Admiral introduces Host Insurance
Admiral, a home insurance specialist, has introduced Host insurance as an option on all of its home insurance policies.
It has become the first major insurer to offer specific insurance cover for anyone looking to rent out their home through Wimdu, onefinestay and Homestay as well as Airbnb.
Customers with Admiral Host insurance can rent out their property for up to 90 days during the policy term, and it provides cover for up to two adult paying guests per bedroom during each rental period.
The policy is specifically aimed at people who want to use home sharing sites as it only provides cover for someone renting out their main home, it isn’t for people who rent out holiday homes.
Jean-Baptiste Limare, head of sharing economy at Admiral said: “It’s estimated that 50,000 UK homes are rented out on Airbnb alone, we believe many more homeowners want to do it, but are concerned about how it could affect their insurance. Our research found that currently only 4 percent of homeowners rent out their homes via these sites, but as many as half of homeowners would consider it. We want to offer peace of mind for anyone who wants to join a home sharing site, but is concerned about damage or theft to their property.
“There’s a lot of confusion amongst homeowners as to how renting out a room could affect their home insurance. This is understandable as most insurers don’t cover renting out a room in this way, so you could risk your insurance being invalid and not being able to make a claim if the worst happened.”
Admiral Host insurance also includes up to £5,000 cover for high risk items such as jewellery, artwork and tablets.
Another important feature of Admiral Host insurance is that once it has been added to the Admiral home insurance policy, customers can start renting out their home. They don’t need to contact Admiral every time they want to rent their property on one of the sites.
Limare added: “We appreciate some customers want more flexibility around how they use their homes. We want to ensure that Admiral Host insurance provides the cover our customers need when they list their property on a home sharing site.
“Offering Host insurance is just one way Admiral is embracing the sharing economy and encouraging it to grow. We are also supporting car sharing through easyCar Club and Rentecarlo, and want peer-to-peer sharing to become more commonplace and popular.”
