Insurance

I want to offer occasional Airbnb accommodation esp in football season. But.... my homeowners ins says my policy doesn't cover that, they have no product to cover "transient stay" . I contacted one other insurance company that quoted almost $8k per yr for liability and damage on my home. This would be about 3x my normal rate. AND the ins plus hotel tax, plus st sales tax, plus fed income tax Far excess potential gross receipts. What is going on? Any tips on a bnb friendly ins carrier for the Airbnb type of occasional booking that is not preparing food? I fear there are thousands of homeowners out there doing Airbnb and if something happens they will find their ins co. Bows out with "not covered".

That's sort of the problem I see with Air and similiar services, it sounds so simple to make a few extra bucks until you understand all of the costs that go along with the business. Tends to look like small businesses just rake in the money, but too often you're lucky to pay the bills and come out a few bucks ahead for your effort.
I did about the same thing touring folks around the area, vehicle insurance was about 4 grand yet my use was only a few weeks a year, lots of fun, but not practical.

There are no shortcuts. Leave running a B&B to the professionals.

PhineasSwann said:

There are no shortcuts. Leave running a B&B to the professionals..

Click to expand...

PhineasSwann said:

There are no shortcuts. Leave running a B&B to the professionals.

Click to expand...

Now you know why legit, licensed, lawful b&bs can't compete with most Airbnb listings. There's no way with all of the licensing and obligations of a legitimate business that we can offer the same low rates as someone who is doing it as a hobby just to supplement some income.
Just remember, if you don't have commercial insurance and you rent out your space anyway, you could lose everything you own if something went terribly wrong. It's just not worth it.

At the risk of stirring ire, please do a web search for short term rental insurance. There are some companies beginning to fill this void.
This one was in my FB feed today.

Check these sites. I have a business insurance plan because I own a business. Not sure how it works if you are doing this out of your home. I know the people I bought my former home from did take in tourists when the hotels were full. They had a rider on their homeowners policy that insured them for $1m in liability.
https://www.squareoneinsurance.com/home/airbnb
https://learnairbnb.com/airbnb-liability-insurance/
And you may also want to read up on the insurance plan airbnb is offering itself. Your own policy may be cancelled if there is an incident and you try to claim it, but you should look at going thru airbnb first:
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/20/your-money/the-insurance-market-mystifies-an-airbnb-host.html
Unless you are in a high demand area and can charge decent rates, this isn't really a money maker. If you're in NYC and can charge $1000/night, yeah, it's worth it. Most people don't live in places like that and they end up hoping to get $50/night.
If you have a job and need to go out in the morning to get to it, you're leaving strangers in your home and hoping they leave. And lock the door behind them.

Anon Inn said:

At the risk of stirring ire, please do a web search for short term rental insurance. There are some companies beginning to fill this void.
This one was in my FB feed today..

Click to expand...

mine, too. worth looking in to for an air

Hello,
We use https://www.proper.insure/ to insure a property we rent exclusively with airbnb. Haven't had any claims yet so not sure how the customer service is.
John