The Insurance Family Blog

Let’s face it, accidents in restaurants happen. Most commonly an employee might slip and fall, but that is why most restaurants require non-slip soles for waiters, waitresses, and the rest of the house. But what about the people who visit your restaurant in stiletto heels or worse, wheel-bottomed Heelys?

Customer slip and fall accidents have been on the rise in many restaurants across the United States. Kurt Leisure, director of risk management for the Cheesecake Factory based in Calabasas, California, believes customer accidents should be more carefully watched by everyone working in the restaurant.

"I think it is important that restaurant companies empower their employees with the idea that a slip-or-fall hazard is everybody's problem, not just the servers' or managers'. But everybody in the front-of-the-house has a stake in it,” says Leisure.

Some tips Leisure has put in place at the Cheesecake Factory restaurants could be useful in others as well.

• Keep collapsible wet floor signs hidden on the restaurant floor behind plants and other fixtures, so if a sudden spill occurs, the sign can be grabbed quickly making customers and other employees aware of the hazard.
• If there is a wet spot or spill and no sign near, have a manager or hostess stand over the spot until a busser is notified and can make the area safe.
• Make a system. Inform your staff any time there is a spill how to go about taking care of it and keeping the customers safe and your co-workers safe.

Employee slips and falls can easily be eliminated says Leisure. "The key is that you've got to have a slip-resistant shoe program , and it has to be rolled out correctly. It's the No. 1 defense against employee injury,” says Leisure as he has reduced the amount of slips and falls by 87% among the chain.”

Cuts, burns, and scrapes are the most common California workers compensation claims reported since they generally cause missed work based on the injury. Perhaps surprisingly, the cause of such happenings are usually related to slipping and falling and trying to catch yourself on the way down.

Making sure your employees are safe is important; keeping your customers safe should be a priority. Having the correct workers compensation plan in your business is important, but having general liability insurance in the case that a customer is injured should be a main concern as well.

As a restaurant owner, you're gifted with a certain perspective of the world. In the insurance world, I get a unique perspective as well--one that my restaurant clients don't often see. This experience-based vantage point allows me to see unfortunate hidden biases that the restaurant owner may not be privy to. I can also see ways for the restaurant owner to avoid these rate biases.

For instance, if you were to call up the average insurance company underwriter and tell him you wanted to write a package policy for a local BBQ venue, you would notice that the majority of underwriters would shy away from that account. And why is that? Well, barbecue and seafood joints have a history rife with plenty of food-borne illness claims, so the underwriter will more than likely tighten up his rates a bit to protect against the possibility of having to pay out on this kind of claim for you.

And if you're the seafood restaurant or BBQ owner, you will never hear about this conversation or even know it happened. But it does happen, and your rates are higher because of it. So what can you do to protect against this rate bias on your restaurant insurance? You need an 'in'; you need a qualified and well-learned insurance agent that can be your liaison to the insurance company, and that insurance agent had better know his stuff. An insurance agent with the experience of handling hundreds of restaurant clients will have the know-how to work the system and bypass the usual company guff, and he'll also have access to the insurance companies that specialize in restaurant insurance, which is what you want anyway, right?

California Restaurant Insurance Quotes are hard to come by only if you're not looking in the right places. Coverage for Valencia, Pasadena, San Marino, Montrose and all of California are found every day--and Sutherland-Scherff is not a bad place to start your search.