10 Questions to Ask Your Broker about Short-Term Rental Insurance
Before you assume your current policy has you covered, ask your broker the questions that actually reveal whether it responds to short-term rental claims—not just whether you have insurance. Proper Insurance’s Chief Marketing Officer Justin Brodin breaks down the exact questions to bring to your broker, covering guest-caused damage, lost rental income, liability, and more.
The questions below will help you and your broker narrow down your policy options and limitations as quickly as possible. Ask for each of these responses in writing, and ask for the answer in writing from the policy underwriter. A written answer is the only version you can hold up at claim time.
- What Your Broker Needs to Know Before Recommending a STR Policy
- 1. Ask About Personal & Business Use
- 2. Ask About Guest-Caused Damage, Theft, & Vandalism
- 3. Ask About Your Liability Coverage Type
- 4. Ask About Assault and Battery
- 5. Ask About Loss of Rental Income
- 6. Ask About Invasion of Privacy
- 7. Ask About Policy Exclusions
- 8. Ask About Vacancy
- 9. Ask About Off-Premises and Amenity Liability
- 10. Ask About Squatters, Bed Bugs, and Fleas
- Upgrade Your Insurance Coverage Today
TL;DR: Protecting your short-term rental starts with knowing the right questions to ask your broker. Learn what to ask your broker to help ensure your vacation rental policy is truly designed for your risks; ask these questions, and get the answers in writing from your policy’s underwriter—not verbally from your agent.
Want the printable version to bring to your agent or send digitally? Download the 10 Questions to Ask Your Insurance Agent guide.
What Your Broker Needs to Know Before Recommending a STR Policy
We know that insurance is already complicated, and it gets even harder when a home becomes more than just a home. This is where an insurance broker becomes invaluable. But they can only find you the right policy for your short-term rental if they fully understand how you’re using it. Your broker can only prescribe the right policy and identify pitfalls in your contract if they fully understand:
- How you’re using the property
- What types of risks you and your property are exposed to
- What types of risks you’re willing to self-insure
As Proper Insurance specializes in short-term rental coverage, we’ve put together the best-practice questions to bring to that conversation, including guest-caused damage, loss of rental income, invasion of privacy, and more.
Not all policies are created equal. When an insurance company excludes a coverage, it’s not because that’s standard—it’s because they don’t want to pay claims tied to that cause of loss.
First, Send Your Broker a Link to Your Vacation Rental Listing
Email your broker a link to your live listing and ask them to forward it to your underwriter for written confirmation. Copy the link to your Airbnb, Vrbo, or direct booking page into an email and send it to your broker. Ask them to send it to the underwriter for your policy and obtain written confirmation that your policy covers this type of exposure.
Often the easiest way to help your broker understand how you’re using your property is to simply send them a link to your online listing. A lot can be lost in translation, and this approach lays to rest any question of how your home is being advertised and ultimately rented. In insurance, these nuances matter.
1. Ask About Personal & Business Use
Since short-term rentals blend personal and commercial use, it’s essential to have a policy that protects you in different scenarios. Make sure your coverage reflects this unique exposure. Homeowners policies were written to protect personal residences; Landlord policies were designed for long-term tenants on a lease. But a short-term rental is operationally closer to a hotel than it is to a residence, and that mismatch between use and risk is where the gaps in coverage appear.
What to Ask Your Broker About Personal and Business Use:
I use this property personally part of the year and entrust it to paying Airbnb and Vrbo short-term rental guests for the rest of the year. Does my policy cover both uses, and does it contain a business activity exclusion?
2. Ask About Guest-Caused Damage, Theft, & Vandalism
Coverage for damage, theft, and vandalism caused by guests is one of the first places many standard policies fall short when you switch to short-term rentals.
If a guest throws a party, damages your rental, or something goes missing, you would file that claim with your broker—but it isn’t the same type of claim as theft or vandalism from a break-in. Guest-caused damage and third-party break-in theft fall under different sections of your policy, each with its own terms, so you need to know how your policy defines both.
The difference between break-ins and guests who already have entry is defined by a key exclusion found in nearly all Homeowners policies, commonly called “Property Entrusted to Others.” In short, it means theft or vandalism coverage doesn’t apply once you’ve handed over the keys—which is exactly what happens with every short-term rental guest. Property Entrustment is the coverage built specifically to close this gap, covering guest-caused theft, damage, and vandalism up to your policy limit.
What to Ask Your Broker About Guest-Caused Damage, Theft & Vandalism:
This exact question is different than simply asking if you have coverage for your short-term rental; the differences are the words “regularly”, “entrust”, “Airbnb”, “short-term”, “guest”, “3 days”, “damage”, etc. We have to be specific in insurance, as it all comes down to how these coverages are defined in the policy.
If I regularly entrust my property/home to a paying Airbnb/Vrbo short-term rental guest for three days, and that guest throws a party and vandalizes, damages, or steals my property, do I have property coverage up to my policy limits?
Uncover The Gaps In Your Policy
Learn 10 essential questions about short-term rental coverage to ask your insurance agent to understand your policy’s gaps.
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3. Ask About Your Liability Coverage Type
Personal liability, premises liability, and Commercial General Liability (CGL) are not interchangeable, and the type you carry determines what happens when a guest is involved in an incident.
Ask whether your policy responds in both directions: a guest injured at your property, and a guest who injures someone else. You need coverage that protects you from both angles, because the truth is you never really know who is staying at your property.
What to Ask Your STR Broker About Liability Coverage:
What type of liability coverage does this policy provide—personal liability, premises liability, or Commercial General Liability? Does it respond to injuries caused by my guests, not only injuries to them?
4. Ask About Assault and Battery
A claim many hosts don’t consider is assault and battery. Let’s go through a potential scenario. We know that guests drink on vacation, whether or not you provide complimentary drinks. As the music gets louder and your guest gets rowdier, your neighbor asks to keep things down, at which point your guest assaults the neighbor. Far-fetched? Not entirely. In fact, we’ve seen this more than once in the short-term rental world. Yet, assault and battery are common exclusions on standard use policies.
It’s important that you talk to your agent about these scenarios. You’re running an Airbnb and giving guests access to your property, and you are ultimately held responsible for their actions:
What to Ask Your STR Broker About Assault & Battery:
Remember, by operating a rental, you are openly inviting guests into your home and community. By doing so, you open yourself up to liability as a result of your guests’ actions. Fire, theft, and assault could all be seen as negligence and thus a lawsuit. This is why insurance exists; just make sure your policy covers this risk.
If I entrust my property/home to a paying Airbnb/Vrbo short-term rental guest for 3 days, and that guest assaults another person who then sues me, do I have liability coverage?
5. Ask About Loss of Rental Income
Losing a rental period to a covered loss is one of the most expensive gaps in a standard policy, and most hosts don’t realize how narrow their existing coverage really is until they try to use it. Standard Homeowners and Landlord policies typically include a provision called Loss of Rents or Loss of Use—and the difference isn’t just the name; it’s how the payout gets calculated.
What to Ask Your STR Broker About Lost Airbnb Income:
This is the detail that costs hosts the most: Loss of Rents can leave you paid out based on what a long-term rental nearby earns, even if your short-term rental generates two to three times that. Loss of Business Revenue is calculated from what your property actually earns.
If I regularly rent my property/home to paying Airbnb/Vrbo short-term rental guests, and a covered loss interrupts or reduces my rental income, do I have coverage for lost business revenue—not just Loss of Rents or Loss of Use—to the limits of my policy?
6. Ask About Invasion of Privacy
Another risk commonly overlooked by hosts is invasion of privacy. Let’s say your guest gets to your property after dark and has trouble finding the correct address, and accidentally walks into your neighbor’s house. Your neighbor could turn around and sue you for an invasion of their privacy. Likewise, if you were to simply mix up the checkout time and walk in on your guests before they had left your property, they could sue you for invasion of privacy just as easily.
What to Ask Your STR Broker About Invasion of Privacy
Coverage for invasion of privacy is not typically included in standard policies, but if you’re going to rent your home out and actively participate in the hospitality industry, you’ll want to make sure you have coverage for this.
If I entrust my property/home to a paying Airbnb/Vrbo short-term rental guest for 3 days, and that guest sues me for invasion of privacy, do I have liability coverage?
7. Ask About Policy Exclusions
Insurers don’t exclude coverages at random. Ask your broker to walk the exclusions page with you and confirm each of these in writing:
- Communicable disease from hot tubs or pools. A guest gets a rash from the hot tub on your property.
- Guest-caused damage. A guest throws an unapproved party and trashes the interior, including ruining furniture.
- Liquor liability. A guest leaves liquor at your property, and the next guest drinks it and gets injured.
- Invasion of privacy. Your cleaner accidentally walks in on your guests before they check out.
- Animal and pet limitations. A guest’s dog bites your neighbor in their yard, or a guest is bitten by a snake while walking outside.
What to Ask Your Broker About Exclusions:
Please list every exclusion on my policy that could apply to short-term rental use, including liquor liability, guest-caused damage, invasion of privacy, communicable disease, and animal-related claims. Are there any other exclusions I should know about pertaining to property or liability?
8. Ask About Vacancy
Bookings slow down between seasons, and many policies have a vacancy exclusion or a limit on how long your property can sit unoccupied. Cross it, and you can see reductions in coverage for things like theft and water damage. A typical vacancy period ranges between just 30 and 60 days.
At minimum, know whether your policy has a vacancy provision and what the window is.
What to Ask Your Broker About Vacancy:
Does my policy contain a vacancy exclusion or vacancy limitation? How many consecutive days can my property be unoccupied before coverage changes, and which coverages are affected?
9. Ask About Off-Premises and Amenity Liability
Pools, hot tubs, docks, bikes, kayaks, and golf carts are some of the biggest draws for guests booking a short-term rental—and some of the biggest liability blind spots for hosts. Standard Homeowners and Landlord policies are usually underwritten without knowing these amenities exist, since they were never disclosed as part of personal, non-commercial use.
Liability doesn’t stop at your property line, either. If a guest causes an injury or accident away from your rental—say, a bike or golf cart you provided is involved in an accident down the street—many policies won’t respond, because the incident happened off-premises.
What to Ask Your Broker About Off-Premises and Amenity Liability:
If I offer amenities such as a pool, hot tub, dock, or recreational equipment to paying Airbnb/Vrbo short-term rental guests, and a guest is injured using one of them, do I have liability coverage to the limits of my policy?
10. Ask About Squatters, Bed Bugs, and Fleas
Not all guests check out as planned. Airbnb squatter scenarios are on the rise nationally, and they lead to legal battles and unexpected costs. Bed bugs and fleas are the quieter version of the same problem—extermination is expensive, the property comes offline while it happens, and a bitten guest can bring a liability claim on top of it.
What to Ask Your Broker About Squatters, Bed Bugs, and Fleas:
If I entrust my property/home to a paying Airbnb/Vrbo short-term rental guest for 3 days and that guest refuses to leave, do I have coverage for legal fees and resulting damages? If that guest brings bed bugs or fleas into my property, do I have coverage for extermination, lost business revenue, and guest liability?
Not all liability coverage is created equal. Learn which vacation rental liability risks can lead to costly lawsuits and why many traditional policies leave hosts exposed.
Upgrade Your Insurance Coverage Today
It can be tough to know what your policy covers without going through each possible scenario, but that’s why insurance professionals are here to help. For these particular claims, a good place to start is with your current insurance agent. Send them these questions and see what they have to say; just make sure they’re getting the answer in writing from the underwriter of your policy.
If you still have questions or would like to compare your current policy to the custom vacation rental insurance policy offered by Proper Insurance, give us a call at 888-631-6680 to receive a comprehensive coverage comparison or submit an inquiry form to receive a quote.
