Premises liability for Miami shops: floors, parking lots, and the claim that starts in the rain

Florida premises claims love water, parking-lot potholes, and mats that curl. Your GL pays to defend and, if you are liable, to settle — up to the limit. It does not pay because someone fell. It pays if you were negligent. Defense still costs money even when you win. That is why the policy is worth more than the settlement people imagine.

Cameras, incident reports, and a habit of putting wet-floor signs out are not insurance. They are how you help the defense. Keep them.

Leases split the lot. If the landlord controls it, their policy may lead. If you are required to keep the sidewalk in front of your suite, your GL is in it. Additional-insured status on each other’s policies is how those arguments get less stupid. We put the landlord on your GL when the lease says so. We ask them to return the favor when it is their lot.

A Palmetto Bay shop with its own parking pad is simpler: it is yours. Light it. Fill the holes.

A weekend vendor in your store, a contractor changing the sign, a musician at an opening — they need their own GL, and you need to be additional insured on it, or they need to be named in a way the policy allows. Your GL is not automatically their GL. Event endorsements exist when the exposure is bigger than a Tuesday.

Send us the flyer before you post it. That is cheaper than sending us the suit.

$1 million per occurrence is the floor. $2 million aggregate. Umbrella if the park is picky. Waiver of subrogation. Primary and noncontributory. We have this list memorized because every Doral park sends a version of it. If your current policy cannot check the boxes, we change the policy before we fight the landlord.

Class, receipts, square footage, whether you serve food, whether you have a parking lot, whether kids are in the space. Start a liability or business quote. An advisor will match the lease. Spanish and Portuguese on the same call if the landlord packet is in English and you would rather not miss a sentence.