Restaurant Insurance
Sutherland Insurance places restaurant insurance for Ontario restaurants, cafes and bars, covering the building and kitchen equipment, food spoilage, general and liquor liability, business interruption and delivery vehicles. It is an independent brokerage that has brokered insurance in Guelph, Ontario since 1870 and is licensed by the Registered Insurance Brokers of Ontario.
- Line
- Commercial insurance
- Area served
- All of Ontario
- Claims support
- In-house claims representative available to every client on a claim
Who needs restaurant insurance?
Restaurant insurance applies to any business preparing and serving food to the public, including full-service restaurants, cafes, bars and pubs, quick-service outlets, food trucks, and catering operations that also run a fixed premises.
Two exposures separate restaurants from most other retail occupancies. The first is fire: commercial cooking equipment and grease extraction make kitchen fires the defining property claim in this class, and insurers rate suppression systems and cleaning schedules accordingly. The second is liquor: serving alcohol brings statutory liability in Ontario that a standard general liability section does not answer on its own.
What can an Ontario restaurant insurance policy cover?
What a policy can cover
- Commercial property: the building where it is owned, plus fixtures, stock and contents
- Equipment breakdown: loss or damage to equipment the business depends on, as a result of an insured sudden mechanical or electrical failure
- Stock spoilage: loss of refrigerated or perishable stock following equipment failure or power interruption
- Commercial general liability: third-party bodily injury and property damage arising from operations
- Liquor liability: incidents arising from the service of alcohol on licensed premises
- Business interruption: lost income and continuing expenses while the premises are unusable after an insured loss
- Commercial auto: vehicles registered to the business and driven for business purposes
Commonly excluded under standard Ontario restaurant insurance wordings
- Wear, tear and gradual deterioration
- Workplace injury to the business’s own employees, which falls to WSIB coverage in Ontario
- Overland flood and earthquake, unless added by endorsement
- Cyber events, unless cyber liability is added by endorsement
- The cost of correcting faulty workmanship itself, as distinct from resulting damage
Exclusions vary by insurer and by policy form; the issued policy governs.
Frequently asked questions
Does restaurant insurance cover food poisoning claims?
Product liability, normally written inside the general liability section, responds to third-party illness alleged to arise from food served on the premises or supplied for an event. The policy wording, the limit selected and any exclusion attaching to specific ingredients or preparation processes govern how such a claim is handled.
Is liquor liability separate from general liability?
Liquor liability is a distinct cover rather than an extension of the general liability grant. In Ontario a business that sells or serves alcohol carries statutory responsibility for what follows from that service, and insurers write the exposure as its own section or endorsement with a separately stated limit.
Does the policy pay if the restaurant closes after a fire?
Business interruption cover responds to lost income and to continuing expenses such as rent and wages while the premises are unusable following an insured loss. The indemnity period selected at the time the policy is written sets how long that cover runs, and it is chosen against how long a rebuild would realistically take.
Get a restaurant insurance quote
A licensed Sutherland Insurance broker compares the available markets on every quote request.
Get a restaurant insurance quote Call 519-822-0160
A real person answers, Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.