AirBnB insurance hiked, but new company available

In 2018 it was a real struggle to find reasonably priced property insurance that included AirBnB. The most reasonable, with $1M Liability was a Lloyd’s of London policy that cost $3,000 (USD). At that time my standard homeowner’s policy was $1,500 and that company said if put an ad on AirBnB they would cancel my policy.

My policy ends the first week of November and the Farmer’s agent who wrote that policy called a week ago to tell me that the Lloyd’s policy had gone up to $4,800. He had checked out other options and said the next lowest one was $6,800.

Today I was surprised to get an estimate from Olympus Insurance, my previous insurer in 2018, before I decided to rent our apartment on AirBnB. The estimate showed the Air BnB coverage increased my non-AirBnB coverage by $180 over the basic coverage. With AirBnb coverage the insurance cost was $4,054.

The catch, the Lloyd’s policy had $1 million AirBnB liability coverage. The Olympus coverage is $25,000, not much comparison.

Lloyds is $1,000 more but much better coverage–but since AirBnB is our only income, that takes a big chunk of our income. I asked the agent to check if Olympus would increase the coverage, but if they went to $1 million, the policy cost might increase above Lloyd’s price.

Sounds like due to recent hurricane activity, even basic homeowner’s policies in Florida are really high–in my case a 100 percent increase of $1,500 more than what I paid a year ago!

The cost of these policies depends on the property, and where you are, of course. Florida is higher due to the possibility of hurricanes. I am on the north-central coast of Florida.

I will post any additional info I receive.

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Found out the Olympus policy covers AirBnB liability up to $500 K.

I can’t recall your hosting situation, but if you host out of your home you might check State Farm.

I was able to get a HO policy with STR rider for $1260/year. (That price reflects my modest home and lack of hurricanes in Michigan). Then added a $1M umbrella policy for $136/year.

Wow, will do, thanks.

Dave Kaiser

Crystal River, FL

www.airbnb.com/rooms/30706525

I thought I had found better priced commercial B&B insurance, which I gleefully reported on another thread. However, instead of sending my residential mortgage lender an EOI (evidence of insurance statement) with just the property coverage shown (which is what Proper Insurance, my current carrier, does), they sent the lender a declarations page indicating “Bed and Breakfast,” including coverage of business property and lost business income.
I can’t take the risk that my lender will think my property is an investment, not residential, property, and call the loan. Quicken Loans and a handful of other residential mortgage lenders in the U.S. work with Fannie Mae (quasi-govt agency) in the secondary market and even allow Airbnb income to count as qualification for mortgages. But if I had to refi with them to get straight there go all my savings on the insurance. So back to my original insurer.
Here I am trying to have the right coverage when many of my host peers in the area are just staying “under the table” with regular homeowners insurance. Oh well.

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I will consider myself warned. Thank you.

I received my policy today, all ok and saved $1,000 from my previous policy. Plus the new policy enables me to pay quarterly, the other one wanted the whole year paid in advance.

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Which company did you end up using?