Cellar Door Insurance

The core is public liability for visitors, with liquor liability specifically addressed because you're serving alcohol to the public. Around that sits property cover for retail stock, glassware and fit-out, cover for functions and events if you host them, food service exposures if you serve it, and business interruption if the venue can't trade after insured damage. The right structure depends on whether the cellar door is a counter in the corner of a winery or a full venue with a kitchen and a wedding lawn.

A properly arranged policy can, provided the service of alcohol is specifically addressed. Standard liability wordings can exclude or restrict claims arising from alcohol service, which is exactly the activity a cellar door exists for. Make sure the policy reflects your licence type, your RSA practices and the way tastings actually run, subject to the policy terms, limits and exclusions.

Only if the policy knows about them. Functions change the risk: more guests, longer service, live entertainment, marquees, sometimes external caterers and suppliers on site. Disclose the events side properly at quote stage and confirm how the policy treats one-off large events. If external vendors work your events, ask them for their own certificates of currency too.

Stock at the venue can be covered under the property section, and it's worth checking the detail: how display stock, cool-room stock and back-of-house cartons are each valued, and whether breakage of glass and bottles is included or needs an extension. If your stock holding swells before peak season or a big release, make sure the sum insured moves with it.

Not necessarily separate, but the policy has to reflect it. Serving food adds product liability exposure, kitchen equipment worth covering, and a higher property risk from cooking. A venue that's moved from cheese boards to a working kitchen without telling its insurer may find the cover hasn't moved with it. Update the disclosure whenever the offering steps up.

No, and underwriters treat them differently. Pouring 30ml samples at a market stall or promotional event is a distinct liability exposure from full venue alcohol service, with different licensing arrangements and different questions asked at quote stage. We've seen enquiries where a brand's only alcohol service was 30ml samples poured at promotional events, and that tasting model raised different liability questions from full venue service. Generic online occupation categories can have no way to describe a brand that only runs promotional tastings, so the risk can't be quoted through those channels at all. Describe exactly how and where you pour, sample sizes included, so the policy responds to what you actually do.

This page is about the venue. The production side, stills, brewhouses, tanks and maturing stock, has its own exposures and its own pages: see our distillery, brewery and winery insurance guides. If you run both under one roof, the cleanest outcome is usually one broker-arranged package that covers the venue and production together, with nothing falling between the two.