For most restaurants, product liability is not a separate policy: it is the products-completed operations coverage already built into commercial general liability, usually with its own aggregate limit. General liability handles injuries on your premises and from your operations, while the products side handles injuries caused by your food after it leaves your control. Food makers selling packaged goods through retailers often need broader or separately rated product coverage.
This page is for restaurant owners with heavy takeout and delivery, and for the bakeries, commissaries, sauce makers and meal-prep companies that sell food other people serve or resell. The coverage question is less about buying two policies and more about how your one liability policy is rated, how its limits are split, and what it leaves out.
Where premises liability ends and products liability begins
The standard ISO general liability form defines a products-completed operations hazard: bodily injury and property damage that occurs away from premises you own or rent and arises out of your product. So a guest who cracks a tooth on a bone fragment while eating in your dining room is typically a premises and operations claim, counted against the general aggregate. The same dish eaten at home from a takeout container falls into the products-completed operations hazard and its separate aggregate. Both are inside the same policy, but the split matters, because one contaminated batch can produce many claims that all draw on the products aggregate for that policy period.
General liability and product liability, dimension by dimension
- What it covers — General liability (premises and operations): injuries and damage at your location or from your ongoing work, such as a slip-and-fall, a server spilling hot soup on a guest, or a stained coat, plus personal and advertising injury. Product liability (products-completed operations): injury or damage caused by food or goods after they leave your hands, such as illness from a delivery order, an allergic reaction to a packaged cookie sold at a grocer, or a foreign object in a jarred sauce.
- Who needs it — General liability: every restaurant, bar and food business. Product emphasis: restaurants with large takeout, delivery and catering volume, plus bakeries, commissaries and brands selling packaged or wholesale products.
- Common restaurant claim example — General liability: a toddler is burned when a sizzling fajita skillet is set down too close to the table edge. Product liability: a customer bites into a delivered burrito and finds a piece of broken plastic from a prep container.
- How it’s usually bought — General liability: a CGL policy or the liability section of a BOP. Products: included in that same CGL or BOP for most restaurants, with a separate products-completed operations aggregate; food manufacturers and wholesalers are often rated separately on product sales, may be placed with specialty product liability markets, and frequently need a vendors endorsement that makes retailers additional insureds.
- Common gaps — General liability excludes damage to your own product, the cost of recalling or withdrawing products, and your own lost income after a contamination event. Products coverage shares one aggregate across every products claim in the year, and a retailer contract may demand limits or additional insured wording your current policy does not include.
Three claims, three different answers
The allergen at the table. A guest tells the server about a tree-nut allergy, but the pesto on the special contains pine nuts and the guest has a reaction in the dining room. Because the injury happens on your premises during service, this is typically handled on the premises and operations side of general liability. Written allergen procedures and ticket flags are what defend a claim like this.
The delivery order. A customer is cut by a sliver of glass in a delivered salad and eats it at the office. The food left your control, so the claim falls under the products-completed operations hazard of the same policy, drawing on the products aggregate. If a third-party app delivered it, the platform agreement may also address who indemnifies whom.
The wholesale cookie recall. A bakery that sells to coffee shops and a regional grocer ships a batch whose label misses an allergen. Several customers are sickened, and the grocer pulls the product and demands reimbursement. Injury claims go to the products coverage, provided the policy was rated for wholesale sales, and the grocer looks for additional insured status under a vendors endorsement. The cost of pulling the product and the bakery’s lost sales are not covered by liability at all; that is the job of product recall or contamination coverage.
Which do you need?
- Dine-in restaurant with modest takeout: a standard CGL or BOP handles both sides; confirm the products-completed operations aggregate is not lower than the general aggregate.
- Delivery-heavy or ghost kitchen operation: products exposure is most of your risk, so disclose delivery volume accurately and check the products aggregate and any delivery platform contract requirements.
- Food maker selling to retailers or other restaurants: tell the carrier about wholesale sales, get a vendors endorsement for retailer contracts, collect certificates and indemnity from your own ingredient suppliers, and consider recall coverage.
- Farmers market or event vendor: products coverage in a CGL usually suffices, but markets commonly require additional insured status.
Pricing and how we quote it
Restaurant liability is generally rated on gross sales and class; manufacturers and wholesalers are rated on product sales, ingredients and distribution. Underwriters look favorably on allergen controls, supplier contracts, labeling review, lot coding that makes traceback possible, and a written food safety plan. As an independent agency, Provident Financial Group sends one application to multiple carriers, shows the quotes side by side, and issues certificates of insurance you can share with retailers and landlords. Call (866) 964-6660 with questions.
Frequently asked questions
Does general liability cover food poisoning claims?
Generally yes: bodily injury from food you serve is a core general liability exposure, on either the premises or products side depending on where it was eaten. See our food poisoning answer for details.
Do I need a separate product liability policy to sell at a farmers market?
Usually not. Products-completed operations coverage in a general liability policy normally covers what you sell, though the market may require specific limits and additional insured status.
What is the products-completed operations aggregate?
It is the most the policy pays for all products and completed operations claims combined during the policy period, tracked separately from the general aggregate that applies to premises claims.
Will product liability pay for a recall?
No. Liability policies exclude the cost of recalling or withdrawing products; that requires separate recall or food contamination coverage.
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