What do we do when there is no assault and battery insurance available?

The question comes from a bar owner who has already called the brokers and already heard no. It deserves a straight answer: assault-and-battery coverage has genuinely contracted in the bar market — this is a market failure, not a shopping failure — and the response is a playbook, not a product name. Here is why it happened and what owners who found coverage actually did.

Why the coverage dried up

A bar fight produces a specific lawsuit: the injured patron sues the bar — not just the person who threw the punch — for negligent security, overservice, inadequate staffing, or all three. These claims are frequent, they cluster in late-night venues, and juries are unsympathetic to bars. Carriers responded the way carriers do: assault and battery became an optional add-on rather than core coverage, then a sublimited add-on, then — in the hardest markets — unavailable from standard carriers entirely.

Mandates make the squeeze worse. South Carolina requires on-premises licensees open past 5 p.m. to carry at least $1 million in liquor liability coverage; when a statute demands a policy the market barely wants to sell, owners get caught between the licensing authority and the carrier. The r/BarOwners thread this page is named for is the sound of that squeeze.

Know which of the three versions you’re being offered

When quotes do come back, the A&B language arrives in one of three forms — and the difference only shows up at claim time:

A sublimit is materially better than an exclusion, because the duty to defend comes with it. When owners compare “cheap” and “expensive” liquor quotes, this clause — not the premium — is usually what’s actually being priced. What liquor liability covers more broadly is its own page.

The playbook when standard markets say no

1. Change brokers before you change anything else. You need one who places hospitality risks weekly and has excess & surplus (E&S) lines access — the non-admitted market is where hard-to-place bar risks get written, and a generalist agent’s “no market” often means “no market I use.”
2. Take the sublimit if that’s the choice. Some coverage with a defense obligation beats bare, and it keeps you compliant where coverage is mandated.
3. Build an underwriting file that argues for you. Licensed or trained security staff, ID scanning, camera coverage, an incident log, and written cut-off procedures are the difference between “nightclub” and “managed venue” in an underwriter’s classification. South Carolina’s 2026 amendments make the logic official — documented risk-mitigation measures can reduce the coverage the statute requires.
4. Change the facts underwriters price. Closing hours, entertainment format, and security staffing are rating inputs you control. Owners in the hardest markets have bought insurability with an earlier close.
5. If you’re bare, be bare on purpose. Know the exclusion’s exact wording, train staff to de-escalate and document, and treat every incident report as future defense evidence — because without coverage, the file you build that night is what your lawyer will have.

Questions bar owners actually ask

I had a fight at my bar and now need assault and battery and liquor coverage — what are my options? A post-incident search is the hardest version: expect the E&S market, expect sublimits, and expect the incident to follow you on applications for several years. Document what changed after the fight — that’s the underwriting story that reopens markets.

Who bundles liquor, general liability, workers’ comp, and property without A&B exclusions? Some hospitality programs do exist, and they’re reached through specialist brokers rather than direct-to-consumer carriers. Read the A&B clause in the actual quote — “no exclusion” and “full limits” are not the same promise.

If you’re not required to carry liquor liability, why carry it? The owners who carry it anyway are pricing one bad night against the policy — the same math that applies to A&B, where the most likely serious claim is precisely the one being excluded.

Sources are linked below. Market availability shifts by state and by year; the statute cited is South Carolina’s, and your own state’s mandate — if any — is the one that binds you.