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Again, you simply make judgmental statements not supported by reasoning or facts.
Do I think rules can lessen my exposure to (and I might add ‘in’) litigation? Yes, I do. For one, my house rules state that only registered guests may enter the property, whether overnight or not, whether even for a minute. They state that anyone on the property who is not a registered guest is a trespasser. [The legal duty owed to a trespasser is FAR LESS than that owed to an ‘invitee’ – what we would call a guest.]
Now you might well be able to challenge my reasoning here. I do not pretend to be infallible. But, please note, I am making a reasoned case.
You, and others who simply vomit up words like ‘naive’ and ‘foolish’ are not.
And please note that I am not looking for agreement at all but instead a reasoned discussion on what rules and procedures might lessen exposure in litigation and preserve the Airbnb coverage that is provided.
@HostAirbnbVRBO is the type of poster we see fairly often here. He is someone who has got a bee in his bonnet about something and wants us all to agree with him. No one does but he continues to argue.
Totting up quickly, I’d say that the members here who have told him that having STR insurance is a must, probably have well over a hundred combined years in this business. But we are wrong and he is right.
Well, there are thousands of people reading this site every day. Many of these are potential or new hosts. And none of us here (apart from the OP of course) want to mislead them. If you are going into the STR business you need proper STR insurance.
Of course, there are often some potential guests reading too. And so it’s important to point out that when you stay with a proper STR host, you can be sure that they care about the safety and well-being of their guests and don’t avoid proper insurance because it costs money.
“That is not a reasoned argument” is not a reasoned statement at all. It is simply an unsupported judgment.
What advice do you claim I am giving? To self insure? I say that nowhere. In fact, I stated here that I do have commercial insurance through Proper. But just because I have determined that that is the appropriate action to take for me, in my situation, well I am not so presumptuous as to say everyone should do that.
Now you raise property damage coverage provided by Airbnb, a completely separate program. It is a non sequitur.
It isn’t “provided”. That’s the part you refuse to acknowledge. It is only a possibility. That Airbnb can easily decide you aren’t eligible for. Exactly like the 1 million dollar “Host guarantee” which isn’t a guarantee at all, and which hosts often are denied, despite extensive proven damages by guests.
YES. I ask guests to give me their full names that match their ID such as drivers license or passport. I tell them it’s for insurance, which it is, and that I’ll check it at the door, just like a hotel.
Just because one is renting out a home or rooms in a home doesn’t mean this isn’t a real business.
Ahh. Under what circumstances do you claim that a Host would be ineligible to receive the liability coverage? I have said it does not apply to unregistered guests. Do you have more substantively to add? Or would you simply like to go on making general statements? And, again, this is about liability coverage, not property damage. Please follow along.
I am not asking for agreement at all, That is the straw man you’d like to argue against. I have commercial insurance, but I don’t think that just because I decided to get it that EVERYONE must, though I am open to being challenged. It’s just that saying that that is ‘naive’ or ‘foolish’ is not an argument, not reasoning at all.
Are you suggesting I want to mislead anyone? What is your basis for saying that?
I simply continue to challenge those who do not provide reasoning or facts as it applies to Airbnb’s liability coverage to provide such facts and reasoning. Who knows? You might be right in your conclusions but you don’t explain yourselves. You don’t respond to what I’ve actually written, though a few of you – good for you – have.
It’s you who isn’t following along. There is no more reason to think Airbnb liability coverage can be relied on than their “Host Guarantee” for property damage by registered guests.
But hey. I suggest you place some obstacles somewhere which might cause a registered guest to slip and fall, and then get back to us to let us know how well Airbnb’s liability insurance worked out for you.
If you want to make a blanket statement that because there have been incidents where it appears that Airbnb has not honored its Host Guarantee for property damage that suggests that Airbnb would also not honor its liability coverage, you can of course say that. It certainly has ‘some’ weight, though we don’t really know all the facts in these property damage cases, and it’s revealing, isn’t it?, that no one here can cite any situation where Airbnb has not come through on its liability coverage. Because the liability coverage, unlike the typical property damage situation, would be in court would be for a lot of money, well into the six figures, and would involve three parties: the guest, the Host and Airbnb.
It is of course legitimate to point out that Airbnb is not the same as the Host’s own insurer, like Proper. But this is a tangential point to my question. Once you point that obvious fact out, I think you have nothing more to add, right?
You don’t want to get to the meat and bones of my question on what rules and procedures you can have that might lessen your exposure in litigation because you haven’t thought about, don’t want to think about it. You’ve got commercial insurance and that’s the end of that in your mind. So, then don’t respond as you have nothing to add.
I think that whether you have commercial insurance or not there are things you can do to lessen the likelihood of litigation and, if litigation nevertheless ensues, things that will help you.
I think my rules and procedures are relevant even though I am commercially insured because if the insurer pays out I think my premium might increase, or I can be dropped. So I don’t think the analysis stops with getting commercial insurance. Now, I might be wrong about that but I have explained my reasoning, not simply said anyone who thinks about this has a bee in their bonnet or is naive or foolish. Those are not arguments, just judgments intended to stop discussion.
Jon Stewart is not on your side on this. He reasoned; he had arguments to make; he made sense. Not just unsupported statements like “Your reliance on Airbnb is naive to the extent of foolishness, as is your belief that having a statement in your House Rules will lessen your exposure to litigation.”
I guess it’s not a bad idea. If for nothing else as @JohnnyAir mentioned, for emergency situations. It will also come in handy if you wanted to take individuals to court for property damage or something. Some hosts do it because it makes them feel more secure, perhaps the idea is that the guests are more reliable if they are willing to give the information, that kind of thing. And some hosts do it because of local regulations that require it. I don’t personally ask for it though.
Though there are loads of stories of hosts not being paid out from the Damage Policy, that is not relevant in the case of the Liability Policy as Airbnb does not administer the Liability Policy.
I am not even confident in the definition of a “registered guest”, whether or not the name is required (probably not). I am confident that no one you get at Airbnb is going to know the details of the liability policy. An insurer administers the liability policy and not even Airbnb can tell an insurer how to administer an insurance policy.
All of the information is in the policy and not on Airbnb: The only true answers to your questions as well as to any suspicions about the viability of claiming on the policy are in the actual policy that Airbnb has purchased in the name of hosts. Airbnb does not provide the policy but they do provide the name of the insuring companies. Theoretically, you should be able to get a copy of the actual policy since you are the "insured”. (As we all are, theoretically). If you wanted to pursue it, I’d be interested in the result and in seeing the policy. The answers are in there and not at Airbnb.
The insurers providing policies for different locations are in this document:
As far as your ideas about trespassers and invitees, I suspect that any visitor of a guest would be legally termed a licensee at the very least (if not an additional invitee). Even if you were successful at labeling them trespassers they would be “anticipated trespassers” for which you would have to warn of any non-obvious dangerous conditions (still have liability). However, because you run a business (i.e. make money) on your property, you would fall under Premises Liability law and be liable for all but explicitly-warned-trespassers on your property. (In the US)
The benefit of having a STR policy has certainly been covered but I would add to that to remember that being liable requires being negligent and I recommend quarterly, well-documented safety assessments because anyone can fall down the stairs, just make sure you can prove it wasn’t your fault ,)
@JJD You seem well versed and have been doing this a good, long while. See the link below to the 2015 NY Times article about the guest who was killed on the tree swing @KKC referenced.
(BTW, since y’all will likely be familiar @KKC and @JJD , I could bet my last penny it was an Arizona Ash. In my backyard, mine split - looked super healthy - and fell on the roof. So fortunate no one was there but had to replace the roof. The week after I bought the place a HUGE limb split off the Ash in front and fell in the driveway. Any car there would have been totaled and any person seriously injured or killed. I eventually had to take that tree down also.)
Back to the article…
It says that Air used to offer a liability policy as secondary but changed it to primary “a year ago” (so 2014?). I’m super confused as I thought that Host Liability Insurance was new. Any insight into this? It’s late else I would do a little more research before asking
@HostAirbnbVRBO I think it’s also important to think about the possibility hosts (frequent or infrequent) may wish to rent directly or on other platforms, where the policies may differ. Hopefully they’d remember to check on liability coverage if they’d opted not to have their own. And I agree, if any platform is offering to be first in line to pay, then I’d try that first. It will be interesting to hear from a host someday about how the process went for them. I think it’s good Air doesn’t administer the policy as @JJD pointed out. That gives me WAY more confidence. If it’s left up to Air to decide if and how much I or a guest gets paid for an issue, well, that’s where everyone’s cynicism comes from due to past experience.
reckon this topic will be locked by the morning, my morning that is.