Assault & battery coverage: the fine print that decides a bar claim

Assault & battery (A&B) coverage responds to injury claims arising from fights, altercations, or security incidents at a venue — including claims that staff used excessive force or that the business failed to prevent a foreseeable assault. For bars and late-night venues, it covers the claims they are statistically most likely to face.

Often not. Many liability policies sold to bars either exclude assault & battery entirely or cap it with a sublimit far below the policy’s headline limit. The exclusion or sublimit appears in an endorsement, not on the declarations page — which is why owners frequently discover it only after a claim.

A sublimit is a lower cap inside the policy that applies to a specific claim type. A bar policy can show $1 million in liability coverage while an endorsement caps assault & battery claims at a small fraction of that. Since serious altercation claims commonly exceed low sublimits, the sublimit — not the headline limit — is the number that matters.

Four things: whether assault & battery is covered at all, the sublimit amount if covered, whether the definition includes acts by your own staff and security, and whether defense costs erode the limit. Ask for the answer in writing, with the endorsement number — “you’re covered” over the phone is not policy language.

You can still be insured — through markets built for exactly that history. Expect more underwriting questions: what happened, what changed (security staffing, training, cameras, closing procedures), and your full loss runs. A documented “here’s what we fixed” narrative places post-claim venues; pretending it didn’t happen doesn’t.