, the exclusion a late-night bar meets first
• Gas stations, the food service attached to one included
• Towing operators and auto dealerships
• A caterer or wholesaler whose main trade is moving non-durable goods
• Marijuana and cannabis businesses, edibles among them
• Roofing and siding, which no market on the package lines will take
• Hospitals, physician practices, used-goods dealers, livestock operations and pet breeders

Commercial auto and liquor liability are taken up on the recorded call, not offered from this page. Life, health, Medicare and disability are not written at all.