2021 Restaurant Insurance Outlook

The U.S. restaurant industry has a loaded plate as 2021 picks up steam – especially from an insurance and financial protection point of view.Dealing with a global pandemic and resulting business interruptions and locks downs, working hard to ensure employees are compensated as much as possible, facing down business liability issues – all were big issues in 2020 and are expected to be so in 2021.

Additionally, all of the above fall into a “good news, bad news” scenario for the upcoming year.

“The prospects for fine dining and sit-down restaurants are going to remain strained for all of 2021,” said Doug Groves, founder at Program Insurance Group, in College Station, Tex. “On the other hand, fast food, or any delivery food, is going to still have a banner year in 2021.”

A COVID vaccine campaign, successfully implemented, will help. That process is going slowly, much to the restaurant sector’s dismay.

“Consumers can go out more often in 2021, but we’re just going to…