Food truck insurance: what you need before your first event

Before your first event, a food truck usually needs two separate sets of coverage: one for the kitchen and one for the vehicle it’s built into. The kitchen side is general liability for the people you serve, plus coverage for the cooking equipment, and workers’ comp once anyone else is working the window; the vehicle side is commercial auto, which is a different policy entirely, and Corgi doesn’t sell it, so you’d buy it on its own.

Then come the certificates. A farmers market, a brewery lot, a festival or a corporate catering gig will usually want proof of general liability, often with the organizer named on it, and they’ll want it before you’re allowed to set up, which means the insurance has to be sorted well before the first service. The full list of policies restaurants carry is on insurance for restaurants, while this page sticks to what’s particular to a kitchen on wheels.

The kitchen and the truck are insured separately

Here’s how a single truck splits across policies:

Every row is subject to each policy’s terms, limits and exclusions. The pattern, though, is simple enough: anything that happens because you’re cooking and serving lands on the kitchen side, and anything that happens because the truck is a vehicle on a road or a lot lands on the auto side.

General liability is the policy every organizer asks about, because it answers for the public. It typically covers injuries and property damage your business causes to other people, and its products coverage usually extends to claims that food you served made someone ill, subject to the policy’s terms, limits and exclusions. That’s the same protection a sit-down restaurant carries, just with a parking lot where the dining room would be.

Commercial auto is the one that’s tempting to skimp on. The NAIC notes that commercial vehicle insurance typically carries higher liability limits than personal coverage, and that if you own or lease a vehicle almost exclusively for business use, the business’s name should be listed as the principal insured. A food truck is about as close to exclusively business use as a vehicle gets.

The gear bolted to the floor

This is the question to settle before there’s a fire, and it deserves more attention than anything else on this page.

A restaurant’s kitchen equipment sits inside a building at a fixed address, and a commercial property policy is written around exactly that kind of location. A food truck’s fryer, flat-top, hood, refrigeration and generator sit inside a vehicle instead, and many of them are bolted, plumbed or wired in, so they can look a lot like part of the truck. Property policies are generally written for a described location and commonly exclude vehicles, while an auto policy is written for the vehicle, which leaves the kitchen in an awkward middle where each side may assume the other is covering it.

The NAIC’s advice for business vehicles points at the issue: it suggests you may want to increase coverage to protect permanently attached items such as a generator or a storage unit. That’s a clue that built-in equipment is something an auto policy may cover only up to a point, or only if you’ve told the insurer about it. Portable equipment is a different story again. Items you load and unload, such as a portable grill, a smoker on a trailer, warming cabinets or a tent and tables for catering, are the kind of property that moves with you, which is what tools and equipment insurance is designed for, and what is inland marine insurance? explains why coverage for movable property carries that odd name.

So here’s the practical step. Make a list of every piece of kitchen equipment, with what it would cost to replace and whether it’s fixed or portable, and send the same list to whoever quotes your auto policy and to whoever quotes the kitchen side. Ask the auto insurer to value the truck at a stated amount that includes the kitchen build-out, and ask the kitchen-side insurer whether its auto exclusion reaches a customer hurt at the serving window of a parked truck, because general liability typically excludes injuries arising from the use of an auto. Then ask each of them the same question in writing: if a fire guts the kitchen but the truck still runs, which of our policies pays for the fryer, the hood and the generator? An answer you get before the fire is worth more than any you get after it, and if the two answers leave a gap, you’ll at least know where it is.

What events, markets and commissaries will ask for

Here’s how the paperwork usually goes before an event:

1. The organizer sends a vendor packet with insurance requirements, often general liability at stated limits and a request to be named as an additional insuredAdditional insuredAn additional insured is a person or company, such as a landlord or client, added to your liability policy so it can protect them from claims tied to your work.Read the definition.
2. You request a certificate of insuranceCertificate of insuranceA certificate of insurance (COI) is a one-page summary that proves your business has insurance, listing your policies, limits, insurers and policy dates.Read the definition showing that coverage, with the organizer listed exactly as their packet says. With Corgi, a certificate is available the day you buy, and you can download it or send it from your account.
3. Some organizers also ask for proof of commercial auto, a health permit or a fire inspection, which come from your auto insurer and your local authorities.
4. A commissary or a property owner where you park overnight may ask to be named on your certificate too, as a condition of the agreement.

The difference between being named on the certificate and being an additional insured is covered in additional insured vs. certificate holder, and it matters, because an organizer who asked for one and received the other may send your certificate back.

Propane, grease and the paperwork that proves you were careful

The fire marshal’s checklist belongs in your insurance file, because in practice that’s what it is.

Fire and health rules for mobile kitchens are set by local authorities, and they vary. Your city or county writes the permit rules, usually starting from the FDA Food Code, which the FDA describes as a model for food control jurisdictions at every level of government, so the permit you need, and whether it hinges on a commissary agreement, comes from them rather than from Washington. The NFPA’s food truck safety fact sheet makes the same point for fire safety, telling operators to get licenses or permits from the local authorities and to check with their local jurisdiction for specific requirements.

What that fact sheet asks of operators is concrete. It calls for at least 10 feet of clearance from buildings, other vehicles and combustible materials, unless the local authority sets a different distance, and for workers to be trained on extinguishers, shutting off fuel sources, calling the fire department and doing a simple leak test on propane connections. It also says to document leak testing and keep that documentation in the truck. So the fire code wants a written record that you checked the gas, and a written record is exactly what helps you later if someone claims a propane problem started at your truck.

Keep the hood and suppression service records, the leak-test log, the inspection reports and your extinguisher tags in one folder in the truck, with copies at home. None of it guarantees a claim will be paid. Still, it’s the evidence that shows you ran the kitchen the way the rules say you should.

Who’s working the window with you?

The moment a friend helping out becomes someone you pay, workers’ comp enters the picture. Each state sets its own threshold for when it’s required, and its own rules on whether part-time or seasonal workers count, so check your own rules through the U.S. Department of Labor’s list of state workers’ compensation agencies before the first paid shift.

A truck is a hard place to work safely, however careful the crew is. OSHA’s restaurant safety eTool lists burns, including from deep fat fryers, along with cuts, strains and slips, among the hazards of cooking and food prep, and a truck packs all of that into a few feet of floor that moves between shifts. Workers’ comp typically pays for medical care and part of lost wages for work injuries, as your state’s rules set out, and if you already have a policy with Corgi, it can be added without a new application. Hiring your first employee has the checklist, and opening a restaurant: an insurance timeline covers the case where the truck is the first step toward a brick-and-mortar kitchen.