Joyn’s insurance offerings provide fantastic opportunities for those operating businesses in class codes associated with restaurants. In addition to General Liability, Supported Excess, Liquor Liability, and Property coverage, Joyn also offers several special coverages that can benefit restaurant operators, including equipment breakdown, spoilage, employee benefits, and hired, non-owned auto with no delivery exposure.
While Joyn is looking for restaurants that primarily offer food and dining (less than 50 percent alcohol sales) in properly equipped and well-maintained properties, our team of experienced underwriters look at the overall risk when making a determination about whether to underwrite an account and when to prepare a quote. Our target characteristics also include experienced management and new ventures with prior experience.
“There are a number of things we look for when we’re determining whether to write a restaurant,” said Dorian West, one of Joyn’s underwriters. “If the restaurant turns into more of a bar or night club atmosphere at night, we’re going to want some more details like whether they have a bouncer, etc. But if it’s more of a casual kind of restaurant that might have some music or entertainment in the evenings, that is really in our sweet spot and we can offer them really great coverage.”
West also noted several other factors that Joyn is uniquely open to with restaurants looking for insurance coverage.
“We’re more willing to give a close look at restaurants that have a BYOB policy where diners provide their own alcohol to accompany their meals, where a lot of our competitors will just automatically close the door to that,” West said. “As long as it’s truly a restaurant instead of more of a bar atmosphere, we are really open to those kinds of businesses.”
Joyn’s eligible restaurant classes include, but are not limited to, full-service restaurants, fine dining, casual dining, fast casual, private dining clubs, gastro pubs, neighborhood grilles, 24-hour diners, fast food, pizza shops, take-out restaurants, delis and sandwich shops, and coffee/donut shops.
Joyn offers General Liability ($1M/$2M), Supported Excess (up to $5M), Liquor Liability ($1M/$1M), and Property (up to $10M TIV per location and $25M per policy), in addition to the several special features and coverages that can be added to a policy.
We built Joyn to remove the pain points that commercial trading partners experience all too frequently, providing a faster, more accurate, and more transparent insurance experience that saves time, costs, and frustration.
If you’re looking for a better insurance experience for your restaurant business, reach out to [email protected] to learn more.
Case Study: Family Owned and Operated Tex-Mex Restaurant With Live Music and Moderate Alcohol Sales
While Joyn offers restaurant coverage to a wide variety of class codes, one example of an ideal case study would be a simple, family owned and operated Mexican/Tex-Mex restaurant looking for a property and general liability coverage at a competitive rate. The restaurant does some deep frying but largely uses a typical commercial cookware setup for most of the food they prepare.
While they have a bar, their alcohol sales are typically between 30-40 percent of their overall sales, and they regularly have live music or a DJ to provide ambiance and entertainment to diners as they enjoy their meals.
“For this business, Joyn can provide them with the competitive rates that they’re looking for on both the property and general liability coverage, which is something I believe the insured would definitely notice,” said Dorian West, an underwriter at Joyn. “In addition, because they don’t have a dance floor or turn into a bar atmosphere at night, we can offer them some sub-limits on battery, abuse, and molestation, which is actually rare across the board with many of our competitors—they just make these things exclusions.”
“Like with all of our insureds, we are willing to go the extra mile to make sure that we provide tailored coverage to meet the insured’s actual needs, instead of a cookie cutter policy that might leave them open to a lot of risks,” West continued. “Our focus is to be as competitive and robust as possible with the coverage that we offer.”
West said that restaurants of all varieties can sometimes get treated unfairly when they’re seeking insurance, but many of Joyn’s underwriters have had really great experiences with adding restaurants to their books of business.
“We have a product that is a perfect fit for restaurants, and we’ve seen firsthand what we can do for them, so it was kind of a no-brainer to offer our great coverage to these classes,” West concluded.
