Hospitality Liability Insurance

Providing a service to the public comes with risks such as possible injury, illness, death or damage to property for which your business could be held liable. Hospitality liability insurance is one of the most important covers that a hospitality business requires.

Risks abound from slips, trips, and falls caused by unmarked wet floors, uneven surfaces or areas under repair to food poisoning, hot spills of beverages by staff on clients to those unfortunate vehicle damage caused by falling trees on the property.

Hospitality liability insurance provides financial cover to mitigate against costs arising from claims for which the business is liable such as:

• medical expenses and damages
• compensation for mental anguish and delayed holiday
• compensation for any damaged or destroyed customer property
• compensation amounts awarded to a deceased’s family by a court of law

Even where your business is not at fault, hospitality liability insurance helps cover the legal costs that arise from defending a negligent conduct case.

Whilst liability claims may not occur regularly, when they do happen, the amounts claimed are usually high. In 2018 the family of 4 was awarded about USD30,000 for illness due to poor food hygiene experienced at a hotel in Egypt. In an old case of Von Normann vs. Newport Channel Inn, (reference 35 Trials Digest 15th 19, 2012), Von was awarded USD38.6 million after falling over a second story walkway railing and onto the parking lot below. He suffered catastrophic personal injuries including brain damage. The court ruled that the walkway railing was unsafe as it was too short.

In some instances, regulators or industry bodies like the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority can require your business to have a certain minimum Hospitality liability insurance. Certain clients may even request that you have Hospitality liability cover that meets certain EU or similar standards before they stay at your facility.

As Firstlink, we design bespoke Hospitality Liability Insurance cover for our clients that speaks to your overall business risk after a thorough assessment of your operations and exposures. Where required your cover can be placed with international markets such as Lloyd’s of London to give comfort to your clients. We also provide ongoing risk assessment programs for you through our 360° Approach to identify and help you mitigate new risks that arise due to changing business operations.

Talk to our team today about securing cover for your hospitality business.