Running a brewery is not just a business – it's a passion. As a brewery owner, you know that crafting it requires a lot of hard work, dedication, and creativity. However, many risks and challenges come with owning a brewery, such as equipment breakdowns, property damage, and legal liabilities. That's why having proper insurance coverage is essential for protecting your business and ensuring its success.
Brewers require a mix of standard business and industry-specific coverage. Brewers need insurance with industry-specific coverages and services that address the unique needs of food manufacturers and processors from production to delivery. The specifics of the brewery insurance plan depend on the type of brewery (large brewery, microbrewery, craft brewery, etc.) and whether there is a tasting room, restaurant, pub, or other on-site operations like axe-throwing or lawn darts.
Why do breweries need Brewery Insurance?
As a proud manufacturer of stouts, lagers, and ales, it's essential to prepare your brewery for unforeseen events that could pose risks to your business. These scenarios include contamination or spoilage of a batch, customers being involved in alcohol-related accidents, unexpected breakdowns of vital equipment, accidents on your premises, damage caused by guests, leakage of beer from storage tanks, and potential damage or destruction due to weather events, fires, theft, or vandalism.
To mitigate these risks, it's crucial to have comprehensive insurance coverage tailored to the specific needs of your brewery. Each brewery faces unique challenges, and a combination of insurance policies and endorsements may be necessary to provide adequate protection. Without proper coverage, unexpected events could lead to financial distress and even bankruptcy, emphasizing the importance of proactive risk management through thoughtful insurance planning.
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Business Property
Liquor Liability
Equipment Breakdown
General Liability
Surety Bonds
Business Property Coverage
Risk Factors
Your company’s property is often exposed to risks such as fire, explosion, storms, theft, wind, vandalism, and other natural calamities.
Solution
This protects a company’s physical assets, such as buildings, contents, stock, and inventory, from fire, explosion, storms, theft, wind, and vandalism. Additional coverage for floods, earthquakes, and other direct causes of loss may be advised.
Liquor Liability Coverage
Risk Factors
Liquor liability insurance, also known as dram shop insurance, protects the liability of businesses that serve, sell, distribute, manufacture, or supply alcoholic beverages.
Solution
Liquor liability coverage is excluded from commercial liability insurance for businesses that generate a profit from alcohol. Liquor liability coverage fills this gap caused by the exclusion.
Equipment Breakdown Coverage
Risk Factors
Equipment breakdown can be severe or debilitating to small craft brewers. By nature of the brewing process, high pressures build up during the fermentation process, which can cause improperly maintained storage tanks and vats to break down or explode.
Solution
Most policies broaden the definition of “building” to include all equipment used in producing beer and other craft beverages. In unexpected quality issues, product withdrawal expense coverage is also available. In addition, equipment breakdown coverage helps to cover repairs or equipment replacement costs of properties damaged by broken equipment.
General Liability Coverage
Risk Factors
CGL craft brewery coverage covers claims occurring on-premises and off-premises, for instance, a brew fest. Examples of brewery liability risks include slips and falls on-premises or tripping on equipment at a beer festival, fire damage, personal and advertising injury, and copyright infringement on another brewery’s existing product.
Solution
A commercial general liability (CGL) policy protects you from lawsuits or claims arising from negligent actions that cause bodily injury and property damage to others. Brewery liability insurance includes costs associated with damages and legal fees.
Surety Bonds Coverage
Risk Factors
If your bonded brewery fails to comply with the regulations, the bond amount can be used to pay the fine imposed or other legal expenses.
Solution
Guarantee your brewery’s integrity, honesty, and legal and contractual compliance.
As your brewery expands, it will be critical to routinely review your insurance coverage to ensure that you have adequate protection. Purchasing more equipment and recruiting more personnel, for example, is likely to result in increased insurance costs. Check in with us whenever you are considering expanding your business.
Contact us quickly to check your current coverage and see how much you can save on your insurance.
