Liquor Stores Insured Nationwide — 48 States — 15+ Markets — 6 Core Coverages

Usually not. A general liability policy written for a retail store carries a liquor liability exclusion, which removes liability arising out of the sale of alcohol. For a shoe shop that exclusion costs nothing. For a package store it removes the single exposure the business is most likely to be sued over. Read your own form, or send it to us and we will read it with you.

Claims that trace back to a sale — most often a sale to someone already intoxicated, or to someone underage, where harm follows after the buyer leaves. Whether a third party can reach you at all depends on your state’s dram-shop law, and those statutes differ in who may sue, on what basis, and whether off-premise sellers are within reach at all.

It varies by state, and in some places by municipality. Some licensing authorities require evidence of liquor liability at a set limit before they will renew; others require nothing. We verify this per state and publish it on each state page rather than generalising here, because a generalisation about licensing is exactly the kind of claim that is true in one place and wrong in the next.

Sales mix and the share of it that is spirits. Hours, and whether you are open late. Location and crime history. Whether you deliver, and in what. Payroll and staff turnover, which drive the workers compensation piece. Prior losses, and how they were handled. Building construction and protection class. Limits and deductibles you choose. We quote it rather than estimate it.

Only if the policy is written for it. Owned vehicles belong on a commercial auto policy. The shift where a clerk ran an order in their own car is a hired and non-owned exposure, and a store that has never thought about it is usually the one that has it. Delivery also moves the age check off your premises, which touches liquor liability as well.

Crime coverage handles it, and on this class it generally rides the package policy rather than standing as its own line. It separates money taken by an outsider from money taken by staff — they are different agreements with different terms. Shrink that walks out behind the register is the quieter of the two and the one owners more often discover late.

We ask the questions an underwriter will ask, before the underwriter asks them, then market the account where the appetite actually is. Appetite for this class moves, so the shortlist is not fixed. Sometimes the answer is that the programme you already have is the right one and you should leave it alone — we would rather tell you that than move it.