Counter-service kitchens run under class code 9083 and staff the highest turnover and the most teenage workers in the industry. Fryer and grill burns are frequent and lower in severity, but the constant supply of new and under-18 hands on hot equipment raises frequency, and federal child-labor limits turn a minor's injury on a prohibited machine into a claim and a penalty at once.
Workers compensation insurance for restaurants
Pays a restaurant employee's medical bills and lost wages when they are hurt on the job, a fryer burn, a knife cut, a slip on a greasy floor, on a no-fault basis. In exchange the worker gives up the right to sue you over the injury.
Why Coverwatch
- Markets
- Specialty restaurant programs that will write high-turnover kitchens, seasonal crews, and a rough claims record, the exact profile a standard carrier surcharges or pushes into the costly state pool.
- Class codes
- 60+ markets put head to head on how your kitchen is coded, 9082 table service versus 9083 fast food, and how the tipped payroll basis is reported, not just the annual price.
- The mod
- We manage the experience modification factor so one bad burn or fall does not follow your restaurant across three renewals, and structure the waiver a franchisor or landlord demands.
For restaurant
- What it covers
- Your own kitchen, wait, and counter staff's medical bills and lost wages for a work injury, and your liability for them.
- What it doesn't
- Injury to a customer or member of the public, and a patron made sick by the food you serve.
Trusted by 60+ carrier partners
What does restaurant workers compensation insurance cover?
Restaurant workers compensation insurance covers a kitchen or floor worker hurt on the job, paying their medical bills, lost wages, and disability or death benefits on a no-fault basis. Part One pays the statutory benefits your state owes. Part Two, employers liability, defends related lawsuits. It does not cover injury to a customer.
Why restaurant workers compensation follows the kitchen line
A restaurant is one of the highest-frequency workplaces on any comp book.
The kitchen is a frequency machine
Burns from fryers and flat-tops, lacerations at the prep station, and slips on greased or wet tile are the everyday claims.
Tipped payroll sets the premium base
Comp premium is charged per hundred dollars of reportable payroll.
Turnover and minors raise the exposure
Restaurants hire fast, train fast, and staff teenagers. A brand-new or under-18 worker on a fryer or slicer is a higher-frequency risk.
How we get you covered
We take workers compensation for restaurant to 60+ markets, build it to fit your contracts, and keep your certificates compliant.
Read your risk
We map what could actually go wrong in your operation, where a claim would come from, and who would bring it.
Shop 60+ markets
We take your risk to the carriers that know your class and make them compete on price and terms.
Build the endorsements
We add the endorsement wording that decides whether the policy responds to a claim, beyond the base form.
Keep you compliant
We handle the COIs, additional-insured certs, and renewals, so you are never the one chasing paperwork.
Get a quoteFlat fee, no markup on your premium.
What's covered, and what isn't
In the policy
Medical benefits for a kitchen injury
Pays the full cost of treating a work injury, from the emergency room through surgery, skin grafts for a serious burn, physical therapy, and prescriptions.
Wage replacement, the indemnity benefit
Replaces part of the income a line cook or server loses while they cannot work, typically about two-thirds of average weekly wage up to a state cap.
Disability benefits
Pays when an injury leaves a worker permanently or partially unable to do the job, such as a knife wound that costs a prep cook the use of a hand.
Death and survivor benefits
Pays funeral expenses and ongoing wage-based benefits to a spouse, children, or other dependents when a work injury is fatal, from a fall, a fire.
Employers liability, Part Two
Defends and pays when a kitchen injury turns into a lawsuit outside the no-fault system.
Not in the policy
A customer or guest injured in your dining room
A patron who slips at the entrance, is burned by a hot plate, or trips over a chair is a third-party liability claim, not a comp one.
Covered by General Liability
A patron made sick by your food
A diner who gets food poisoning or an allergic reaction from a dish you served is bringing a products claim over the food itself, not an employee injury.
Covered by General Liability
A driver hurt in a delivery vehicle crash
The injured driver's own medical and wage benefits stay on workers comp, but the auto liability piece of a crash your delivery or catering vehicle causes…
Covered by Commercial Auto
A self-inflicted or intoxicated injury
A worker who is hurt while intentionally harming themselves, or while intoxicated in violation of policy.
An owner or officer who opts out
Sole proprietors, partners, and corporate officers who elect off the policy have no workers comp benefits if they are hurt in their own kitchen.
Covered by a personal health policy
Get a quoteGet a policy built for restaurant.
Claims workers compensation pays
The same kitchen produces the same handful of injuries over and over. These are the workers comp claims restaurants actually file, with the typical medical and indemnity band for each.
ScenarioHow the claim happensTypical cost
Hot-oil or steam burn on the line
A cook is splashed by a fryer, brushes a flat-top, or is scalded by steam from a dishwasher or pasta well.
$15K–$150K
Knife laceration at the prep station
A prep or line cook cuts a hand or finger boning, slicing, or breaking down product, sometimes severing a tendon or nerve.
$5K–$60K
Slip on a greasy or wet kitchen floor
A server or dishwasher slips on grease, spilled water, or a freshly mopped floor and fractures a wrist, ankle, or hip, or wrenches a back catching the fall.
$25K–$90K
Minor injured on prohibited equipment
An under-18 worker is hurt operating a meat slicer, a dough mixer, or a fryer without an automatic basket lowering device.
$40K–$250K+
Ranges are typical medical and indemnity bands for these claim types, not a quote. Actual cost depends on state, body part, severity, and how quickly the worker returns to the line.
Get a quoteGet covered before a claim lands.
What restaurant buyers are required to carry
The limits contracts and statutes set for this line, and what moves your premium and terms.
What buyers require
- State statute
- Required from employee one
- Shopping-center or landlord lease
- WC + waiver of subrogation
- Franchisor agreement
- WC + EL limit + waiver
- Catering or venue contract
- Proof of WC
In 49 states workers comp is legally mandated, often starting at the first employee. Texas is the lone exception, where private coverage is optional but opting out forfeits the immunity from employee injury lawsuits that the system provides.
A mall, food-hall, or strip-center lease routinely requires the tenant restaurant to carry active workers comp and to add the landlord a waiver of subrogation, so the landlord's policy is never charged for the restaurant's injured staff.
A franchise agreement typically requires each franchisee to carry workers comp, sets an employers liability limit above the standard, often $500,000 or $1,000,000, and names the franchisor with a waiver of subrogation before the location opens.
Many event venues and corporate catering clients require a certificate showing active workers comp before your staff work on their premises, sometimes with employers liability at $500,000 or $1,000,000.
What sets your cost and terms
- Class code and payroll
- Premium is charged per $100 of payroll at the rate for your NCCI class code.
- The tipped payroll basis
- For tipped staff the reportable payroll is the cash wage the restaurant pays.
- The experience modification factor
- Your mod multiplies the whole premium based on the last three years of claims.
- Turnover, training, and minor staff
- High turnover means a constant supply of untrained hands on hot and sharp equipment, the workers most likely to get hurt.
How this changes by restaurant segment
The policy is the same product; the exposure, the limit, and the exclusions to watch shift by segment.
Table-service kitchens fall under class code 9082 and carry a larger, higher-paid, more tenured crew. Knife lacerations and lifting injuries dominate the loss picture, and the higher wage base raises the payroll the premium is charged on.
Multiple locations pool their payroll and claims into one experience modification factor, so a bad run of burns or falls at one unit raises the rate across every restaurant in the group. Multi-state groups also need other states coverage on the form, and franchisors and landlords set the employers liability limit and waiver terms unit by unit.
Endorsements that close the gaps
The base form is the start. These add-ons are where the policy gets built to fit restaurant.
Waiver of subrogation
WC 00 03 13Stops your carrier from recovering a paid claim from a contract partner.
Other states coverage
Extends the policy to states you are not yet listed in, so a restaurant group opening a new location or catering across a state line is not left with an…
Voluntary compensation
Extends benefits to workers who fall outside the statutory definition, such as certain owners, family members, or volunteers helping at a pop-up or event.
Sole proprietor or officer inclusion
Brings an owner-operator who would otherwise be excluded back onto the policy.
By the numbers
The class codes, payroll rules, and state facts that surface when a restaurant gets underwritten for workers compensation or is asked to prove coverage on a lease or franchise agreement.
- Restaurant workers comp class codes
- NCCI 9082 / 9083
- Tips excluded from reportable payroll
- NCCI Basic Manual Rule 2
- Child-labor limits on kitchen equipment
- FLSA Fact Sheet #2A
- Private-industry injury baseline
- 2.3 per 100 workers
- Standard employers liability limits
- $100K / $500K / $100K
Table-service restaurants are class code 9082 (restaurant NOC) and fast food is 9083, at national average rates near $1.00 to $1.06 per $100 of payroll. A few states, including Texas and New Jersey, use a single restaurant code (9079) regardless of service style.
The NCCI Basic Manual defines payroll as money or substitutes for money and excludes tips or other gratuities received directly by employees from reportable payroll. The tipped worker's payroll base is the cash wage the employer pays; service charges and automatic gratuities the employer distributes are included.
Federal law bars 14- and 15-year-olds from cooking over an open flame, from deep fryers without automatic basket-lowering devices, and from operating power-driven slicers, grinders, choppers, and mixers, so a minor injured on that equipment is both a comp claim and a labor violation.
The BLS reported a total recordable injury and illness rate of 2.3 cases per 100 full-time-equivalent workers in private industry in 2024. Food services and drinking places historically report a rate above that baseline, a measure of how often kitchen injuries occur.
The standard Part Two employers liability limits are $100,000 by accident each accident, $500,000 by disease policy limit, and $100,000 by disease each employee. Franchise agreements and leases frequently require higher limits, often $500,000 or $1,000,000. Part One statutory benefits carry no dollar limit.
Common questions
about workers compensation for restaurant insurance
Restaurant workers compensation covers your kitchen, wait, and counter staff when they are hurt on the job, on a no-fault basis. Part One pays the injured worker's medical care, wage replacement, disability, and death benefits at whatever your state's statute owes, with no dollar cap. It responds to the everyday restaurant injuries: fryer and grill burns, knife lacerations, slips on greasy floors, and repetitive-strain injuries from the line. Part Two, employers liability, defends lawsuits that fall outside the no-fault system, such as a spouse's claim or a suit alleging you knew equipment was unsafe. It does not cover a customer injured in your dining room, a patron made sick by your food, or the auto liability from a delivery crash.
Most restaurants fall under one of two NCCI codes. Code 9082 covers table-service and full-service restaurants with wait staff, and code 9083 covers fast food and counter service without wait staff. Both carry national average rates near a dollar per $100 of payroll, though the exact rate varies by state. A handful of states use their own codes: Texas and New Jersey, for example, fold all restaurants into a single class regardless of service style. Getting the code right matters, because the wrong classification either overcharges you or triggers a correction at audit. The code, your payroll, and your experience mod together set the premium, so a kitchen coded and rated accurately pays for its real exposure and no more.
Comp premium is charged per $100 of reportable payroll, and for tipped staff that base is the cash wage the restaurant pays, not the tips a customer hands the server directly. Under the NCCI Basic Manual rules, ordinary tips and gratuities received by employees are excluded from payroll, so they do not inflate your premium base. Service charges and automatic gratuities are different: because the restaurant collects them and pays them out as wages, they count as remuneration and do belong in payroll. Reporting the correct tipped wage at binding is the single most common place a restaurant's year-end audit bill diverges from the quote, so how you handle gratuities and what you report both drive the number.
Yes, in two ways. First, teenage and newly hired workers are among the most likely to be injured, because they are least experienced on hot and sharp equipment, so a kitchen that staffs a lot of minors runs higher frequency. Second, federal child-labor rules restrict what under-18 workers can do. Fourteen- and 15-year-olds cannot cook over an open flame or operate deep fryers without automatic basket-lowering devices, and cannot operate power slicers, grinders, mixers, or choppers at all. If a minor is hurt on prohibited equipment, you face a workers comp claim and a wage-and-hour investigation at the same time, and the employers-liability suit that can follow is more severe than an ordinary injury. Staffing minors is legal and common, but it raises both the frequency and the stakes.
In 49 states workers comp is legally required, usually from the first employee, and restaurants are no exception. Texas is the only state where private coverage is optional, and even there opting out forfeits your immunity from employee injury lawsuits. Four states, North Dakota, Ohio, Washington, and Wyoming, are monopolistic, meaning you buy Part One from the state fund rather than a private carrier. Going without coverage where it is required exposes you to fines, stop-work orders that close the restaurant, and in some states criminal charges. You also lose the no-fault bargain, so an injured cook or server can sue you directly for the full cost of the injury. A landlord or franchisor will not let you open without proof of coverage either.
Premium is built on payroll, not headcount or revenue. Your kitchen is assigned an NCCI class code, 9082 for table service or 9083 for fast food, and the insurer applies a rate per $100 of payroll for that code. For tipped staff the payroll base is the cash wage you pay, since customer tips are excluded from remuneration while service charges are included. Multiply the rate by your payroll in hundreds, sum it across your codes, then apply your experience modification factor to reach the modified premium. Because payroll drives it, your audited year-end payroll, not the estimate at binding, sets what you ultimately owe, which is why reporting the tipped wage accurately up front keeps the audit from surprising you.
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