Your franchise agreement names a number. We build to that number.
A custom program for pizza shops and franchisees — including the hired and non-owned auto limits the major brands require, which most standard restaurant carriers will not write at all.
Tell us the situation.
One licensed human replies the same business day — not five agents, not an auto-responder. If the policy you have is already the right one, we will tell you.
We use this to quote and service your insurance, and we do not sell it or pass it to lead networks. Privacy policy.
What pizza shop businesses actually need.
Hired and non-owned auto at brand limits
Delivery liability written to the limit your franchise agreement specifies, rather than to whatever the carrier prefers to offer.
Without it — Brand requirements in this trade run well above $1M, and a policy that stops short is a breach of the agreement as well as a gap.
General liability
The counter, the dining area, the sidewalk and product claims — with the franchisor named as additional insured as the agreement requires.
Without it — The endorsement naming the brand is specific wording, not a note on a certificate, and franchisors reject the certificate without it.
Workers compensation
Drivers, oven staff and counter staff — separate class codes, and the delivery code is the expensive one.
Without it — Burns and road injuries in one payroll, and a mod that follows the store for three years.
Property and equipment breakdown
The ovens, the walk-in and the dough equipment — including failure from an internal cause, which property excludes.
Without it — A dead walk-in compressor takes the stock with it and closes the store while it is replaced.
Business income
Revenue while the store is closed after a fire or a breakdown, with rent and payroll still running.
Without it — Oven and hood fires are the characteristic total loss in this trade.
Umbrella
Excess over the auto and liability limits — often the only practical way to reach a brand’s required number.
Without it — Few markets write a high delivery limit primary, so the requirement is usually met by layering.
Crime and social engineering
Theft by staff, and the scam where an employee is talked into handing over the takings.
Without it — A till handed over on a convincing phone call is not burglary, so property does not answer it — social engineering is a named sublimit you have to ask for.
Group health and benefits
Cover for the staff you would rather not retrain every quarter.
Without it — Turnover is the largest hidden cost in an hourly workforce, and this is the benefit that decides between two jobs paying the same.
The claims we actually see.
Ordered by how often we see them, not by how dramatic they are. Each one names the coverage that answers it — and the policy people wrongly assume already does.
Most common
A driver crashes their own car on a delivery
Covered by Hired and non-owned auto
Their personal policy excludes delivering for pay, so their insurer denies and the store is the only solvent defendant. This is also the coverage most standard restaurant carriers will not write.
Most common
A burn, a cut or a slip in the kitchen
Covered by Workers compensation
Delivery and kitchen staff sit in different class codes on one payroll, and the delivery code is materially more expensive — misclassifying it is found at audit.
Common
An oven or hood fire closes the store
Covered by Property, plus business income
The characteristic total loss in this trade. Property rebuilds the store; only business income replaces the sales while it is dark.
Common
The walk-in fails overnight and the stock is gone
Covered by Equipment breakdown
A compressor failing from an internal cause is excluded by the property policy, and the spoiled inventory goes with it.
Less common, severe
A driver with a bad record causes a serious injury
Covered by Auto liability and umbrella — and your hiring records
This becomes a negligent hiring claim against the store as well as an auto claim, and the question is whether you pulled the MVR. A $1M primary is exceeded routinely.
A multi-unit franchisee was told by their existing broker that the brand’s $1.5M hired and non-owned auto requirement could not be met, and had been operating out of compliance with the franchise agreement while the renewal ran down.
We placed the delivery exposure through our pizza program with excess layered above the primary to reach the required limit, and issued certificates naming the franchisor as additional insured in the form the brand accepts. The submission carried the written driver safety program and signed driver standards handbooks, which is what got the account priced rather than declined. The franchisee has since added locations to the same program.
What pizza shop operators ask us.
Which pizza brands can you write?
All the major ones. We write franchisees of Domino’s, Pizza Hut, Papa John’s, Little Caesars, Marco’s, Hungry Howie’s, Jet’s, Papa Murphy’s, Round Table, Cicis, Godfather’s and the regional brands, as well as independent pizzerias and multi-unit operators. We currently insure multiple Domino’s locations, and their $1.5M hired and non-owned auto requirement is a limit we meet routinely rather than a problem we have to solve. If your brand is not on that list it almost certainly does not matter — send us the insurance schedule from the agreement and we will build to it.
Why can’t our current agent get the delivery limit?
Because the limit is the hard part, not the coverage. Standard restaurant programs will often attach a modest hired and non-owned auto endorsement and stop — and a brand requirement of $1.5M is well past where most of them will go. Meeting it means either a market that writes delivery deliberately at real limits, or a primary layered with excess above it to reach the number on the agreement. That is a placement rather than a quote, and it is why franchisees end up calling specialists. We have a custom program built for exactly this.
What do you give us to keep the price down?
The documents underwriters price on, supplied and kept current. Our insureds get underwriting-approved sample cell phone and distracted driving policies, a written driver safety program, and driver standards handbooks their employees sign at hire. We also recommend pulling an MVR on every driver at hire, without exception. A store that can evidence all four is a materially better submission than one that cannot, and on delivery accounts — where driver records are one of the largest rating factors — that shows up in the premium rather than just in the paperwork. It is also your defense: a signed standard you enforced is the difference between an accident and a negligent hiring claim.
Do drivers need to be listed?
For hired and non-owned auto the coverage follows the business rather than a scheduled list of vehicles, so drivers are generally not scheduled the way they would be on an owned-auto policy. What matters instead is the driver population: how many, their records, your hiring standard and whether you enforce it. That is why the MVR practice does real work here — the underwriter cannot price individual drivers, so they price your process for choosing them. High turnover is normal in this trade and is not a barrier; being unable to say what your standard is, is.
We use our own cars only for deliveries within a few miles. Does the radius help?
A little, and less than owners expect. A tight delivery radius genuinely reduces exposure and is worth stating on the submission. But severity is not driven by distance — most serious accidents happen close to base, on familiar roads, at the times pizza actually gets delivered, which are evenings and weekends in the dark. Underwriters know that, so radius is a modest credit rather than the argument. The arguments that move the price are driver selection, the written program and the claims history.
We were quoted an all-in-one franchise program. Should we take it?
Compare it line by line before you do, because packaged franchise programs are built to be easy rather than to be optimal, and a lot of pizza franchisees take one without ever seeing the alternative. The appeal is real: one carrier, one renewal date, one certificate, requirements pre-matched to your brand, and a quote that arrives fast. The trade is that a bundle prices as a bundle. You take the strong parts and the weak parts together, and you cannot shop the expensive component on its own — which on a delivery account is almost always the auto exposure, and that is the line most worth putting in front of a specialist market rather than absorbing into a package. Our experience so far is unambiguous: on every one of these accounts we have written, unbundling came back cheaper AND with better coverage. Both halves, rather than a trade between them. We would still rather you checked than took our word for it — that is a statement about the accounts we have seen rather than a law of the market, and the point is that it is verifiable against your own renewal in an afternoon. Send us the packaged quote and we will mark it up against an unbundled placement, line by line, including anywhere the package genuinely wins.
What does a pizza shop policy cost?
It is driven by delivery volume, driver count, sales and the limit your agreement requires, far more than by square footage. The honest range is wide because a single-unit independent doing modest delivery and a multi-unit franchisee carrying $1.5M limits are different programs. What we can say is that the delivery portion is usually the largest single component, and it is the one most affected by things you control — the safety program, the hiring standard and the MVRs. Send us the agreement’s insurance schedule and your driver count and the answer arrives quickly.
Not ready to talk? The guides answer the questions this page raises in more depth. Already insured with us and need a certificate or a policy change? Ask the service team rather than starting a quote — it is faster and it goes to the people whose job it is. We also write home and auto, which is usually cheaper alongside the business policy than apart from it.