Strangers sleeping in your building is the whole business and the whole exposure.

General liability

Guest injury — pools, stairs, bathrooms, parking, and the public areas.

Without it — A building occupied around the clock by people who do not know it.

Property and contents

The building, the rooms, the FF&E and the commercial kitchen.

Without it — Guest rooms are a large replacement cost, refurbished on a cycle.

Business income

Room revenue lost while the property or part of it is out of service.

Without it — A floor out of action in high season is the year’s margin.

Assault and battery

Claims arising from violence on the premises, and inadequate security.

Without it — Frequently excluded or sublimited, and a defining hospitality claim.

Guest property and innkeeper’s liability

Guests’ belongings, and the statutory limits that may cap your liability.

Without it — Statutory caps only apply where you have complied with the notice rules.

Liquor liability

Bar, restaurant, minibar and event service.

Without it — Excluded from general liability wherever alcohol is served.

What is innkeeper’s liability and does it protect us?

Most states have innkeeper statutes capping a hotel’s liability for guests’ property — often at a modest figure — but the cap is CONDITIONAL. It typically applies only where you have provided a safe or secure storage and have posted the statutory notice in the manner and location the law specifies. Hotels that never posted the notice, or posted it in the wrong place, lose the cap entirely and face the full value of a claim. It is worth checking your actual signage against your state’s wording; this is a cheap protection routinely forfeited on a technicality.

Why does assault and battery come up so much?

Because hospitality claims frequently allege that the property should have prevented what happened — inadequate lighting, broken door locks, no cameras, absent security, a known problem ignored. That is a negligent-security claim, and general liability policies commonly exclude assault and battery or apply a sublimit far below the primary. Check which you have. Underwriters will ask about lighting, camera coverage, key control, whether doors self-lock and how incidents are logged.

How assault and battery cover works

Is a bed and breakfast insured like a hotel or like a home?

Like a small hotel, and this is the most common uninsured position in hospitality. A homeowners policy excludes business pursuits, so paying guests in your house are not covered by it — and many B&B owners are living in the insured building, which makes the mix genuinely awkward. There are packaged B&B policies written for exactly that overlap. Room count, whether food is served and whether alcohol is offered are the three questions that set the market.

What about bed bugs?

Usually excluded, and increasingly a specific carve-out rather than an argument about pollution or vermin. The exposure is real — remediation, rooms out of service, guest claims and reputational damage — and buy-back cover exists in some markets. If you do not carry it, treat inspection and rapid response as the control, and make sure the exclusion’s wording is understood before a guest posts photographs.