Working with retail agents nationwide, Amwins' underwriting team delivers personal lines insurance coverage for a wide variety of risks — across a wide variety of markets.
Working with retail agents nationwide, Amwins' underwriting team delivers personal lines insurance coverage for a wide variety of risks — across a wide variety of markets.
Your personal lines clients need niche coverage options. And they need it in a time-sensitive fashion, without any lapses in communication. As a retailer, you're responsible for securing coverage for your clients' hard-to-place risks — yet without the right relationships or market access, you might be left scrambling to address their immediate business challenges. If you're at a loss about where to begin, Amwins has you covered.
As the largest P&C wholesale broker in the U.S., Amwins provides access to best-in-class and exclusive personal lines markets to help our retail partners gain a competitive edge for their clients. With the introduction of Amwins Instant Quote (Amwins IQ), our online marketplace, obtaining niche coverage options is now faster and more convenient than ever. Amwins IQ enables swift access to firm, bindable quotes from multiple carriers within minutes, ensuring your clients receive the specialized coverage they need without delay. Unlike brokers who take a one-size-fits-all approach to securing coverage, our local underwriters are exclusively dedicated to personal lines insurance, working alongside you for hard-to-place risks — and even-harder-to-satisfy clients.
With both admitted and non-admitted markets, as well national and international carriers, Amwins works to place policies as either standalone coverage or part of a larger package.
From luxury homes to valuable articles and nature-based perils, our personal lines insurance safeguards your clients against the risks they've anticipated — as well as those they haven't.
With underwriters solely focused on personal lines insurance, who average more than a decade of experience, you can rest assured your clients' coverage is in capable hands.
It’s no secret that liquor liability is a complex coverage. There are numerous variables that underwriters take into consideration when pricing and structuring a policy. The more informed you are about the underwriting thought process for liquor liability risks, the better able you are to position your clients for optimal terms and pricing.
There are several variables to the complexity of liquor liability. First, there are 50 states with 50 different sets of laws governing liquor liability, ranging from strict liability (Alabama) to very little liability (Nevada). Second, there is a wide range of venue types – from restaurants to nightclubs to concerts – which all have specific nuances that need to be addressed. Finally, each specific location has its own unique underwriting concerns that will arise, and it is critical to address them fully when submitting a risk to market.
The principal idea of liquor liability insurance is to protect a licensed purveyor of alcoholic beverages from third party liability. Liabilities for these establishments share some common characteristics. Typically, liability arises when a venue over-serves, serves minors, serves a known drunk, or serves an individual who is involved in a drunk driving incident after he or she was served on premises. Venues also have significant exposure to assault and battery claims from either employees being overly rough with patrons or patrons assaulting other patrons.
There are a host of different factors that go into the rating and pricing of this coverage.
1. Type of Venue
The most basic way of looking at risk factors for different venues is simply to identify what the primary purpose of the venue is – whether it is a restaurant, bar/tavern, nightclub, concert, and so on. If a restaurant’s primary purpose is serving food in a sit-down environment, it is considered to be much less risky than a nightclub with a primary purpose of entertainment and dancing. A bar/tavern may provide a mix of both, which places its risk factor in between a restaurant and a nightclub. Other venues that need a liquor liability policy are concerts, special events, country clubs, and fraternal organizations – essentially, anyone who is charging the general public for liquor.
2. Location of venue
State liquor laws vary dramatically by venue and jurisdiction. States each have their own basic scoring system based on the punitive nature of their dram shop law. Simply put, dram shop laws are laws that impose certain liability standards on the venues that serve alcohol. Tough jurisdictions, such as District of Columbia or Alabama, impose the toughest standards on venues when it comes to proving that they didn’t contribute to a third party bodily injury or property damage claim. Other jurisdictions, such as Nevada or Delaware, are more favorable to venues, and it is very difficult to prove the venue contributed to negligence. It is important to understand the varying dram shop laws associated with each venue as it will better help gauge the customer’s expectations and ability to find adequate coverage.
Individual traits of the risk: What controls are in place? How the operation is run by management?
3. Percentage of liquor sales
Further complicating the realm of liquor liability coverage is the percentage of the alcohol sales; as would be expected, more liquor sales equate to higher premiums. A restaurant with a high percentage of alcohol sales may be classified as more of a bar. A bar with a dance floor plus high liquor sales may be classified as a nightclub. When submitting a risk for liquor liability coverage, it’s important to review the specifics so you know what to expect from underwriters.
4. Individual traits of the risk
Below are some additional variables which underwriters will take into consideration.
In short, liquor liability is a complex coverage that is becoming harder and harder to procure, but with a proper understanding of the type of risk, venue and location, you can more effectively position your client for success with underwriters.