Hello. Welcome back to another great episode. My name is Sarah Karakaian.

I'm Annette Grant, and together we are. Thanks for Visiting, and this is the Hosting Hotline.

If you wanna get your hosting questions answered here on the hosting hotline, go to hostinghotline.com, ask your question, and we'll get it hand answered here on the podcast. Or you can be like this YouTuber. YouTube

sub

subscriber,

one of our YouTube Subs.

Subs. That's the cool kids call 'em. Is that what they're still saying? They call 'em subs still?

I think so, yeah. Hit that smash button. Some subs, button smashers. Wait, I said that wrong. Hit that smash button. Oh my gosh. Middle aged YouTuber.

Just continuing to show our age. Uh, this person have to comment on one of our videos and we had to bring it to the podcast. We feel like we are talking about this topic ad nauseum, but

no. Alas, no. We need to, we need to, we, we need to get this message up.

You said alas

Wil. Whilst.

Whilst.

Whilst wilt.

Okay. YouTuber smash button person says, do you have more insurance than what Airbnb provides? I have basic home insurance with some liability, but I feel it's okay with the million dollar liability promise of Airbnb. Is this a false assumption? Also, do you use other platforms than Airbnb? Perhaps they all come with similar policies.

It is a common and very dangerous assumption.

Yes.

Because it is not, and I'm using this, uh, YouTube subscribers words. It is not a policy.

Right. It's not a policy in your name.

Yes, it is a host protection program that we feel like air cover is a marketing term that they very, very wisely. Mm-hmm. Uh, named air cover, like you are covered by, you get, you get insurance coverage, correct? But this is not insurance coverage. We first truly. Even before we even talk about air, air cover, Airbnb, they are letting us know they have basic home insurance that is a, like your insurance company needs to know stat if you are using your property as a short-term rental. A. If they find out that you're using it as a short-term rental, they might drop you, period. They would not co. Most likely, if any damages take place and they find out that it was a short-term rental, guest they will not cover even the things that were most likely in the policy to be covered. So please, everyone. Let your insurance company know that that's what you're doing. Are you going to have to invest more in your policy? Absolutely. But you're using the home as a commercial property, therefore you need it to be covered as such.

There's also other words in this question, which we're using, this YouTubers comment, and the response that we're giving is all with love, but they mention million dollar liability promise of Airbnb and Airbnb is not promising you anything. There have been many times where we've had very clear evidence that an Airbnb guest caused damage to the property, whether it was an intentional or not. They have denied us of that promise of air cover.

Yeah. It's up to their discretion.

It is, it is. And sometimes you're like, what other, what other evidence do you need? I'd be happy to provide it. And Airbnb support, even after escalating it to other support members would say it just, they'll all, they have to say, it just violates or doesn't provide enough evidence to allow us to give you. Air cover mm-hmm. Funds. And it's, it's frustrating and it's disappointing, but you all need to be prepared for that. That is not guaranteed the air cover policy not a policy, it's also not in your name. So yeah. I, I just, yeah. they do such a good job of making you feel like you're covered. It's just wild.

Right. And um,

and I think the biggest thing that we've learned this from some of our insurance friends, people who work at insurance company who founded insurance companies.

Yes.

It's not, it's not the guest damage and actually everyone you can rest easy that most claims. Mm-hmm. Brought forth to insurance companies that do cover short term rentals aren't guest damages. They are.

Wind, uh, water, uh, weather, like events that

yes,

have nothing to do with the guest at all. And so, but that's still, while you're just normal homeowners, right? Still isn't gonna cover it because again, if you are using it as a short term rental, right, um, you don't want them to find out about that at all because let's say pipes burst or there was wind or weather, and even just in um, reaching out to them, you're like, oh, my guest just told me that the pipes burst. And you're, they're like, guest. Like, what? What do you mean? Like, Airbnb? You know, you could, in a, first of all, you should be honest, but in a stressful event could say things that they're like, wait, how are you using this property? What do you mean a Airbnb guest? Mm-hmm. X, y, z. So we wanna make sure, we wanna make sure that you are covered there.

And at the time of recording, let's say damage just happened to your property while a guest is in house. So you ask Airbnb if air cover will cover the damage 'cause there was a guest in house while there was a windstorm or a water issue and they're not going to cover you for that. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. So you're just kind of

Yeah, it's more so that than what I was a

up a creek.

Um, what, what I was speaking of. The other part we want to chat about too is most likely. Air cover and your basic homeowner's insurance, if you have any sort of loss of income. Mm-hmm. Because of the, the instances that we just gave you are not going to have any sort of lost income coverage, which could be enormous for you, an enormous loss there. The, um, the other thing that the. Person was asking, he is like, do you use other platforms in Airbnb? Yes. And I'm gonna actually parallel having just homeowners insurance and using Aircover is extremely risky, and I will parallel that. It is just as risky to only be on Airbnb.

Because when Airbnb decides that you are violating a term or condition that they've deemed. Against a policy or, uh, in, in a guest's favor, and they decide to, whether it's temporarily de-list you or give you a warning, making it, making, putting you on to, on your, on your toes so that you are afraid to do anything that would protect you and your property in order to just be in Airbnb's good graces or your guest good graces. That's a really dangerous place to be, and we have heard people, really great hosts who have a really great track record. Have their listing removed from the platform because of a claim by a guest. And so yeah, being just on Airbnb is in itself a really risky thing to do, not on, on top of. Not having correct insurance to, to do short term rentals. I also wanna say, with all the updates that have been happening, and Annette was saying earlier how we've been, we, we we're creating content, right? Sharing with you our thoughts about these updates. And whenever they come out, we're talking about it and it's like we've been, we've done more. Airbnb update episodes than we have in the five years we've been doing the podcast. Mm-hmm. Five, six years we've been doing the podcast. They are distancing themselves further and further from the host. They've made it very clear that we are users, not partners. Mm-hmm. And very clear that the customer is the guest and we are supplying Airbnb with inventory.

Mm-hmm. So just be, be aware. We don't want you for, we want everyone that listens to the show to mitigate. Any and all risks, and that means A. having proper insurance and then also making sure that you are diversified in your booking platforms and hopefully have your own direct booking site. And we'll go ahead, we'll list, um, in the show notes some short term rental insurance options for you.

Yes. Um, that we have either worked with ourselves or people in our community have worked with and have had great experiences with. We'll continue to talk about this topic because it's just really important we, we'd hate for that situation to happen. Mm-hmm. Where you are financially responsible and you're not ready for that financial responsibility. Or what I even think is, can be even more, uh, can be a bigger financial situation, is that you're relying only on Airbnb for your bookings. Mm-hmm. You get delisted whether temporarily or permanently

and your whole business is And just. Before we leave for this episode, again, when you have a actual insurance policy, it will have your name and your address and I ask anybody here to pull their Airbnb air cover policy, they would not be able to do that for me. So I just want to, that was something that, um, one of our insurance partners said to us a long time ago, and that one like really, really got me. 'cause I could go to my car insurance right now, it's gonna tell me it's gonna have my name, it's gonna have the VIN number of exactly what that policy, uh, is ensuring if I go to my homeowners, it's gonna say, my name and the address, same with our short term rental. It's gonna say our names, our business name, the address that's covered, and then what that coverage is. So we just wanna make sure that you all have that.

And I'll give you one quick call to action 'cause I need to do this for one of our rentals is every year it's good idea, just reach out to your insurance broker. Ask them if you've heard of a story here in the podcast, and you're like, Ooh, I don't know what would happen if that were to happen to me. Ask them. Ask your broker, unlike your CPA and your attorney, they're not gonna charge you an hourly fee. And then if you want to take your policy to a competitor and have them review the policy and see if they can do any better. Especially the ones that will listen to show notes. They offer to do those and they have valid, they won't be, they will be honest with you. It can't hurt to just always be shopping for other policies, making sure that you don't have some and, and any co-host out there. You wanna also wanna be careful of not being, you know, over-insured. Mm-hmm. You don't wanna be a target for a lawsuit either. So being appropriately covered and making sure that you can operate with peace of mind is just a great business move. With that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

I'm Annette Grant, and together we are. Thanks for Visiting.

Talk to you next time.