House insurance

[Danielle8]

I live in Australia and have just listed my house for hosting via air bnb. I can see Airbnb insurance provides public liability type insurance fur guests, however I'm struggling to understand what type of cover it provides me for property damage, for example if there was a fire or water damage caused by guests. 

Can anyone help? 

[Mike19]

The AirBnB cover is partial at best. You need specific cover and I have been working with IAG for 12 months to get this product up and running:

Insurance for AirBnB Hosts

[ShareCover0]

Thanks for the support Mike!

The ShareCover Team

[Judith17]

Hi Mike

I am interested in getting specific insurance for Airbnb. Have you made any progress with IAG and is this in England? There is a company called Sharecover in Australia that allows you to pay for insurance cover per night for guests staying. This sounds perfect and a great opportunity for some insurance companies to make a lot of extra income. As I'm only letting my house for a few weeks a year I didn't want to have to take out a big extra insurance policy. I'm also nervous as to whether taking guests from Airbnb would negate my house insurance for the rest of the year? Hope you can help

Jude

[Elliott2]

This seems to be just an Australia policy?  not in USA and you would have to buy it every time?

[Shartrell0]

I am confused too, can someone actually explain what Airbnb cover does provide for hosts...

ie if the guest is hurt in your home are they covered for medical and claims against host for liability?

if they burn the house down what is the coverage?

[Robin4]

@Danielle8  Hi Danielle I did a post about just this topic a couple of days ago but it seems to have flown under the Radar so....I will paste here so you cab see what my experience has been re insurance.....and Danielle I am from Australia so this is relevant to you

A lot of posts have given graphic details of the problems associated with trying to avail yourself of this umbrella insurance cover that Airbnb offers. The reality of it is, you should assume that it does not exist. A damage deposit is possibly a prudent thing to include in your listing details for the odd broken or 'mis-placed' item, but we are now seeing reports of some guests facing bills of thousands of dollars for damage to major fittings that they thought would be covered by this 'warm and fuzzy' Airbnb protection cover.

Most general insurance companies will not cover 'rental property' under their insurance agreement! In fact some are even cancelling existing policies if they find out a rental agreement is taking place!!

I can't speak for the rest of the world but, for Australian hosts a company called 'Sharecover.com' offers insurance cover specifically for either Airbnb or Stayz from $3.00 per night for $150,000 building cover and $20,000 contents cover. You pay only for nights when guests are  in residence. Now this sits well with my property because it is separate from the main residence but, it shares some facilities with the main residence.

There is also an Insurance company called 'Teri Sheer' (Part of Suncorp) who have an excellent reputation and provide Landlord insurance for rental properties but they do not offer cover for shared properties.

Sharecover are a good option because they insure specifically for the Airbnb platform, and their coverage rates are reasonable.

Although I have no knowledge of,  I am sure similar insurance options exist in other countries.

I hope this will be of help to our hosts who may at the moment be taking that big gamble that nothing will go wrong!  Cheers.....Rob

[Lynn8]

Hello everyone,

For Australia and those renting houses they do not share with guests on a short term basis Rentcover Short Term is worth considering. It is underwritten by QBE an Australian Insurance Company established in the late 1800's. I have found that Suncorp has not developed a product that is specific to this purpose, however I will keep trying as they are my preferred insurer. 

I have found others posts on this topic extremely helpful.... many thanks to everyone

regards

Lynn

[Jillian62]

Hi Lynn. I have just this week been given a quote annually for $3,800 for Airbnb insurance. Huge amount. 

 Jillian

[Jan132]

Thanks for that Rob

Jan- Perth

[Veronica9]

Hi all,

Melbourne's Finest Hosts have taken the initiative to engage LTM Risk brokers to come up with a hosting solution specifically designed for in-home hosts.  This insurance scheme has now launched and is available to all in-home hosts in Australia.  It is a top-up insurance that sits underneath your existing House & Contents policy, and protects you against risks incurred by your hosting activities.

There have been some queries about host insurance so I did a bit of a comparison exercise to check how the new LTM Home Host Insurance stacks up against some others.  There has been interest in ShareCover as an option for hosts, so I thought I would give their online calculator a run using my own bookings to see how it stacked up for me.  The results were quite interesting so I thought I would share:

PUBLIC LIABILITY COVER

Airbnb PL covers $1 million
ShareCover covers $10 million
LTM Home Host Insurance covers $20 million

PREMIUM
I've just done an exercise on the ShareCover site to compare:
* I have input all my February bookings in my own home (6 bookings)
* Calculated number of guests x number of nights
* Added my property details so that it is accurate
* Chosen the lowest limits for property cover etc

The total premium for these 6 bookings came to $105.22. 
That's just for February, remember, and I may still get 1 or 2 bookings before the end of the month.  Multiply that by 12 months and it adds up to over $1,200.

The LTM policy cost me just over $200 for the full year.  That's way better than ShareCover and gives me higher Public Liability cover, and I only had to go to their online insurance portal once to take out cover for the whole year. With ShareCover you would need to log on & pay for a new premium with every booking you take. To my mind, that's only feasible if you host sporadically, too much work if you host frequently.

Hope this helps.  You should try it on your past bookings for a typical period to see how it works out for you.

You can find out more about the LTM Home Host Insurance by visiting the LTM Risk website and clicking on the Host Insurance banner.

[Robin4]

@Veronica9...Hi there Veronica, thanks for this additional information and I will certainly look into it! But I am very happy with what Sharecover offers and it sits well with my existing household general insurance. 

I don't have solid night to night bookings, I might have 3-4 in a month and sharecover costs me $3.50 per 24 hour period , and lets face it....do you really think you are going to need more than $10 million in liability cover!!!!! So, for my situation I am much better off with Sharecover.

But Veronica, the thing I can't get over....are we some sort of oasis in the intergalactic void of insurance? We have these insurance options available to us here in this country that the rest of the world seem to be totally oblivious of!!!

Thanks again for your info, I will check it out but, as I said, Sharecover I find great to deal with....a guest walks up the drive and I can insure on the spot according to my perceived risk. I think that is 'spot on' Veronica!!!!   cheers....Rob

[Danielle152]

Thanks, that is a great help. My insurance company, for the last 20 years, have just cancelled my policy on learning that I have Airbnb guests, despite me having students and others as boarders for many years. I'll get right onto LTM now. 

So LTM have been bought by Trident. I have taken up their policy, which I think is very reasonable, today. Not much different than I was paying Allianz (for the last 20 years), who've just informed me that I wouldn't be insured!

Contact **, who I found very helpful and efficient:

[Personal information hidden]

 Do it now, becasue it seeems that most commonly availble insurance policies in fact would not help in the event of a problem, (because you host guests), even if it was totally unrelated eg storm damage.

[Jim258]

@Danielle152 so Trident is the insurance to get and that covers all does it Danielle? as im looking at putting my places on Airbnb in the coming months 

cheers

Jim

[Danielle152]

Hi Jim,

I'm doing Airbnb in my own home; your circumstances might be differnt from mine so I suggest you speak to Bebe at Trident and check what would suit you best. But as far as I can see the cover I have covers everything I need.Though I've not had rany eason to make a claim at all.

I found, just by chance when updating my banking details, that the previous insurance I had would not be valid, that was with Allianz. There are other companies that insure rental proerties when you're not living there yourself.

Best of luck,

Danielle