Need latest info on liability insurance

Hi, everyone. After 4 years of hosting, we feel we should get liability insurance. For one thing, and older guest tripped over our cat and had multiple lacerations and a black eye. Luckily, she didn’t sue.

Our GEICO won’t cover airbnb guests. I know that airbnb offers Host Protection Insurance and some people have complained about it. There was talk about it being secondary, so if primary (GEICO) won’t cover it, Host Prot. would.

I’d like some advice. We’d rather not switch from GEICO but do you think we have to? And if so, I’m hearing that State Farm is an affordable option, right?

If we do opt for Host Protection Insurance, do we have to sign up for it? How can I get some kind of contract? Should I phone airbnb?

And if a guest sued us for an injury, would Host Protection help?

Thanks in advance for any info to help us.

Shop around before you cancel your existing policy! Most insurance companies will, when they find out you’re doing AirBnb, refuse to renew your policy. Or they will require you to take out a Business Policy, which of course costs thousands more a year. And if you’re in a state like Florida (where I am) darn few insurance companies even do business here because of hurricanes.

I recently sign up with Farmer’s. They have a company called foremost to insure special type of properties like vacation homes / short term rentals. On my policy of my short term rentals they are all clearly titled as vacation homes/ short term rentals. I rent out the whole house. You may check with them about you sharing home situation. I would think they have something to fit your category.
BTW, I was with State Farm for years, I c contact them to sign up for my short-term rentals. They did not have a special policy for short-term rentals they were trying to get me signed up with business Hotel policy. After I questioned them few times they couldn’t give me the answer that they will cover the vacation home for sure. I was very mad at State Farm that’s how I started to shop around then found the farmers have this new policy for vacation homes/short-term rentals.

Maybe you should sue the guest for injuring your cat :rolling_eyes: … I really don’t understand the liability thing :weary:.

Yes this story would be unheard of in Europe. You step on a cat and somehow the cats owner is responsible ??! Madness. I’d be asking for the money for my cats vet bill!

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I find that it’s best not to say ‘Airbnb’ as such but to say instead ‘short term rentals’.

Short term rentals is a self-explanatory terms. On the other hand there are many people who are only vaguely aware of exactly what Airbnb does but, the media being what it is, they have a negative idea. The media, after all, publishes horror stories rather than positive aspects.

It looks like the original poster hosts in the U.S. Remember, here we don’t have national health insurance. Your health insurance won’t cover you if your injury is the result of an accident and any other insurance can be considered to be primary. The result is that if you want your medical bills covered, you have to make a claim against the homeowner, auto owner, etc.'s insurance policy. Medical bills here are costly. I once was in the hospital for a week. A few tests were run including a biopsy of my liver. If I hadn’t had medical insurance I would have owed $110,000.00. Some examples:

A friend of mine’s mother fell on a marble floor at her daughter in law’s house. She had to make a claim against the homeowner insurance policy.

A friend of mine slipped in her mother in law’s bathroom. Again, she had to make a claim against the homeowner insurance policy.

The NHS is unique to the U.K. In Europe you pay healthcare insurance similar to the U.S. and there’s still a total lack of the litigious culture seen in the U.S. Not that I’m blaming anyone but falling in someone’s house shouldn’t mean you claim against their insurance… I wonder if anyone dares have
guests anymore or does anything dangerous like… open a beer.

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Thanks for this and all the other comments. Luckily the cat was ok and we didn’t get sued. But I’m looking into insurance.

According to everything I’ve read, all European countries have some form of national health care. Everyone in the world who has medical insurance pays for it via premiums or taxes. In the U.S. we pay the insurance company. The insurance company then decides what care we will receive and what doctors and facilities we can use. If the medical insurance claim is the result of an accident; the claim will be denied as liability insurance is supposed to pay.

If you fell in someone’s house and your health care bills wouldn’t get paid if you didn’t put in a claim against their insurance, would you pay the medical costs to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars to hundred of thousands of dollars? I know it’s a messed up system, but it’s the one we have.

That article is somewhat of a simplification. For example:

Germany - insurance (dual system of both compulsory and private insurance)
France - govt controlled insurance
Ireland - fee paying for healthcare used e.g. 100 Euro for a&e. Maybe insurance too though I’m not sure…
U.K. - N.H.S funded by public money though increasingly private healthcare for those willing to spend the money

Etc etc

Like already stated; the N.H.S. is unique and is one of the things we Brits are very proud of. It’s also the reason we get healthcare tourism but that’s another story for another day…

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I had very negative views of the NHS, but it looks good compared to the US, too many horror stories.

Yes anybody can sue anybody but the suggestion above is that there is some form of strict liability which there is not.

If you suffer an injury then the financial consequences are likely in the US to be more serious so people are more likely to try to find another source. And there is no shortage of low life lawyers.

My ex husband once slipped and broke his leg while cleaning a customer’s pool. We claimed it on the regular medical insurance. No one asked us if it was an accident.

Another time, my son was hit hard in the face by a kid throwing an avocado. Again, we were covered and no one asked me if it happened on someone’s property.

Yet another time, my ex husband broke his arm in a county park, and that ER visit was covered.

The ABB host coverage does provide primary coverage for guests who injure themselves while at your place only covers the guests on the reservation and only between the check in and check out times. Two more reasons why you shouldn’t allow extra people or late or early checkins and outs.

Maybe it depends on what state you’re in. When I was in entertainment business management, I had to fill out countless forms from medical practitioners describing how and where accidents occurred.

Also, when a person claims against a homeowner policy it’s often not just medical expenses. There can be loss of income if the injured party can’t work, property damage, etc.

That’s scary Ellen, thanks for the reminder.

Amazing anyone takes the risk of hosting then. Sounds like if you were unlucky it could cost you more than you ever made in income.

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I think things have changed a bit recently with all the soaring medical costs, etc.

In February my husband was working on a project for me and cut 2 fingers on a table saw. One of them required surgery, etc. We had a $7000 deductible to meet before insurance paid anything. As soon as they started having to pay (a whopping $800 total…) they were sending us questionnaires asking where it happened, etc, trying to get someone else to pay.

We keep just saying he was working in the garage and hope they’ll move on because it was his dad’s garage and he is a pastor and the parsonage is on church property and it’s a small church and we don’t want their insurance to get involved because my FIL supplements his income from his garage workshop and we’d hate 1) for the church’s premiums to go up and 2) my FIL to no longer be able to have his workshop!

Even though part of me wants it to be picked up because we might possible be reimbursed for all we’ve paid…

One time my next door neighbor was up in his own tree cutting limbs and fell down. The homeowner insurance for his property were bothering us, the two adjoining neighbors, to try to find out if he was “really” on one of our properties. We didn’t answer their letters or phone calls.

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