Restaurants & Hospitality Insurance
Restaurant insurance that's built around how the business actually works — not a generic policy that happens to cover food service.
We understand your business
Running a restaurant means managing risk on every shift. A customer slip in the dining room, a kitchen fire during a Friday dinner service, a business interruption that shuts you down for six weeks while repairs are made — these aren't hypothetical scenarios. They're the events that determine whether a well-run restaurant survives a bad year or doesn't.
At Anvo, restaurants are our core business. Our family operated restaurants in Kansas City for over a decade before transitioning to insurance, and that background shapes how we approach coverage for our restaurant clients. We've sat in the operator's seat. We know what a busy Saturday looks like, what a claim feels like from the inside, and where the gaps in a standard restaurant policy tend to show up.
We specialize in full-service restaurants and multi-unit operators across the Kansas City and New York City metro areas, and we have strong market relationships that let us place coverage for independent operators and growing restaurant groups alike.
Key Coverage Areas for Restaurants
General Liability Insurance Your most fundamental protection against third-party claims. Customer injuries on your premises — slip and falls, allergic reactions, incidents in your parking lot — are the most common source of restaurant liability claims. A well-structured GL policy covers your legal defense costs, settlements, and judgments. We make sure your limits are appropriate for the volume and type of service you operate, and that your policy doesn't have exclusions that create gaps in common claim scenarios.
General Liability Insurance for Full-Service Restaurants
Commercial Property Insurance Whether you own your building or lease your space, getting property coverage right is one of the most consequential decisions a restaurant owner makes — and one of the most commonly mishandled. Owners who underinsure their building are the ones who discover the problem after a fire, when the replacement cost exceeds the policy limit and they're funding the gap out of pocket. Tenants need to understand what their landlord's policy covers and where their own tenant improvements and betterments coverage needs to pick up.
Business Income Insurance If a covered loss forces you to close temporarily — a kitchen fire, a burst pipe, a major equipment failure — business income coverage replaces the revenue you're not generating while you're shut down and continues to pay your fixed expenses. We regularly encounter restaurant operators who don't carry business income coverage at all, or who carry limits that would run out long before their restaurant reopens. For a full-service restaurant, a serious loss can mean months of closure. Your business income limits should reflect that reality.
Liquor Liability If you serve alcohol, liquor liability coverage is a necessary addition to your GL policy. Standard GL forms typically exclude claims arising from the service of alcohol. A customer who leaves your restaurant intoxicated and causes an accident can result in a dram shop claim against your business — and without liquor liability coverage, that exposure is uninsured.
Workers' Compensation Restaurant work carries real physical risk — burns, cuts, slips in the kitchen, and repetitive strain injuries are routine. Workers' comp is required in most states and covers your employees' medical costs and lost wages when they're injured on the job. It also protects your business from lawsuits by injured workers. Getting your payroll classifications right and managing your experience modification rate over time directly affects what you pay.
Equipment Breakdown Commercial kitchen equipment fails. When a walk-in cooler, a hood system, or a commercial range goes down during service, the cost isn't just the repair — it's the spoiled inventory, the lost revenue, and the emergency service call. Equipment breakdown coverage addresses these losses in ways that standard property policies don't.
Coverage for Multi-Unit Operators
If you operate more than one location, how your coverage is structured matters as much as what it covers. A master policy that covers all locations under a single program simplifies administration significantly — one renewal date, one set of policy documents, one broker relationship. For operators managing two, three, or five locations, the administrative efficiency of a master program is real, and the cost difference relative to separate per-location policies is typically marginal when measured as a percentage of total revenue.
We build master programs for multi-unit operators that provide consistent coverage across all locations while accommodating the differences between them — owned vs. leased spaces, varying revenue levels by location, and different equipment profiles. As you add locations, the program expands with you.
For operators with franchise ambitions, we understand the insurance requirements that franchisors typically impose on franchisees and can structure coverage that satisfies those requirements from day one.
Restaurant Insurance for Multi-Unit Operators
Why Restaurant Operators Work with Anvo
Most insurance brokers treat restaurants as a standard commercial account. They pull a loss run, apply a rate, and send a quote. What they don't bring is an understanding of how a restaurant actually operates — the margin pressure, the staffing complexity, the equipment dependency, and the reality that a six-week closure can be an existential event for an otherwise healthy business.
We approach restaurant insurance as operators who became insurance professionals, not the other way around. That means we ask different questions, we catch coverage gaps that a less experienced broker misses, and we're able to have honest conversations with our clients about where their risk actually lives.
We serve restaurant clients across the Kansas City and New York City metro areas, with markets and carrier relationships that allow us to place coverage for independent operators and multi-unit groups.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need separate insurance if I own the building my restaurant operates in? Yes, and getting this right is critical. If you own the building, your commercial property policy needs to cover the full replacement cost of the structure — not its market value, not what you paid for it, but what it would actually cost to rebuild it today. Underinsuring the building is one of the most common and costly mistakes restaurant owners make. You also need to make sure your policy includes ordinance and law coverage, which pays for the additional cost of bringing a rebuilt structure up to current building codes.
What is business income insurance and do I really need it? Business income insurance replaces your revenue and covers ongoing fixed expenses — rent, payroll, utilities — if a covered loss forces you to temporarily close. For a restaurant, this coverage is essential. A kitchen fire that shuts you down for two months doesn't pause your lease or your loan payments. We've worked with restaurant operators who didn't carry business income coverage and faced exactly that situation. It's not a coverage to skip.
I lease my space. Does my landlord's insurance cover my restaurant? Your landlord's policy covers the building structure. It does not cover your equipment, your furniture and fixtures, your leasehold improvements, your inventory, or your business income. As a tenant, you need your own commercial property policy that covers your contents and improvements, and your own business income coverage.
Can you insure multiple restaurant locations under one policy? Yes. A master policy covering all locations under a single program is often the most practical solution for multi-unit operators. It simplifies administration, ensures consistent coverage across locations, and typically represents a small and manageable percentage of total group revenue. We build these programs regularly and can structure them to accommodate owned and leased locations within the same group.