TOUR OPERATOR INSURANCE
Hazelnut, peanut and may-contain labels on the tasting plate, families with young children, and a factory floor behind the shop. The underwriter wants to know how you handle allergies, who is on your tours and how close they get to production.
Premiums and outcomes described are specific to this client and indicative only. Your own terms will depend on your circumstances and the insurer.
THE SHORT ANSWER
What insurance does a chocolate tour business need in Australia?
A chocolate tour operator generally needs public liability, including products liability for any chocolate you hand out yourself, plus professional indemnity for booking errors. Chocolatiers, factories, councils and booking platforms can ask for a certificate of currency before they host your groups. Allergens set this tour apart. Chocolate can be made alongside nuts, milk and other allergens, and a guest with a nut allergy needs their declaration to reach every stop. Families and school groups bring children onto factory floors, near tempering machines and melted chocolate. The underwriter will ask how you collect allergies, who you take on tour, and whether guests make chocolate themselves.
An allergic reaction isn't a disease, but how a claim is treated still depends on the wording, so raise it with the underwriter. Whose chocolate it was shapes whose products liability a claim points at. General information only. It doesn't take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs, and it isn't legal advice.
A guest with a peanut allergy eats a sample made on shared equipment. If the chocolatier made it, a claim is likely to point at its products liability. If your guide handed it over after being told about the allergy, your part will be looked at too.
A seven-year-old slips away from the group and reaches for a conveyor or a warm enrober. With children on tour, the claim will ask how many adults were watching and what the group was told before it went in.
Tempering machines and melting pots hold warm chocolate, and a hands-on session can involve piping bags, hot water baths and heat guns. A burn or a splash in the eye on your tour is a public liability question.
Your tour ends with a take-home bag you packed from bulk chocolate. Once you've repacked it, you're the supplier. A reaction to something in the bag points at your products liability.
A school books a chocolate factory excursion and you confirm the factory for the wrong date. The school's costs for buses and relief staff are a professional indemnity question. PI won't refund the tour price itself.
| Situation | Cover that may respond | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Guest reacts to chocolate the chocolatier made | The venue's products liability, and possibly yours | If you took the allergy declaration and didn't pass it on, your process is part of the claim. |
| Guest reacts to chocolate in a bag you packed or bought to hand out | Products liability can respond | Food you supply can be treated as a product. On at least one wording we place, the products limit is an annual aggregate. |
| Child burned or hurt during a factory visit or making session | Public liability can respond | Can respond to your legal liability, subject to the wording. The factory's own insurance is for its premises and equipment. |
| Guest damages moulds or equipment lent for a making session | Care, custody or control extension can respond | Property temporarily in your control is excluded, then written back with a sub-limit ($250,000 on one wording we place). |
| School excursion booked for the wrong date | Professional indemnity can respond | Claims made basis. PI doesn't refund the tour price, but it can respond to other losses your error caused. |
| Guests ill after eating on the tour | Check with the underwriter | Notifiable and communicable diseases are excluded under public liability and PI on at least one specialist tour operator wording we place. See food and alcohol on tours for which food-borne illnesses are notifiable. |
Schools in Western Australia and Victoria are told by their education departments not to sign waivers that release a provider from its own negligence. For school bookings, plan on your insurance and your supervision doing the work, not a release. See waivers and booking terms.
Sexual harassment, molestation and assault allegations are excluded under both public liability and PI on at least one specialist tour operator wording we place. If you run school or children's tours, screening and supervision are the controls, not the policy.
Notifiable and communicable diseases are excluded on at least one specialist tour operator wording we place. Wordings differ: at least one published Australian tour operator wording has no communicable disease exclusion in its base wording, though endorsements and schedules can change any wording, while the wording we place mentioned above has one. Food you supply is a product, but ask the underwriter how they would treat an illness claim rather than assume it's covered.
Injury to the chocolatier's staff and breakdown of its machines sit with its own workers compensation and property cover, not your policy.
If a factory cancels your visit, refunds come from your terms and the Australian Consumer Law. Cancellation is excluded on the tour operator policies we arrange.
At least one specialist tour operator wording we place excludes injury from a list of adventure activities, including horse riding, e-bikes and Segways, surfing and scuba diving, and white water rafting. See the adventure activities excluded on one wording we place, grouped, and check the endorsement on your own schedule.
At booking. Ask every guest about allergies and intolerances in the booking form, not just on the day. For a severe allergy, remind them to bring any medication they normally carry, and tell them plainly which stops may involve nuts, milk or other allergens. If you can't safely offer a stop, say so before they pay.
Before the tour. Send each venue the list in writing and keep a copy. If a venue's tasting can't be made safe for a guest, agree an alternative before the day. A written trail shows what you knew, what you passed on and when. If a reaction happens, that trail helps show where responsibility sits between you and the maker.
On the day. Brief the group, keep allergy guests' tastings separate, and don't let guides improvise with substitute treats. If a guest reacts, get medical help first, and don't admit fault or offer compensation on the spot. On at least one specialist tour operator wording we place, admitting liability without the insurer's consent can put cover at risk. Tell us as soon as you can.
What the label and the maker must tell you. Plain English allergen labelling has applied since 25 February 2024, and the transition period for older stock ended on 25 February 2026. Packaged chocolate must declare allergens in bold in the ingredient list using set names, with a separate "contains" statement beside it, and individual tree nuts are declared separately. For unpackaged tastings, Food Standards Australia New Zealand says allergen declarations must be displayed with the food or provided to the purchaser on request. That gives you something concrete to ask every chocolatier for: its written allergen declarations for each tasting. If you repack bulk chocolate into take-home bags, the labelling questions become yours, so check with your state food authority. More in food and alcohol on tours.
School groups change who asks for what. WA public schools must confirm an external provider holds $20 million public liability and, if appropriate, $5 million professional liability insurance. Victorian government schools need a provider's public liability certificate of at least $10 million from an APRA approved insurer, and Working with Children Checks for provider adults in direct contact with students. The NSW and Queensland excursion procedures set no dollar minimum and rely on risk assessment and child safety checks. Our risk management guide covers the supervision and briefing documents a school is likely to ask for.
| Who asks | What they ask for | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| WA public schools | $20 million public liability, and if appropriate $5 million professional liability insurance, confirmed by the principal before the excursion. | Staff must not sign waivers, indemnities or disclaimers that absolve a provider from its own negligence. $20 million public liability is available. PI limits are chosen separately. |
| Victorian government schools | A current public liability certificate of at least $10 million from an APRA approved insurer, and Working with Children Checks for all provider adults in direct contact with students. | Schools must refuse waivers where the provider seeks to absolve itself of negligence. Ask the school early what it needs to see on the certificate, including the insurer's details, so we can confirm it with the underwriter. |
| NSW and Queensland government schools | No dollar public liability minimum is set in the departments' excursion procedures. NSW asks for a risk assessment plan and current Working with Children Checks for child-related work. | Individual schools can set their own figure, so ask each school what it wants on the certificate before you quote. |
| Viator | Valid public liability insurance, a mandatory global baseline under its August 2026 Supplier Agreement. | Minimums are set by Viator by activity risk and destination. Expired documents freeze new sales. |
Put the allergy question in the booking form and check it again at the meeting point. For a severe allergy, remind the guest to bring any medication they normally carry, and tell them which stops involve nuts or milk before they pay.
Ask each chocolatier for the allergen declarations for each tasting. For unpackaged food they must be displayed or provided on request. Keep them with the dietary list you send each venue.
Guides hand out only what is on the tasting plan. If you repack chocolate into take-home bags, keep the original allergen information with each batch and check your labelling obligations with your state food authority.
Set an adult-to-child ratio for factory floors and making sessions, agree it with the school or family group before the day, and brief children at the door about machines, warm chocolate and staying with the group.
Each state runs its own scheme. A check or registration lasts 5 years in NSW, Victoria, SA, Tasmania and the ACT, 3 years in WA and 2 years in the NT. The schemes list work such as services provided specifically for children, so check yours if you run tours for schools or children's groups.
Have a first aid trained guide on every tour and record every reaction, burn and near miss. A serious injury or illness arising from your business must be notified to the work health and safety regulator immediately, and that includes guests.
We've found tour operator public liability hard to place on its own in the past, and PI and public liability often had to be split across insurers. We approach several specialist insurers and underwriting agencies. Some write PI and public liability together, others write one or the other, and we put the cover together to suit the tours you run, for tour operators and for travel agents that run their own tours, subject to each insurer's assessment.
We don't publish a separate price for chocolate tours. As a general guide, across the tour types the markets we approach are set up to quote, subject to each insurer's assessment, combined PI and public liability for a small tour operator costs approximately $1,200 to $1,800 a year including fees. As at October 2026. Your price depends on the activities, destinations, revenue, limits and claims history, and it can fall outside that range. It is not a quote. See what drives the premium.
A placement from September 2026. A new NSW-based cultural tour operator designs immersive programs for groups visiting Australia and for Australian groups visiting Asia, with local tour companies running the coaches and accommodation. It needed a certificate of currency urgently. Result: $20 million public liability and $1 million professional indemnity on one combined policy, worldwide territory excluding US jurisdiction, placed the same week on that occasion at approximately $1,850 including fees. This is one past placement, not a quote. Your price and terms depend on your risk. Read the case study.
Sources referred to on this page
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
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QUOTE REQUEST
Tell us the tours you run, where they go, group sizes, who supplies transport and venues, your annual revenue, and the limit you need on your certificate.
Send us your tour descriptions and itinerary, and we will take them to the specialist markets that write tour operators and come back to you with the options available.
Last updated: 01/10/2026
