Resource Guide · For Landlords & Hosts
You furnished an entire property, and new guests live in it every week. Here is what actually protects it, host insurance versus platform damage protection, and the one thing every claim on either path demands: proof of what was there.
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The direct answer: regular hosting generally is not covered by a standard homeowners policy; it needs a home-sharing endorsement or a dedicated short-term rental policy covering the dwelling, your furnishings, liability, and lost income. Platform damage protection is a claims program, not insurance, and both pay on itemized, dated proof of your furnishings.
Per-room furnishings with quantities and serials, the counts that catch what walks away, and the five-minute turnover quick-check. One per unit.
Usually not, once hosting is regular. Insurers treat paid, recurring short-term renting as business use of the home, and standard homeowners policies are built to exclude business activity. Host without telling your insurer and the consequences surface at claim time: denied rental-related claims, limited liability, or even non-renewal.
The fix is boring and effective: tell your insurer you host, and ask exactly what your situation needs. An occasional one-off rental may be accommodated with notice or a home-sharing endorsement; regular hosting typically needs a dedicated short-term rental policy. Get the answer in writing, because the difference only matters on the day it is tested.
Guidance per the Insurance Information Institute and the NAIC’s home-sharing consumer guidance.
Two layers, often confused. One is a policy; one is a claims program. You want both understood, and one of them in writing.
The policy
Built for hosting: the dwelling, the furnishings you provide, liability when a guest is hurt, and often lost rental income after a covered loss. Priced for the risk of strangers in the home.
The contents portion pays at documented value, for documented items. An undocumented, fully furnished unit is the gap in an otherwise good policy.
The program
Programs like Airbnb’s AirCover host damage protection can pay for guest damage, but they are claims programs with rules, not insurance policies, and Airbnb itself recommends hosts carry their own coverage.
Claims run on short post-checkout windows and demand evidence: what the item was, what it cost, and that it existed before the stay. Useful layer; never the foundation.
Before listing
Photos per room, serials on the electronics and appliances, counts on linens and kitchenware, values recorded. This is the before that every after gets measured against.
At turnover
Walk the unit against the record, not from memory. Photograph anything broken, stained, or missing exactly where it stands, before cleaning touches it.
The filing
Platform windows after checkout are short, and insurers want the same package: the itemized record, the receipts or documented values, and the turnover photos. With a pre-built record, the filing is an attachment, not a scramble.
The outcome
Two broken chairs from a documented set of six, at a documented price, is a claim. “Some chairs got broken, they were nice ones” is a negotiation. Hosts lose claims to missing evidence far more often than to denied coverage.
Move-in/move-out documentation that wins deposits and claims.
Read the guide → 05What is covered, what is capped, and how to prove stolen items.
Read the guide → 09The full step-by-step method, plus our free room-by-room checklist.
Read the guide →A policy built for hosting: it covers the dwelling, the furnishings you provide, your liability when guests are hurt, and often lost rental income after a covered loss. It exists because standard homeowners policies generally treat paid hosting as business use and can limit or deny claims connected to it. Hosts who rent regularly need host coverage, in writing.
Usually not for regular hosting. Insurers commonly treat short-term renting as business activity: an occasional one-off may be accommodated with notice or an endorsement, but frequent hosting typically requires a home-sharing endorsement or a dedicated short-term rental policy. The failure mode is silence, discovering the exclusion after the loss. Tell your insurer, and get the answer in writing.
AirCover’s host damage protection is a claims program, not an insurance policy, and Airbnb itself recommends hosts carry their own insurance. It can pay for guest damage, but claims have short filing windows and demand evidence: what the item was, its value, and that it existed before the stay. It also is not liability coverage for every scenario. Treat it as a useful layer on top of real host insurance, never a substitute.
With a before-and-after: an itemized, dated record of the unit’s furnishings, photos and serials included, plus turnover photos of the damage before anything is cleaned or repaired. File inside the platform’s window with receipts or documented values attached. Hosts lose claims to missing evidence far more often than to denied coverage.
Yes. Claims, damage-protection filings, and taxes all work per property, so each unit needs its own furnishings record: items, quantities, serials, values, and dated photos, refreshed with a quick check at turnovers. Hosts with multiple units keep one vault with one record per door, which is exactly how we structure it.
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