Short-term rental and Airbnb insurance
Properties used for short term rentals like Airbnb and booking.com will need specialist insurance. A regular home insurance policy won’t adequately cover it.
Key takeaways
- A regular home insurance policy won’t generally provide cover for short-term renters.
- Short term rentals require specific insurance – different to landlord's insurance – to cover risks associated with short-term tenants.
- Airbnb offers free insurance for legal liability, but you may want your own policy to cover property damage and other risks.
What is short term rental
Short term rental insurance refers to a type of insurance that covers properties that are rented out on a short term basis. This includes homes that are hosted on platforms like booking.com, Stayz, Airbnb and more.
Who offers short term rental insurance?
- ShareCover
- EBM RentCover
- Fully Insured
- BJS Insurance Brokers
- Insure More
- Terri Scheer
- Shielded Insurance
- Maxton Insurance Brokers
- Homsure
- Atlantic Insurance
- Ceneta Insurance Services
- RAA
- Breeze Underwriting
- Duoinsurance
How is short term insurance different from regular home insurance?
Regular home insurance covers homes that have the same occupants in it at all times. Short term rental insurance covers homes that continuously have different occupants, which represents a different risk to the insurer. It’ll include cover for things like accidental damage done by guests and loss of rental income. More about this below.
How is short term rental insurance different from landlord insurance?
There are some similarities between short term rental insurance and landlord insurance. However, landlord insurance will not provide adequate coverage for you if your home is being used by a range of tenants who are staying for just days or weeks at a time. Landlord insurance is designed to cover properties that are used for renters where there is a lease agreement in place and their stays are longer than 3 months long at a time.
Airbnb host liability insurance
If you’re hosting a home on Airbnb then you will automatically have access to Airbnb’s host liability insurance - AirCover. This provides up to $1 million in USD for liability costs if you’re responsible for a guest getting hurt, having their belongings damaged or stolen. AirCover for hosts is free and you’re automatically opted into it when you host your property on Airbnb. Keep in mind, this coverage is limited to legal liability only. It will not cover your home for things like weather events or vandalism. For those sorts of benefits, you’ll need short term rental insurance.
Airbnb damage protection insurance
Damage protection can compensate you for up to $3 million USD if your belongings or home is damaged by a guest or people they invite during their stay.
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What does short term rental insurance cover?
What you get from specific short term rental policies can look a lot like home and contents insurance. What makes things different is the inclusion of incidents involving paying guests.
This can include incidents of damage or loss to the building itself and the contents of your home such as:
- Injury or death to a guest
- Legal & personal liability
- Fire-related damage
- Accidental damage by guests
- Purposeful damage by guests
- Burglary
- Theft or attempted theft by guests
- Strata and property damage
- Coverage for natural disasters
- Water damage
- Loss of rent or income
- Identity Theft
Many of these items are unique to short term rental insurance, as they involve paying guests not tenants. If it involves the loss of rent or income while you're hosting, you're unlikely to find cover outside of specific short term rental policies.
All policies will have exclusions. It's best to read an individual policy's product disclosure statement (PDS) for a full rundown of these.
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Can I get you to find the best short term rental policy for our home.
Hi John,
As a comparison site, we list the options and their features for you to compare, but unfortunately we can’t pick out the best one for you. The best short term rental policy will be different for different properties. You can take a look at the list of providers we’ve included on the guide to compare their offerings. Make sure you shop around and compare prices as well as the inclusions to make sure it’s the right policy for you.
Rebecca
Hi, I just wanted to ask a question about insurance for short term rental of my home. If I rent out my home through airbnb or stayz only over holiday periods and live in the home during the other times of the year does the landlord insurance for short term rental void my current home insurance, not in addition to it? So I am only paying one insurance company?
Hi Anita, yes that is correct. Short-term rental insurance is specifically designed to cover damage caused by guests and if you suffer from a loss of rent because of it. Regular home and contents insurance is only applicable to owner-occupiers of the property. If you want to make sure your property is covered all year round, get in touch with your insurer to discuss the situation. They may be able to provide a specialised hybrid policy where your property is covered under short-term rental insurance during the periods it is rented out and reverting back to standard home insurance when it isn’t. I hope this helps.
We are looking to start an Airbnb, and need some information or quotes for short-stay comprehensive insurance.
Hi Geeta,
You can obtain quotes for short-term rental and Airbnb insurance by contacting the insurers listed under the header “Who offers short term rental insurance?”. I hope this helps.
Ceyda
I am about to list my unit for short term rental. My agent requires short term rental insurance. What is the minimum policy available to satisfy agent.
Hi Peter, there is no single universal “minimum” short-term rental insurance policy, as cover depends on your state and the strata/by-laws your unit is under. Under the NSW Code of Conduct for the Short-term Rental Accommodation (STRA) Industry, hosts must hold insurance that covers their liability for third party injuries and death while the premises are being used for short-term rental. You may also want to consider short-term rental insurance for your contents, if the building’s structure is covered by strata. This will cover your belongings against theft or damage by guests. I hope this helps.
Ceyda
Hi,
I am finding it extremely difficult to find applicable home & contents insurance. We have a three bedroom / 2 bathroom house which my family lives in. We also have a separate garage (10 meters from the main house) which has a loft on top of it. It’s very handy when the in-laws come to visit from interstate. We also list it on Airbnb/booking.com/Stayz. We always use to tell our insurer this however they have recently changed their policy and won’t insure us. Can you advise how I go about getting insurance to cover my predicament.
Hi Alex,
You can contact the brands listed in this article for a quote for short term insurance. Keep in mind, Airbnb offers US$1million legal liability insurance (not damage or other risks), so when you rent through that platform, you at least have that as a backup. Hope this helps!