Insurance for Gas Stations with a Convenience Store

These days it seems like you can find several gas stations with convenience stores at one intersection. It makes sense since the average American household owns approximately two vehicles and most travel daily.

Owning a gas station with a convenience store also means you face serious risks every day. Risks that can cause you to shut your doors if you don’t have the right gas station insurance to protect your assets. Insurance is easy to find if you know what risks you face and the types of coverage will protect you.

The types of risks gas stations have include:

• Employee Theft & Crime: Gas station employees handle large amounts of sensitive data, cash and products during their shift. As much as you’d like to think they are trustworthy, many gas stations financially suffer when their employees steal these items or swipe customer credit card information.
• Burglary & Break-Ins: About 8% of robberies occur at gas stations and convenience stores. When they occur, you not only lose your cash-on-hand, you also risk emotional and physical injuries to your employees.
• Employee Injury: Convenience stores receive weekly shipments that need to be stocked. If employees don’t properly lift the boxes, they can injure themselves and hold you responsible.
• Property Damage: Gas stations have more property to consider than just the building. You also have gas pumps, tanks, and in some cases car washes that can end up damaged by reckless drivers or vandals.
• Slip and Falls: One of the most common risks is when patrons fall due to uneven pavement, wet floors, misplaced rugs, or even poor lighting.

Gas station and convenience store insurance prices vary depending on the carrier and your unique risks. If you’ve had prior claims, especially Worker’s Compensation, you can see significantly higher prices than a business with a clean claims history. Other factors include if you are open 24-hours, have security systems in place, and if you are a startup. The good news is you can request a quote below tailored to your gas station to review your options.

Slip and fall claims are high risk because the floor is often wet, and slippery. However, you can reduce slip and fall claims by doing the following:

• Learn from your mistakes if this has happened before, and look for that and other problem areas that are often wet. Use mats to help capture debris or absorb water in spots that are often wet.

• Put a safety or wet floor sign to inform customers of a slippery area, but don't leave it too long or they will ignore the signs in the future. Put warning signs on stairs as well and make sure it is well lit.

• Clean your floor regularly. Sweep and mop before the store opens or at closing time, and spot-mop immediately when there's a spill on the floor. Remember to add signs.

• Check on the aisles often to see spills and act quickly.

Owning and operating a gas station can be an extremely profitable business venture, but you probably know that a gas spill or leak can be very damaging. Due to some oil and gas spills that have been highly publicized, even the smallest spills can have people concerned. If there is a spill at your gas station you will not only have to clean it up but deal with any accident or injury that may be a result of it. If you do not have Pollution Liability insurance for your business, one small gas spill can cause you to close up shop. This would be detrimental, even more so if the spill was not your fault.

Pollution Liability insurance will help your gas station cover the expenses related to a gas spill that may cause bodily injury or property damage and results in a lawsuit. One major reason to have Pollution Liability insurance is that it will pay for the cleanup expenses for on-site and off-site locations. Depending on the laws where you operate it is likely that you may be required to carry Pollution Liability insurance anyway, so be sure to check that out before you open your gas station.