What are the food truck insurance requirements?
If you're in the food truck business, it's important to make sure you have the right insurance. There are several different food truck insurance requirements, and it can be tricky to figure out what you need.
In this blog post (and video), we will discuss the types of insurance required for food trucks and provide some tips on finding the right coverage for your business.
Need Food Truck Insurance?
Food Truck Insurance Requirements
At the outset, it's important to understand that food truck insurance requirements will vary depending on your location. Some areas may require specific types of coverage, such as liability or workers' compensation insurance.
Additionally, you may require additional commercial auto liability coverage if you plan on serving certain foods or selling alcohol at your food truck.
Your state will require you to have a commercial auto policy. Personal auto policy is not going to work for a food truck. You'll need a commercial auto policy; if you have employees, you will be required to have workers' compensation insurance.
General liability, commercial auto insurance, and workers comp insurance are going to most likely be the three required insurance policies that you have to have required by the state.
Food Truck Surety Bond
Certain municipalities, town cities, et cetera may also require you to have a surety bond, which we can help you with here at Rogue Risk. If you need surety, we do that all the time, but surety bonds are separate from insurance, but they are sometimes required.
So you may need surety bonds as well. Frequently not very expensive, though, so that you know. A surety bond is usually not expensive for food trucks. So that's the kind of public or city government level entity requirements.
READ NEXT: No Customer Left Behind Policy
Who Requires Food Truck Insurance?
The larger requirements will come from a campground, an event, a conference center, or the town if they're your customer.
Wherever you're trying to park, or if you're trying to be part of an event, or doing one of that kind of parking lot setups where a bunch of food trucks gets together, all those things, whoever owns that property is going to have insurance requirements.
They're most likely going to add in addition to workers comp, commercial auto, potentially a bond they're going to require as well a general liability policy. So that's either going to come as a package or as a business owner's policy.
So you're going to need general liability as well, and they may also require, and we've seen this more and more, a commercial umbrella.
Now what's going to happen is, so that you understand, whoever you're working for will hand you insurance requirements.
If they don't, you should ask for them. If they say, "Hey, we need to see your insurance," say, "What am I required to have?" You can ask that question, and they should have a one-page sheet or an email they can send you that will break it down.
You need a million dollars in general liability, you need $500,000 in employer's liability on your worker's comp. It would be best if you had a $500,000 minimum commercial auto policy, et cetera.
The Rub
If you're starting in the food truck business and aren't sure what type of coverage you need, your first step should be to speak with an experienced insurance agent or broker.
They can help assess your needs and work with you to find a policy that fits your budget and business requirements.
This is where we come in at Rogue Risk.
If your current insurance professional has never addressed issues like this with you before, I’d encourage you to reach out to us today.
- You can call or text us at 518.960.6600
- Click here to contact us via email.
I look forward to introducing you to a new way of viewing your insurance program.
Thank you,
Ryan Hanley
