Insurable Hot Spots
Tasting Room
Your Tasting Room is seemingly the safest part of your winery, but common risks include safe service of alcohol, slip & fall inside or outside, theft, employee dishonesty, loss of refrigeration, interruption of phone, power or water, and cyber exposures of wine club member database and POS systems to name a few.
What should your tasting room staff do if a wine tour group arrives and some of the individuals appear inebriated? If someone trips and falls resulting in an injury, does your staff have training to respond to this type of accident? What if your vineyard’s dog bites a customer? There are countless scenarios that can create liability for you as the owner of the property.
Spam filters and firewalls are not enough to protect your data these days; cyber crime is becoming incredibly sophisticated. If your computer system or network were targeted by ransomeware, your business could come to a screeching halt until you paid the ransom or engaged a cyber security firm to remediate. Not to mention your responsibility to protect client and employee Personally Identifiable Information (PII) housed in your network. Failure to provide proper protection can result in fines and penalties and this can be subject to a variety of state laws depending on where your clients are located.
We offer a variety of training programs for you and your staff including an Alcohol Server Certification and Accident Investigation Protocol. We can also assist in selecting coverage limits based on your exposure. Our Cyber Liability Coverage is specialized for winery operations and general liability covers you in cases of slips and falls (and even dog bites!)
Irrigation
Do you have water pump stations, water treatment facilities, water tanks, water towers and/or irrigation distribution manifolds?
Small or obscure structures are often overlooked or forgotten in an onsite walkthrough and omitted from scheduled property on insurance policies. If wildfire or severe weather destroys a pump house or water tank that is unscheduled, then your claim payout will not include funds to rebuild that structure.
iRAD™, Winery PAK’s Insurance Risk Assessment Drone technology observes and records property infrastructure to identify unscheduled property to ensure your winery is properly covered BEFORE claims occur. iRAD creates a 3D model of structures and property features to capture exact measurements (square feet, acreages, volume, distance) so you will be fully covered in the event of a loss. We can also assess your winery’s wildfire risk and make recommendations for ensuring your structures have adequate defensible space around them.
Processing Facility
One mistake, such as opening a tank valve before the pressure has been released, can be catastrophic. If you are performing custom crush for multiple vineyards, you can’t afford to lose a day or two because of equipment failure.
Fire, wind, water damage, wine leakage and tank collapse, contamination, blending errors, equipment breakdown, slip & falls – our industry leading coverages are customized to your unique operations. Our knowledge and expertise ensure your exposures are accurately identified and addressed on site and off site.
Estate Vineyard Dwelling
Many wineries have dwellings included in their property. Whether the winery owner’s home or employee dwellings, Winery PAK is one of the few insurance programs able to include homeowners coverage for personal property and liability exposures located at winery or vineyard locations.
Vineyard
Winery PAK’s specialized coverages for Trellis & Vine, Drip Irrigation systems, Chemical Drift Liability and Pollution Liability for gas storage vessels account provide for vineyard-specific risks, unlike other general insurance programs.
If your herbicide application drifts to a neighboring Certified Organic vineyard that is a Certified Organic Winery, you could have a liability on your hands be liable. Have you recently planted new vines or installed a new irrigation system? Make sure your policy covers them. Be sure to keep your agent apprised of any changes requiring updates to your coverage.
Outdoor Property
Fences & gates, wind and frost machines, electrical poles and junction boxes, solar panels, cell towers, docks or piers. This is just a small list of the infrastructure subject to loss in a fire or severe weather event and costs to repair or replace can be significant. These are often critical items that must be restored in order to resume normal winemaking and hospitality operations.
Defensible Space
Pallets, Barrels or Picking Bins leaning against buildings lead to the spread of winery fires every year. And that wonderful old oak providing shade to your tasting room courtyard also increases your wildfire risk.
Topography, slope and fuel analysis for wildfire defensible space should be conducted as best practices. iRAD™, Winery PAK’s Insurance Risk Assessment Drone technology assesses your winery’s wildfire risk and makes recommendations for ensuring your structures have adequate defensible space around them. iRAD creates a 3D model of structures and property features to capture exact measurements (square feet, acreages, volume, distance) so you will be fully covered in the event of a loss.
Mechanicals
Chillers, boilers, HVAC, glycol systems, backup power and water treatment systems are all critical elements of processing operations. Winery PAK provides accurate replacement cost evaluations, Equipment Breakdown Coverage and potential code or ordinance considerations.
Auto
Operating vehicles is required in your business – moving grapes, wine and property on the winery premises and off. There are many hazards that you face when driving. One example is distracted driving – let’s say your wine maker answers a call on his/her mobile phone when pulling the Winery truck up to the Processing Facility, accidentally hitting a stack of grape collection bins and barrels, launching them into the air and damaging the bins and the nearby forklift.
Winery PAK’s Commercial Auto Coverage is comprehensive and tailored to the needs of your operation. We can provide coverage for your vehicles as well as hired and borrowed vehicles.
Farm & Mobile Equipment
Winery operations require a variety of machines and farm equipment from tractors and mowers to ATVs and harvesting equipment. These items should be identified and scheduled on your insurance policy for both physical damage and liability in the event of an accident.
Make sure you value these items appropriately so they can be replaced if they are totaled in an accident or mishap.
Farm Buildings
Consider these worst case scenarios: Your winery manager jumps off the forklift to clear a tree limb from the driveway and neglects to engage the brake; the forklift rolls downhill and smashes through the wall of the barn. More common and worse yet, oil-soaked rags in a machine shop ignite and destroy equipment and half the structure.
Do you have old or new buildings? Have you thought about whether you will replace with like kind and quality? Or perhaps replace with functional equivalent or not at all? Have you scheduled all of the buildings on your property to match your insurance coverage? These are important conversations to have prior to a loss to ensure coverage will respond as anticipated.
