How To Insure Your Mobile Food Vendor Trailer

How To Insure Your Mobile Food Vendor Trailer

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How to insure your mobile food vendor trailer

What is Property Coverage for your food trailer?

Property coverage for your trailer protects against damage or loss to your trailer and the attached equipment or built in equipment.

Why Property Coverage for your trailer?

The most common types of losses covered are

  • Theft or Vandalism
  • Collision damage
  • Wind and Hail
  • Fire
  • Lighting

Common mistakes:

The most insurance policies only cover your property at the main location, unless you have a special type of property policy called an inland marine policy. An inland marine policy is designed to cover property that moves.

Not insuring the full value of your trailer. You must insure to value to make sure the insurance company will fully reimburse you if a claim occurs.

Including coverage for items not attached to the trailer. These items should be covered under a separate coverage for contents.

Endorsing your personal auto policy with the trailer. At best these policies do not cover your contents in the trailer and at worst exclude coverage because of the business use of the trailer

General Liability Insurance 101 for Mobile Food Vendors

General Liability Insurance 101 for Mobile Food Vendors

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What is General Liability Insurance?

General Liability protects your mobile food vending business from lawsuits of bodily injury or property damage from a third party. Note though, this coverage does not cover employees.

Why have General Liability Insurance?

First, having general liability allows you to enter into contracts with event organizers, landlords, or commissary kitchens that require you to have coverage.

General liability insurance provides claims and legal expense protection from the below types of claims:

  • Food borne illness
  • Chipping a tooth from biting into something that should not be in the food
  • Slip and fall. For example, a customer trips over an extension cord you left out or burns themselves on your generator
  • Advertising injury, like if someone sues you over your marketing

Common mistakes:

Having a premise only policy. This means the policy doesn’t follow you when you move locations.

A policy that charges fees for each certificate they provide you.  If you’re moving around, eventually you will need to add additional insureds to your policy.  Find an agency that does not charge you for COI’s.  Learn more about COI’s and why they’re important.

Policies with deductibles. Since the insurance company pays the legal fees to defend, having no deductible allows you to pass the claim and legal expense onto the insurance company If a claim should occur.