You are liable at a venue you have never seen, using equipment you carried in.

General liability

Injury and damage at the venue, and foodborne illness claims.

Without it — Venues require it before they will let you through the door.

Liquor liability

Serving alcohol, whether or not you supplied it.

Without it — Excluded from general liability, and serving is enough to trigger it.

Equipment in transit

Chafing units, ovens, refrigeration, glassware and linen, on the road and on site.

Without it — Your kit spends its working life away from your premises.

Damage to the venue

Damage to premises in your care while you occupy them.

Without it — A scorched floor or a damaged kitchen is charged straight back to you.

Spoilage

Product lost to refrigeration failure before an event.

Without it — A failed fridge the night before is the whole event’s food.

Crime and social engineering

Product and equipment lost between events, and an event deposit sent to the wrong account.

Without it — A deposit wired to a caller posing as the venue is not a theft your property policy recognizes. Crime coverage with social engineering named on it is what answers.

Group health and benefits

Chefs and captains who can run an event without you standing over them.

Without it — Event work is judged on the night, and a crew you have not worked with before is the biggest variable in it.

Do we need liquor liability if the client supplies the alcohol?

Usually yes. Liability generally follows the act of serving rather than the act of selling, so a caterer pouring a client’s wine at a private event can still be brought into a dram shop claim if a guest is over-served and causes harm afterwards. Host liquor liability, the limited grant inside a general liability policy, is written for a business hosting its own occasional event, not for one serving as its trade. If you pour, price the real thing.

How dram shop liability works

What do venues typically require?

A $1,000,000 general liability limit as a minimum, the venue named as an additional insured, liquor liability where alcohol is served, workers comp for your staff, and frequently a waiver of subrogation. Hotels and larger venues publish their requirements and will not negotiate them. Collect the requirement in writing when the booking is made rather than the week before, because a certificate in the wrong form is the commonest reason a caterer loses an event.

How are foodborne illness claims handled?

As general liability bodily injury, and they are difficult on both sides because causation is hard to prove and hard to disprove, because guests eat elsewhere too. What defends them is documentation: temperature logs, supplier records, HACCP-style procedures and staff food-safety certification. Those records are also what an underwriter reads, so the same discipline improves the price and the defense.