Home owners insurance doesn't cover short term rental what to do?

[Ashutosh0]

Hi,

I am new to Airbnb. Recently bought a house but I need to complete my lease at the apartment. I am going to occupy my new house for around 2.5 weeks and then I have a guest who is occupying it for 55 days. After that I will move in. This is in Phoenix AZ. I have the homeowners insurance or hazard insurance. But I think it doesn't cover any short term rental or hosting via Airbnb. So what's my alternative/options to safeguard my home? If something happens will AirBnb will take care of that? Please let me know. I have a secure deposit and pet deposit also but that is going to be too short amount in case something bad happens?

[Pam15]

We found out that our homeowners insurance on the cottage we offer on airBnB was nullified by renting it out. Our insurance agent told us the same would happen if we have AirBnB guests in our home.

There are now insurance comanies who specialize in insuring properties in the "sharing" economy. You can find them online. Since the need to find insurance came up so quickly for us because of this loss, I bought business insurance on the cottage from one of those companies (Proper) and though we don't offer our house on AirBnB, our guests walk across our property to our dock, so we also bought business insurance on our home.

I do have an appointment with a local insurance broker to review that policy we bought from Proper so there may be changes in what we do after getting thier advise.

We also went through the incorporation process and hired a lawyer to write up liability language for our listing. 

I wrote some questions about doing this on this forum about 3 weeks ago but, despite quite a few views, we received no answers about this from this community. It will be interesting to see what advise you get.

[David126]

AirBnB provide a very limited protection, think of it as a bonus, not something to rely upon.

You are running a business so most homeowners insurance does not cover a business property, I have read that a few will consider short term rentals but in the US insurance is regulated at the State level and what the market is like in Arizona, I do not know.

[David-and-Shari0]

We are buying a home now and just talked with All-St... insurance (not sure legally if I should post the name due to other ins companies filing a complaint...). Turns out they just changed rules for the state of Oregon and now we can get insurance that covers us for short-term rentals.