If you are planning an event, there are so many things to think about and consider.  One of those things is whether or not you need to have insurance.  While public liability insurance (PLI) is sometimes included with a particular venue, you should definitely check to make sure.  Pretty much every insurance carrier offers some type of PLI insurance, but the prices will vary considerably.  Insurance that is designed to cover events provides general liability protection, but can be modified to include other coverage such as liquor liability. 

General liability insurance protects the event planner and/or company against losses resulting from bodily injury and property damage.  Sometimes a vendor for your event will request that you have a waiver of subrogation, which limits your insurance carrier from attempting to recover damages from the vendor due to negligence of the vendor.  If the event will be serving alcohol and the bartenders are not covered, you will need to add liquor liability coverage.  Another coverage option that you can obtain is called cancellation insurance, which protects you if for some reason your event venue is deemed unusable or something else makes it necessary to cancel the event.  This protection helps to cover the costs of various deposits that may have already been paid, along with other things.

Additionally, event insurance isn’t just to protect the person organizing the event – many venues also require it before they will even do business with you.  Keep in mind that coverage options such as liquor liability and cancellation protection are add-on/optional coverage, so you will need to let your agent or broker know if you would like these coverage options.  You never want to assume that just because you are hosting a small event that you couldn’t still be sued for millions.  This is why you should obtain event insurance for even your smaller events.  You never know when someone might slip or become injured and then sue you as a result.  Besides, the average policy is about $600 for $1 million of coverage, which is better than not spending the $600 and being sued for $1 million dollars.