Short term lettings such as Airbnb.Any insurers that agree to cover this??

JohnX_2

There seems to be a deathly silence on the inter web on short-term lettings through websites such as Airbnb.
A search through Airbnb's terms and conditions does not shed any light on this issue and neither does a quick Google search on which insurance providers provide home insurance which would be ok with using short-term lets such as Airbnb.

Phone calls to major home insurance providers seem to get only a standard answer, that that they do not cover short-term lets such as Airbnb.
I am therefore in a bit of a quandary as to whether Airbnb is something that is always going to be in the shadows as a grey market ?possibly part legal alternative which is being used unofficially by many homeowners but when/if things do go wrong as with tenant liabilities,then the landlord gets into deep sh**e.
Or will it go down the death route like a well known car hire company?


Are there any home insurance providers that officially allow short term lets on a residential mortgage?

lvm

Are you looking to rent your full property out or just a room in your home?

What exactly do you want an insurer to cover?

In either case, Airbnb specifically have something like a £600k owner protection scheme. Never read it so don't know what it covers.

If you're renting out full home then you need to get specialist holiday letting insurance - there are plenty of providers. One of my holiday flats are insured via Swinton. Loads of others though.

Your normal insurance is unlikely to cover any theft of items by a guest but you may want to look into the accidental damage issues...

Thrugelmir

JohnX wrote: »

Are there any home insurance providers that officially allow short term lets on a residential mortgage?

Sounds as if the lender is unaware of the letting. As this is in contravention of the mortgage terms and conditions. A business requires business insurance cover.

Bricks

I have been looking into this.

Airbnb offer their "peace of mind guarantee" that supposedly gives you up to £600k of cover against damage done by guests. However, they point out in smaller print that it is not insurance and that you should check with your home insurers whether taking airbnb guests will be ok.

The answer seems generally to be "no". At best it is a grey area. Even if you consider it ambiguous as far as your terms are concerned, it looks like your insurer is going to say 'no' if you ask them directly (mine did - well, actually they said it would be ok but I'd have to call them up and give them details of the person and state that they didn't have a criminal record etc etc every time I took someone in; ie not workable in practice. I think they are basing this on their requirements for lodgers).

My worry would not just be that your insurance wouldn't cover you for damage done by guests (which ought to be covered by the airbnb host guarantee) but that by taking in paying guests and not telling the insurer, they coudl say you've invalidated your insurance so might void it even if there was a claim related to something unconnected with airbnb guests.

Also, seems you almost certainly wouldn't have any public liability cover if, say, a guest fell down the stairs and tried to sue you for compensation.

My research so far suggests that you aren't going to get the necessary cover via standard comparison sites.

There is an insurer called Home Protect who *will* cover airbnb operations, but when I did their online quote thing it came out massively more expensive (£1300/year) than my current home insurance (£80/year).

Calling some brokers who deal specifically with B&B use has brought a bit more success...have now been given quotes around the £500 mark.

eg. Adrian Flux or Morgan Richardson

Am waiting to hear back from a few others.

I feel that airbnb's approach to this is a bit irresponsible really - they give you the impression that their host guarantee will give you peace of mind but when you look into it, just signing up without checking out your insurance situation could leave you at substantial risk. And the amount you have to pay in premiums might well mean it's just not doing airbnb in the first place.

Seems to me that something has to change at some point. Either there will be some horror stories with people having insurance payments refused and airbnb will become much less popular... or (hopefully) mainstream insurers will start offering appropriate cover as more of a standard thing. It doesn't seem like they are in any hurry to do so at the moment though.