I am fairly new Host, and have a friend who is a Host tell me Airbnb will cover any damage to my house caused by Guests, etc. We live in our House but leave it and rent out the whole house to Airbnb Guests. We have Home Owners Insurance but that would not cover damage by Renters. I called Proper Insurance and it was expensive, $2000 Plus. Of course the coverage they give us would Not require us to continue with our Farmers Insurance Home Owners Policy.
That is absolutely not true. Please read the many posts of people on this forum who are mad that airbnb didn’t pay them for damages. BTW, I don’t have separate insurance but I just have a room attached to my house and I’m usually here. But it’s a risk and I’d advise most people to get insurance.
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Homeowners insurance might not cover anything if you’re doing Airbnb… even if it’s damage not caused by your guests, such as a fire or wind damage. And Airbnb won’t cover a lot of things either.
We went with AAU (Allied American Underwriters), substantially less expensive than Proper. The only caveat is minimum two night’s stay required.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! NOT TRUE. You need either a Homeowner’s policy that covers you doing Airbnb, or a Commercial Policy for STRs. $2000 from Proper? Consider yourself lucky. They quoted us that too, but it did not include Wind Damage. Living in hurricane-prone Florida, the Wind policy alone was $5000! We currently pay $4500 per year for a policy that covers us.
Many, Many people are mis-lead by Air’s Host policy nonsense, and get shafted when a guest injures themselves or damages property. Unless you own your property outright, your mortgage company is going to require you to have a real legitimate insurance policy covering liability, property, wind and other damage. And if you don’t have such policy, they can call in their debt!
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Ken, thanks for the reply but Proper’s quote was over $2000- actually $2607!
Edited my post to $2000. Our quote from them was over $7000 with the mandatory “wind” coverage.
I’m having the same problem with my STR in New Orleans. Proper policy doesn’t include wind and, if it does, the premium is over $7000/year!!! What company did you go with that gave it all to you for $4500?
I use slice (https://www.slice.is/) per group depending on the number of people. I usually feel pretty comfortable with a small group but the more people, the more I am likely to get extra insurance
My state passed a law requiring a very expensive level of insurance here last year. It has definitely cut into my profit. On the other hand, I have been a host since 2012 and was probably underinsured. I was once involved in a $1.4 M lawsuit (not a renter issue), but never wish that experience on anyone. It was settled affordably, but did a number on my family mentally.
It seems there are more companies offering home-sharing riders. I’m in Virginia and rent out an attached, addition to our home. It is connected inside by one door and has it’s own exit as well. So it is considered a home-share. We obtained a quote from Travelers (also were open to moving other landlord policies as well as my auto to get bundle pricing). It was very reasonable adding a little over $100 for a home-sharing endorsements added to our regular policy. Unlike Proper which would have cost over $3,000!
That’s the same set up I have. Thanks for this information even though I’m not in VA it’s great to see companies catching up to reality.
That is a great option. In my state we are required to have insurance for STRs. This is a heavily regulated state and many insurance companies won’t even operate here so options are limited. A great insurance agent is priceless. I have found that some only give a lot of scrutiny to identifying savings for their big business customers and forget small time landlords. Insurance has been the most problematic part of my Airbnb experience since 2012 and has seriously cut into my profit.
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@KKC, I’m also in Texas and have Travelers with STR coverage, so it’s available here if you want to look into it ever.
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Thank you. …
I had proper insurance, which contributed to not making it financially viable to continue as a host.
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Absolute rot. Sorry. You need specific STR insurance. There are lots of threads here about it but the gist is - you need it. Yes, it’s expensive but it’s simply one of your overheads - part of the cost of doing business. Simply divide the cost of the insurance by the number of days occupancy for the average year and add that amount to your nightly price, just as you would with any other legitimate expense.
Depending on where you are, you’ll need to show that you have STR insurance in order to get your business license.
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