Insurance for Retail & Hospitality

Why Retail & Hospitality Need Specialist Cover

Customer-facing premises, stock, and licensing rules all shape the risk differently to an office or a trade van — here's what comes up again and again.

• A customer or guest is injured on your premises — a wet floor, a trip hazard, a fall on the stairs — and public liability responds to the resulting claim, the single most common claim type across retail and hospitality
• Stock and contents cover needs to reflect actual peak stock value, not an average — a shop or off-licence carrying seasonal stock for Christmas or summer can be significantly under-insured for part of the year if the sum insured isn't reviewed
• A kitchen fire, flood or other insured event can force a restaurant, café or pub to close for repairs — business interruption cover replaces lost income during the closure, which stock and buildings cover alone don't address
• Selling alcohol requires a premises licence under the Licensing Act 2003, and operating outside your licence conditions can affect both your licence and any related insurance claim
• Hotels and B&Bs carry a specific legal exposure under the Hotel Proprietors Act 1956 — a form of strict liability for guests' property in certain circumstances, regardless of fault, which is different from a standard liability claim
• Salons and treatment-based businesses — hairdressers, beauty, tattoo studios — face claims from chemical reactions, burns or infections linked to a treatment, which sits alongside standard public liability and often needs treatment-specific cover confirmed

Frequently Asked Questions

Answers to common questions about public liability, stock and business interruption cover for UK retail and hospitality businesses.