Restaurant Insurance in Washington

Single-unit upscale modern American, 4,500 sf, 72 seats, $165 average ticket, 38 staff, Spirits/Beer/Wine Restaurant license, premium wine program. A kitchen fire during summer cruise-season peak, triggered by ventilation hood failure, drove a 65-day closure. An L&I worker injury claim from a line cook hurt in the fire layered on top, and the closure overlapped peak cruise-season revenue weeks plus summer-festival concentration.

When the operator brought us in for a fresh review, the dec page (the policy summary page) from their prior program showed Stop-Gap Employer Liability coverage sized without reference to third-party-over equipment-manufacturer scenarios, and a lost-income figure scoped to a generic timeline rather than Seattle's cruise-season peak. We re-read the full operator profile on video — L&I worker-injury claim coordination, the Stop-Gap employer liability coverage against actual third-party-over reality, and lost-income coverage sized to the peak cruise-season cycle with an extended-period-of-indemnity provision for the older-inventory rebuild timeline. We rebuilt the program to put the Stop-Gap layer and the seasonal lost-income reality at the center.

Cocktail bar plus small plates, 3,000 sf, 95 seats plus 14-seat bar, $45 average ticket, 25 staff, Spirits/Beer/Wine Restaurant license plus Nightclub-adjacent operation, late-hours. A patron served during an 80-minute window became visibly intoxicated and was ejected at 1:30 a.m. The patron caused an off-premises injury. A Crowe v. Gaston framework dram-shop claim was filed. A concurrent Seattle Secure Scheduling Ordinance class action was filed by a former employee alleging predictability-pay violations under Seattle Mun. Code 14.22. The operator's Initiative 1433 sick-leave accrual posture was also implicated in discovery.

Operator came to us with their existing program from an inherited renewal — the prior dec page (the policy summary page) showed EPLI scoped to a generic program that had not been adjusted for Seattle Secure Scheduling Ordinance or Initiative 1433 accrual exposure. We re-read the operator's documentation discipline on video — MAST certification cadence, refusal-of-service incident protocol, Secure Scheduling Ordinance 14-day advance posting compliance, Initiative 1433 sick-leave accrual tracking, service-charge disclosure under RCW 49.46.160. We rebuilt the EPLI program to put Secure Scheduling-specific framework at the center plus Stop-Gap employer liability coverage against bar-and-nightclub operational reality.

Multi-unit fast casual (single of 5 in Washington), 1,900 sf, 50 seats, $14 average ticket, 17 staff, no alcohol, chain at 425 locations nationwide (above Seattle Secure Scheduling threshold but unit in Bellevue, not Seattle). A former cross-trained employee filed an Initiative 1433 paid-sick-leave accrual class action covering the operator's Washington units. An L&I premium audit triggered a class-code review on the multi-concept Washington operations, and the Stop-Gap employer liability coverage came under review for third-party-over scope.

First-time policy review: the standard package the operator was carrying had Stop-Gap employer liability coverage sized without reference to the full Washington footprint and the employee-claim program scoped to a generic program. We re-read the operator profile across all 5 Washington units on video — Initiative 1433 accrual-tracking discipline, L&I class-code posture, the Stop-Gap employer liability coverage scope, and Washington Law Against Discrimination protected-class exposure. We rebuilt the employee-claim program and the Stop-Gap coverage against the actual Washington footprint.