How to Know if Your Vacation Rental Insurance Coverage is Adequate
Jan 14, 2020
- Conventional insurance doesn't cover all possible damage and or accidents
- InsuraGuest's InsurTech platform covers damage to rooms, lost items, accidental medial, and death or dismemberment
- Company has excellent prospects on fast-growing global vacation rental market and is already working to expand its presence in Europe and Asia
Every homeowner who has decided to start a vacation rental business worries about unforeseen events that can result in extensive and even irreparable damage to their property. There isn’t much you can do to resolve these problems once they’ve occurred if your home is not well protected in legal terms, or your current Homeowners policy does not cover damage caused by a third party. Prevention is the best measure. Here are some real-life examples of why it’s crucial to choose the best insurance for your vacation rental property.
The first vacation rental guests that Heather Harnell had (through Airbnb) left her condo looking like a war zone (http://nnw.fm/LBX6a). There were cigarette burns throughout the living room and bedrooms, garbage everywhere, and most of the things had been stolen, including the TV. Damage amounting to thousands of dollars had been racked up.
In a similar case, a Georgia woman’s guests stole priceless silverware and other family heirlooms from her home (http://nnw.fm/F6mfU), also rented through Airbnb. A total of 28 items were reported missing and police launched an investigation into the case, as Airbnb representatives said they were working to reimburse the host for the stolen items.
Additional Protection Against Theft and Damage
Platforms like Slice.is offer general liability (GL) insurance coverage that Airbnb property owners need and which can be embedded into existing experiences for housing, travel, mobility, wealth, and protection. Even so, this type of general liability insurance may not cover all possible damage and theft situations, and that is where InsuraGuest Inc. comes in. Serving as a complementary product to any insurance the property has, as well as a standalone insurance option,InsuraGuest which protects the guest at the time of check-in to check-out, was designed to be the first line of defense for both the guest and the vacation property owner.
Traditional traveler’s insurance also doesn’t cover a number of things that can happen inside hotels or other travel properties, putting both the traveler and the hotel or property owner at risk. People often mistakenly assume that accidents happening at such a property are covered by the property owner’s insurance, but that’s not always the case.
If a homeowner’s property items were stolen, they would need to claim them on a policy like Slice.is, but what happens if those items were broken by the guest or the guest is robbed, and general liability insurance doesn’t cover those perils? With InsuraGuest, hotels and vacation rental properties purchase a Guest Protection Policy that is automatically extended to each of their guests, including their room occupants, at the time of check-in. The Guest Protection Policy provides specific coverage for such things as accidental damage to rooms, lost or stolen items, medical expenses, death or dismemberment up to the policy limits (http://nnw.fm/ur4wQ).
A Wealth of Opportunities as Vacation Rental Market Soars
With this specialized insurance product that can easily integrate with most vacation rental and hotel property management systems, InsuraGuest has excellent prospects on the global vacation rental market, which is projected to reach nearly $63 billion from 2020 to 2024, with a year-over-year growth rate for 2020 estimated at 5.51%. Vacation rental startups attracted nearly $100 million in venture capital funding in the first quarter of 2016, and the number of vacation rental users globally is expected to soar to 361 million over the next five years. Vacation rentals are expected to topple the hotel industry by the year 2020 (http://nnw.fm/7BD8o).
The company’s main focus is currently the U.S. market, where it provides coast-to-coast coverage. However, InsuraGuest is also working to expand the scope of its InsurTech platform and insurance products to cover European Union member states and the United Kingdom, and has initiated operations to enter the Asian market by mid-2020 (http://nnw.fm/856Uu).
The European and Asian hotel markets are both significantly larger than the U.S. market, holding a combined 5.4 billion hotel nights stayed in 2018, compared to 1.1 billion stayed nights in the United States. With distribution in Europe and the United States, InsuraGuest’s combined demographics will total 3.9 billion nights stayed, and will more than double its vacation rental opportunities.
