Restaurant GL: What Slip-and-Fall Frequency Really Costs

5 min read Brian Berge · Independent insurance agent in Arden Hills, MN
Restaurants General Liability

One big slip claim hurts, but a steady drip of small claims moves premiums faster. Restaurant GL pricing is a frequency story.

Start here: General Liability & Premises Risk

Twin Cities winter sidewalks and entryways drive slip-and-fall frequency, which is why GL pricing reacts quickly.

Restaurant GL: What Slip-and-Fall Frequency Really Costs

It is January and the entry mats are soaked. Someone comes in from a parking lot that looks like a skating rink. A minute later, you hear the sound no owner wants to hear.

Slip-and-fall claims are not rare. That is the point. In restaurant general liability, frequency does more damage than the occasional big claim.

If you want the short explanation first, see Slip-and-Fall Claims: Why Restaurants Pay More Than Expected. This post goes deeper on the pricing logic.

What’s really going on

Insurers price restaurants on patterns. A single large claim is painful, but it is the repeated smaller claims that tell the market a risk is persistent.

Slip-and-fall frequency is the easiest pattern to see. It is also the hardest one to explain away. When a carrier sees the same kind of loss two or three times, they treat it as a business process issue, not just weather.

Slip-and-fall is the most common signal. It is also the easiest to predict. Weather, floor materials, foot traffic, and staffing all show up in the loss history.

When the frequency climbs, the carrier does not assume it is a fluke. They reprice because the next year is expected to look similar.

That is why a restaurant with no huge claim can still see rates climb. Frequency is the hidden lever.

You see this in renewal conversations. The carrier does not ask, “Was there one giant claim?” They ask, “How often did someone get hurt?” The answer shapes the price more than most owners expect.

If you want to see this in black and white, look at the loss run. The count is what drives the tiering.

Tradeoffs and gotchas

The first gotcha is the belief that a small claim does not matter. A $3,000 claim may not hurt the business, but it shows up in the same dataset as the bigger ones.

Another gotcha is seasonality. In Minnesota, winter claims can cluster. That cluster can make a business look worse than it really is, but the pricing model does not care about fairness. It cares about repeat behavior.

The second gotcha is timing. Claims that happen early in a policy year can affect renewal in a way that feels immediate. That is because carriers do not wait for a full year of data if the signal is loud.

The third gotcha is insurance blind spots. Some owners think their general liability is a catch-all. It is not. Certain hazards can be excluded or limited. In restaurants, the obvious example is assault and battery. Assault and Battery Exclusions: The Restaurant Liability Gap is worth a quick read.

The last gotcha is documentation. If you do not have a basic log of cleaning times, mat changes, and incidents, your defense starts on weak footing. That can turn a manageable claim into an expensive one.

If you want a clearer sense of how carriers see the risk, ask for loss runs. The report does not lie. A short list with a repeating pattern will drive pricing more than a single big outlier.

A small operational change can move the needle faster than a shopping exercise. If you can show a year of lower incidents, you often see that reflected at renewal.

Training matters too. A fifteen-minute pre-shift checklist can prevent the same wet spot from becoming a repeat claim.

Price levers or decision factors

These are the decisions that tend to move the frequency needle:

  • Entry control. Mats, signage, and floor maintenance are boring but effective.
  • Staffing. Rush-hour coverage often decides whether a hazard is cleaned quickly.
  • Incident reporting. Documenting near-misses can keep small issues from becoming repeat claims.
  • Flooring choices. Smooth floors look good, but they can be slick when wet. The material matters.
  • Claims handling. Small claims that get resolved cleanly can reduce repeat behavior.
  • Loss history. A single clean year can help, but a pattern is what carriers follow.

Policy structure matters too. Some policies handle medical payments differently, and that can affect how small claims are reported. It is worth asking how those small claims are tracked before a claim happens.

If you need a single focus point, start with the entryway. Most restaurants can reduce frequency there without changing the menu or the vibe.

Watch the delivery window as well. That is when floors get wet and traffic spikes.

One cheap fix is a second mat. It can save a claim.

If you want a parallel in workers comp, the idea that frequency wins over severity is explained well in Loss Frequency vs Severity for Small Contractors. The logic is the same, even if the claims look different.

Simple decision rule

If you are seeing more than one slip-and-fall incident a year, treat it as a business process issue, not just an insurance issue. Reducing frequency is the only reliable way to calm the premium.

Next step

Review your last 12 months of incident reports, even the ones that did not turn into claims. If the same spot shows up twice, fix the spot, not the paperwork.

Do that review right after a busy weekend. The pattern is clearer.

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