Assault & battery coverage: the sublimit that decides everything

Assault and battery coverage responds to claims arising from fights, altercations, and physical incidents at your venue — including allegations that your staff or security used excessive force, or that you failed to prevent an attack. For bars and nightlife, these are the claims that actually arrive.

A sublimit caps what the policy pays for assault and battery claims regardless of the headline limit. A one-million-dollar policy with a twenty-five-thousand-dollar A&B sublimit provides twenty-five thousand dollars — sometimes including defense costs — for the most likely serious claim a bar faces. The sublimit is the real limit.

Find the sublimit amount, whether defense costs erode it, whether claims by patrons against your security staff are covered, any firearms or weapons exclusions, and whether the coverage is excluded entirely — some hospitality policies strike A&B altogether. Check the policy form, not the certificate or the proposal.

Yes, through markets that specialize in hospitality risk. Expect underwriting attention on what changed: security staffing and training, cameras, ID scanning, incident logs, and how the prior claim resolved. A documented response to the incident is the difference between a quote and a decline.