TOUR OPERATOR INSURANCE
A market visit in the morning, then guests at the bench with knives, gas and hot oil. The underwriter wants to know who teaches, whose kitchen it is and who eats what the class cooks.
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 cooking class tour business need in Australia?
A cooking class tour operator generally needs public liability for guests hurt during the class, including products liability for the food they eat, plus professional indemnity for booking errors. Cooking schools, restaurants and booking platforms can ask for a certificate of currency before they host your groups. What sets this tour apart is that guests do the work. They use knives, gas burners, hot oil and ovens, so a cut or a burn is a participant injury rather than a bystander's. The underwriter will ask who teaches the class, whose kitchen it is, how you manage allergens when guests cook for each other, and whether you take hens or party bookings.
Public liability pays only where you're legally liable. Personal accident cover for participants is a separate policy that pays set benefits under its own terms. General information only. It doesn't take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs, and it isn't legal advice.
A guest who rarely cooks is dicing onions with a chef's knife and cuts deep into a finger. If the claim says the class moved too fast, the knives didn't suit beginners or no one showed them how to hold one, it's a public liability question for whoever ran the class.
A pan of oil catches, or a guest reaches across a lit burner. Burns and a kitchen fire can both follow from a pan left unwatched, so your briefing, supervision and fire blanket all matter.
Everyone eats the dishes at the end. If a guest reacts to an allergen another guest added, the food was supplied through your class. Food you supply is a product, but illness from a notifiable or communicable disease can be excluded.
You hire a cooking school's kitchen for the afternoon, and a guest cracks an induction cooktop or starts a fire. On at least one specialist tour operator wording we place, property in your care, custody or control is excluded from public liability, then only partly written back by an extension.
The chef you engage burns themselves demonstrating a flambé. Injury to a contractor is a claim on your public liability with a much higher excess ($25,000 on one wording we place). Your own employees' injuries sit with workers compensation.
| Situation | Cover that may respond | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Guest cuts or burns themselves during the class | Public liability can respond | Can respond to your legal liability, subject to the wording, for example poor supervision or instruction. The venue's policy may respond if its equipment was at fault. |
| Guest reacts to food the class cooked and served | Products liability can respond | Food you supply is treated as a product. An allergic reaction isn't a disease, but how a claim is treated still depends on the wording, so raise it with the underwriter. |
| Guests ill after eating the dishes | 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. Salmonellosis, listeriosis, campylobacteriosis, STEC and hepatitis A are nationally notifiable. See food and alcohol on tours. |
| Your class prepares and serves unpackaged, ready-to-eat food | Food law first, then products liability | Standard 3.2.2A of the Food Standards Code can require a food safety supervisor and trained food handlers. Ask your council or state food authority which category your class falls into. |
| Damage to a hired kitchen or its equipment | Care, custody or control extension can respond | Partly written back by an extension, subject to limits. Tell the underwriter you hire kitchens, and read the hire agreement before you sign. |
| Contract chef injured while teaching | Public liability can respond, with a higher excess | Injury to contractors carries a $25,000 excess on one wording we place. Check the chef holds their own liability cover. See contract guides and suppliers. |
| Class lost because you booked the venue for the wrong date | Professional indemnity can respond (other losses only) | PI doesn't refund the tour price, and cancellation is excluded. It can respond to other losses your error caused. |
Stag and hen parties are excluded on at least one specialist tour operator wording we place. If party groups book your classes, raise it at quote stage.
If you own or lease a cooking school rather than running classes as part of tours, tell us. The business description on your schedule must match what you do, and premises bring their own covers.
Injury to your own staff and volunteers is excluded from public liability, because workers compensation is meant to respond.
For cooking class tours in Italy, Thailand or Japan, at least one specialist tour operator wording we place expects you to take reasonable steps so every guest holds comprehensive travel insurance, and local cooking schools should hold their own cover.
Notifiable and communicable diseases are excluded under public liability and PI 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, so ask the underwriter how an illness claim after a class would be treated.
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.
Supervision and instruction. A claim after a cut or burn will ask what the guest was shown, how many guests each instructor was watching, and whether the equipment suited beginners. A short safety demonstration at the start, knives matched to the task, one burner per pair and an instructor who can see every bench are the controls. Write them into your procedures, because the underwriter can ask for your safety procedures and pre-tour briefing.
Waivers have limits. Booking terms and a signed acknowledgement help, but they have limits under the Australian Consumer Law. Section 139A of the Competition and Consumer Act lets a supplier of recreational services exclude liability under the services guarantees, but only for death or personal injury, and not where a significant injury is caused by the supplier's reckless conduct. Recreational services are participation in "a sporting activity or a similar leisure time pursuit", or another activity that involves a significant degree of physical exertion or physical risk and is done for recreation, enjoyment or leisure. Whether a cooking class fits either limb is a question for your lawyer. In Victoria, a recreational business limiting liability for the first time since 27 June 2022 must use the exact wording Consumer Affairs Victoria prescribes. Don't rely on a waiver in place of insurance. More in waivers and booking terms.
Personal accident is a separate question. Public liability pays only where you're legally liable. If a guest cuts themselves through no one's fault, there may be no liability claim at all, and their costs fall on them and their own insurance. Personal accident cover for participants is a separate policy that pays set benefits under its own terms, so ask us whether one can be arranged alongside your liability policy.
Food law when the class cooks and eats. Standard 3.2.2A of the Food Standards Code, in effect since December 2023, applies to food service, catering and retail businesses that handle unpackaged, potentially hazardous food that is ready to eat. A business that processes that kind of food and serves it without further processing is in the higher category and must use all three tools: a food safety supervisor certified within the past five years, food handler training, and records that show its critical food safety controls are managed. Whether a class where guests cook their own meal falls inside the standard is a question for your council or state food authority, so ask before you launch. If you hire a cooking school's kitchen, ask whether its food safety supervisor covers your sessions.
| Who asks | What they ask for | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Airbnb Experiences | Hosts must maintain liability insurance appropriate for their business and may be asked for proof at submission. | Airbnb's own program, up to the amount Airbnb states, responds only above your own insurance where it applies, and does not cover the host's own property. Treat it as a backstop, not your cover. |
| GetYourGuide | Liability insurance of an appropriate value, on an occurrence form. Subcontractors must be insured under your policy or hold their own cover that meets the same clause. | That reaches a contract chef. Tour operator policies we arrange generally don't insure the contractor itself, so collect the chef's own certificate of currency. |
| Viator | Valid public liability insurance, a mandatory global baseline under its August 2026 Supplier Agreement, with minimums set by activity risk and destination. | A hands-on class may be assessed differently from a tasting walk. Describe what guests do at the bench accurately. |
| Quality Tourism Accreditation | Current public liability of at least $10 million with a certificate of currency. | The standards also ask for documented emergency procedures and an incident report form covering injuries and near misses, which fit a kitchen. |
On 9 April 2022, during a booked gin-making experience run by a winery at its own distillery, with no tour seller involved, a 330-litre still exploded when its heating elements were switched on without being fully covered by liquid and ethanol vapour ignited. Nine people were hurt, two staff and seven guests. A stand-in operator had only one of the two instruction documents. The company pleaded guilty to WorkSafe Victoria charges and was fined $50,000 without conviction, plus costs. It was not a cooking class, but it was a paid hands-on session with heat, flammable vapour and guests beside the equipment.
The insurance lesson. When guests take part, the business running the session and the tour business that sold it can both face a claim, and public liability can respond only to legal liability. The control is a written procedure that whoever is teaching on the day has in full, including a stand-in.
Source: The Border Mail, report of the sentencing (October 2024)
An organised Japanese tour group ate food from a Gold Coast restaurant and then flew to Sydney. Twelve of the 27 passengers were vomiting within minutes of each other and four were hospitalised overnight. Investigators linked the outbreak to a lack of hand washing and unhygienic food handling at the restaurant. No litigation was reported.
The insurance lesson. In a cooking class the hands preparing the food are your guests' own, so hand washing and hygiene are yours to run. Food served through your class can be treated as a product, but illness from a notifiable or communicable disease can be excluded. Ask the underwriter how a group illness would be treated before you bind.
Source: WHO Western Pacific Surveillance and Response journal (2015)
Show the grip, the board and how to carry a knife. Match knives to the task and to beginners, and keep guests per instructor low enough that every bench is in view.
One burner per pair, pan handles turned in, no reaching across a flame, and no guest deep fries or flambés unless the instructor is at that bench. Know where the fire blanket and extinguisher are, and say so in the briefing.
Start every class at the sink. Where Standard 3.2.2A applies, food handlers need training in safe handling, contamination, cleaning and sanitising, and personal hygiene, and a food safety supervisor must be reasonably available.
Collect allergies at booking, plan the menu around them, and give a guest with a declared allergy their own bench, utensils and ingredients. Keep ingredient labels so you can give allergen declarations on request.
Collect the chef's and the kitchen's certificates of currency at the start and each year. At least one specialist tour operator wording we place expects reasonable steps so contractors hold at least $10 million liability in Australia. Read the kitchen hire agreement before you sign.
Have a first aid trained person in the room and a kit stocked for cuts and burns. Serious lacerations and serious burns needing immediate treatment are serious injuries under the model work health and safety laws and must be notified to the regulator immediately.
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 cooking class 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
RELATED GUIDES
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
