Forget the General Election, what is more important is that summer is, at last, here. Sure, we will have a few blips over the next few weeks but given the winter we have had, whether you are in Scotland, England or Wales, mainland UK could do with a bit of heating up.
As you walk through the high streets of the land you will see that more and more establishments are going through the process of serving food and drink to customers outside of their premises. By outside, we mean external seating to the business premises.
You will need to notify your local authority of this as, in most parts of the country, they will need to approve this and in many cases give you a licence. Of course this is bureaucratic, this is what the UK does best. But, there is a reason for this. If someone is walking along and injures themselves by bumping into a table, then this will potentially be a public liability insurance claim.
The local authority, who have legal responsibility for the pavement, will not pay out because they were not responsible for putting the table/chair etc there. So, this will need to fall upon your cafe insurance policy. Nearly all policies will only provide liability for the risk address or demised premises, so you need to advise them, and get them to agree, to extend the public liability to cover seats and chairs on the pavement.
The good news is, if you deal through a good, quality independent business insurance broker they will not charge you for this, unless you need to increase your limit of indemnity, from say £2,000,000 to £5,000,000.