A dry cleaner's shop is full of clothing belonging to other people and a machine that uses solvent to clean it. The two together produce a risk profile that a general retail policy does not describe.
Customers' garments are goods in trust
The recurring claim is damage to or loss of a customer's item: a garment shrunk, dyed, marked, lost between the counter and the rail, or destroyed. That is property in the cleaner's care, custody and control, which public liability generally excludes, so it needs a customers' goods or goods in trust section with its own limit. The limit should reflect the value of the rail at its fullest and the possibility of a single expensive item, a wedding dress or a suit, rather than an average ticket.
Solvent, machinery and the fire question
Dry cleaning machinery, pressing equipment and boilers make this a heat and electricity intensive premises, and solvent handling and storage bring their own requirements. Insurers ask about machine servicing, solvent storage and disposal, ventilation and electrical inspection, and several of those are conditions rather than questions. Fire in a dry cleaner spreads through a building full of textiles, which is why the property rate and the conditions are both firmer than a comparable shop.
Being closed, and the rail that is still full
A fire or a machine failure stops the business and leaves customers' garments on site. Business interruption should account for the time to replace specialist machinery, which is not quick, as well as the trade lost. The customers' goods section has to respond to items destroyed alongside the shop, and the claims handling of hundreds of individual garments is a reason to have the limit and the record keeping in order before anything happens.
Alterations, laundry and the services added on
Most cleaners also do alterations, repairs, laundry, shoe repair or key cutting, and each is an activity to declare. Alterations in particular change the exposure, because a garment cut wrongly is a claim the cleaning process would never have produced. Collection and delivery rounds add a vehicle and a class of use question, and hotel or restaurant contracts add volumes of somebody else's linen held at once.
Questions people ask about dry cleaners insurance
Does public liability cover a damaged customer garment?
No. Customers' items are property in your care, custody and control, which public liability generally excludes. A customers' goods section is needed.
How should the goods in trust limit be set?
By the value on the rail at its fullest, allowing for a single expensive item such as a wedding dress, rather than by an average ticket value.
Do alterations need declaring?
Yes. A garment cut wrongly is a different claim from a cleaning fault, and alterations, laundry and repairs are separate declared activities.