It’s the holiday season and while the company party may look very different this year, no matter the size or venue, there are additional things to be mindful of beyond Covid-19. In this Two Minutes with Tom segment, Tom Gaumond, owner and President of G2 Insurance Services, talks about holiday parties and questions you may have when it comes to wanting to have liquor at company gatherings. Even though holiday parties may not be as common in 2020, it is still important to know these facts.
Transcript:
Hey, everyone, Tom Gaumond, owner of G2 Insurance Services, with today’s Two Minutes with Tom. So it is getting to be holiday season and normally this time of the year, I would be getting a whole bunch of questions from my business clients saying, hey, we’re going to have an office party and we want to serve alcohol at that party of can we are we allowed to or are we going to be covered if something goes wrong? Well, and this is a popular thing, although in 2020 probably not going to be nearly as popular as it has been. But there’s a couple of different things that you can do to make sure that you are protecting yourself. Number one, you could transfer the risk, right? So maybe if you go to a restaurant again, 2020 being different, but you go to a restaurant and they would serve the alcohol and you’d buy a package and limit the drinks, etc. The second, if your firm is big enough, maybe you could bring in an outside bartending service, and then they would take care of the liability and the exposure. And there’s a whole nother discussion about liquor liability for bars and restaurants.
But we’ll have a different discussion for that for restaurant owners. And then third, if you do plan on having a small gathering at your office, well, then what you want to do is you want to give us a call and make sure that you have host liquor liability on your policy. Host liquor liability is a coverage that says as long as you are not in the business of manufacturing or selling alcohol, then we will defend you if you get dragged into a lawsuit because maybe somebody has a couple too many and unfortunately goes out and injures someone. And of course, we want to make sure that no one goes to drinks and drinks and drives. Be safe, be smart. But if something does happen, host liquor liability will defend you and your company from that potential lawsuit. I should note that in Wisconsin, our liquor liability laws are very lenient. And so as a result, there are very few cases that ever come into play on this is very difficult to prove, but it is still a coverage you want to make sure that you have. So thanks for watching. I’m Tom Gaumond, your friend in insurance.