LATEST: Insurance policies to feature ‘Airbnb clauses’ reveals leading provider

Specialist broker and underwriter PIKL says property owners will soon be asked whether they intend to rent out their properties via short-let platforms when applying for insurance.

A recently-launched initiative to introduce new questions for property owners to answer when applying for property insurance will be a ‘game changer’, LandlordZONE has been told.

This means that, soon, home owners and landlords will no longer be able to use short-term let platforms like Airbnb without knowingly breaching the terms of their policy.

“This development is significant because one of the biggest challenges is identifying who is doing short-lets rentals and making sure they get the correct kind of insurance,” says Louise Birritteri (pictured) of specialist insurer PIKL.

Birritteri says she doesn’t believe anyone deliberately tries to avoid getting short-lets insurance, but rather than many don’t realise that renting out a property or room via Airbnb, for example, could void their existing cover.

She says the questions, which may take some time to become standards, were developed in partnership with Polaris, one of the main standards setters within the insurance industry.

“We found that insurance companies, brokers and price comparison websites were not determining, in their traditional customer journeys, whether those taking out cover were short term letting,” says Birritteri. “Without collecting this information, customers are at risk of unintentionally taking out cover that may be inappropriate for them or could be voided by their sharing activity.”

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