Episode 021 – How Travel Insurance for Your Guests Can Protect Your Income & Even Earn You More

You may know the number one mistake new Short-Term Rental owners and hosts make, is not having the proper type of insurance.  But, did you know that offering your guests TRAVEL INSURANCE can not only protect your income but it can EARN you extra income, too.  We’ll tell you how.

 

Plus, contest details are inside this episode!  Enter to win BIG!!  Go and Grow!

 

Transcript of this Episode:

Hi, this is Michelle, the master of money mindset, and you are listening to BNB dash boss podcast.

And in today's podcast, we're going to be talking about insurance. Now, I know I've talked to you about insurance before, but I'm going to talk to you about a lot of different insurance options, not just for your short-term rental, but for your gas. This is going to help you maintain this wonderful strict policy.

The cancellation policy that I tell you all the time you have to. I'm going to tell you why stay tuned. Our show today is brought to you by audible. Audible is where you get your audio books online and get a 30 day trial into the audible membership for free. By going to audible trial.com forward slash S T R revenue.

That's audible trial.com. S T R revenue. You'll get your first audio book for free and 30 days into the audible membership just for trying us out. You'll love audible right [email protected]. You can find our $7 courses available for you to try. Find out how to cohost, how to do rental arbitrage or how to invest in real estate.

We're all three, by going to B and b-boss.com and clicking on our store. And you'll find our $7 courses right there. Try us out. You'll love it. You'll love those courses and they're only there for a limited time. So do it also, don't forget our contest. We've got our contest running right now in every week.

We're picking away. And everyone's names are going to be put into a drawing at the end for a final prize of an Amazon Dodd with a little clock on it. And your guests will love that. There'll be able to walk right in, ask Alexa to connect to their account, and they'll be able to play their favorite music, ask for the weather or whatever else they want to ask Alexa to do pretty darn awesome.

And I would really greatly. You going to iTunes and leaving me a five star review. I appreciate it. So please do take a picture of it. Send it over to me at Michelle at BNB dash boss. Let me know that you did and we'll enter you in those drawings. Okay. So the number one thing that most people don't have this as the biggest mistake that people make when they have short-term rentals, as they don't get short term rental insurance, they think to themselves, oh, Airbnb is so awesome.

They have a million dollar host policy, that million dollar host policy that they have. Is literally completely at their own discretion. They can say no. And if you were to go dig through the internet and I don't know if Google is blocking that and Facebook is blocking that because they block a lot of other stuff, but go pages deep.

And you'll find out that Airbnb has been sued by a lot of hosts because they don't always pay. There are guests who fall asleep with cigarettes, even though they're not supposed to be smoking in a bed that have burnt down houses and Airbnb won't pay the host for the loss of their home. And your home is not going to be covered.

If you have regular renter's insurance, that's not going to cover your property. If you have regular landlord insurance, not going to cover your property. Pretty much the majority of insurance that you would have on your rental property is not the proper insurance, unless it's specifically designed for short-term rentals and short-term rental stay.

So you really have to be careful. You really have to go out of your way to get a short-term rental company. So right away, I'm going to tell you my favorite insurance company is proper insurance. They're backed by Lloyd's of London. They might be a little bit more than other ones, but I'll tell you they cover almost all my rental property.

And there's properties. I added hot tubs too, and it didn't up my insurance. You have to be really honest with your insurance companies of what you have. Like if you offer bicycles or you have a hot tub or a pool or something, because you want to make sure that everything is good. And I even take a video of the place so they can tell me what I need to do to make sure that my place is safe and I'm not going to be sued for anything.

So insurance is really, really important, but really quickly, I wanted to cover the fact that we want to offer insurance, travel insurance as well to our guests. This is really huge. And it's also a way that you can be making a little bit of extra income. So let's get into this three years ago, I wrote an article about how to offer insurance with your short-term rentals.

Now, what this does is it cuts down on the request for refunds due to cancellation you and I both know that people love to cancel, but we keep our strict cancellation policy. And I know Airbnb, every time you sign on says, you really need to review this because people really. Being able to cancel. Yeah, I bet they do because the people who like to be able to cancel are the ones who cancel all the time and nothing is worse than having your property booked for several months before somebody is supposed to arrive.

And then a few days before. Then having them cancel and you can't book it out, especially on our properties that are in Arizona, they book out on average months. So a couple of months, at least 60 days, if not more, you used to be three months now it's 60 days. So it's gotten a little better, but still not great.

And it's hard when somebody cancels within that 60 days to rebook it and refill. So right away when COVID started, we did try to go to, we tried it out, going to the less strict policy and that did not work out for us. It did not work out well. We had the majority of people cancel. And so we just said, you know what, screw it.

I don't care if it turns off people. And we went right back to our strict cancellation policy and guests. We still got all the bookings that we usually got and not the cancellations. So I am a strict cancellation person. And inside my house rules, I let them know, Hey, we are a small business. You know, we don't have a million employees and we're not Amazon.

And if you cancel, it hurts us. So we instead send this message. Messages is one of our automated messages. And when someone books right away, we send them a message. It says, dear Jane DOE, I'm looking forward to hosting you on such and such date. And have enclosed the PDF of our house rules. As you know, you agreed to follow the house rules and our strict cancellation policy have no fear.

We're not tyrants, but we would like to ask that you go over the booking within the next 24 hours, just to make certain that we are a good fit for one another. If you decide to cancel within that time, there will be no penalty, no harm, no foul. If you do decide that you can handle us because we're pretty easy only asking for you to treat our property as you would at dear friends, then might we suggest you also.

Take a moment to check out some travel insurance. And then we give them information on travel guard, which is an AIG company, or we recommend American express or Pablo. And I'll explain what Pablo is right after this, but let me continue. So travel guard can provide you with an inexpensive travel insurance just in case you're forced to change your plans due to unforeseen circumstances.

Now heads up. I'm going to do a little inset here to what I usually write. We aren't affiliated with travel guard, but when we put Pablo in there, we are affiliated with them. So we've removed this sane, but if we're not, we say we are not affiliates of any kind and don't get any kickback. However, as small business owners, we are unable to refund your money.

If you are forced to cancel our reservations book out, farther in advance, and we are unable to fill those openings that pop up unexpected. Therefore, so you don't ask and we don't have to deny any requests for refunds. We have found an inexpensive alternative for you. Here's the link to check out travel guard, and here's the PDF of our house rules.

We look forward to your visit. Sincerely. When we use Pablo Pablo actually has us create our own page, which is like selling the traveler insurance and they give us a tiny little kickback for it. So if we had Pablo on there and we weren't talking about traveler guard, this is coming directly from an article I wrote.

So I didn't give you the Pablo stuff there, but I'm going to tell you. All these insurance companies right now, some of them are insurance companies for us as short-term rental owners. And some of them are insurance companies for our guests and some of them we can make a little kickback from, and some of them, we can't say, I'm going to explain those right now to you.

So get your pad of paper. And again, I'm going to tell you my favorite one for me. Is proper insurance and going to proper.insure will get you to proper insurance. They're backed by Lloyd's of London, which is the oldest insurance company on this planet. Not on any other planet. I think just here, they're a great company.

You would really enjoy proper insurance. Their agents know a lot. They're really intelligent and they will get the coverage that you need, uh, for the type of vacation rental property that you have. So I like proper insurance, but there are others. That's just my preference. I've used a few and I like proper insurance.

Okay, I'm going to go through all these companies with you. And these are all insurance companies. Some of them are insurance companies, specifically for short-term rentals. Some are specifically for your guests and some are both a service. You and your guests. We have had a couple of mishaps in the industry because of COVID.

So. Which was one of our favorites because it was a month to month. One for people who didn't have a lot of money in the bank. And they were just starting out with their BnBs. It was a great resource for them. They didn't have to pay all that cash out front for a long policy or the expense of the day-to-day policy and have the gaps in between.

So they were really good. And now they're gone. Thank you. COVID we have created a directory of business to business. Services and products that are specific to the short-term rental industry. So if you go to bnb-boss.com, scroll about halfway down, you'll see a question that says, you know, are you interested in new tech and technology or something like that?

And when you click on that, there's a directory button. It's going to take you to our new directory page. We're working on it. It doesn't have all the logos from the companies, but the names of the companies are all clickable links. And the first category we're starting with is the insurance category. So this category is right.

You go there, you click on the directory. You'll be taken to a page that has every single one of these insurance companies on them. You'll be able to click on them and it'll take you right to their page. These are not affiliate links. They're literally for your information only. And you can check them out.

We're just giving you information. Okay. So they're not affiliate links. You can go home and click on whatever you want, or you conduct a go them and find them, yourself, whatever you want to do. We just want you to have all the resources there. And like I said, this is the first category. I've got a list here.

Let me read it to you. Real fast. We've got revenue management, photography payment. CPAs bookkeeping sales and marketing supplies and design technology, Ilex keys, literally there's pages and pages of this stuff, housekeeping and obviously website building the messaging and chat boxes. All of these will have a category for it.

And then you'll be able to click on the links of all the businesses that are listed below it. For instance, right now there are 11 companies under the insurance that you can take a look at now, they're probably more, but these are the ones that we know of and the ones that are good. And they're for the U S there are a lot from other countries, but we are focusing.

The United States. We may move that demographic down into Mexico because we seem to have a big reach in Mexico too. And I don't mind Abloh Espanol alone poquito so I can speak some Spanish and we'll get it going down from Mexico. But Canadian ones. We'll add those eventually, too. And if you've got some that you want us to add, please send us a message.

Send me a direct email at [email protected]. And I'll add it to here. It'll help everyone else. It's a great resource. And I can't wait. There's some really fun subjects in here, places where you can get like signs for your business, for the Wi-Fi and beautiful little towels and gifts and things like that.

I can't wait to put all that in there because all those resources will be right there for you too. Now, the first company we're going to go to besides proper insurance is going to be property protect property. Protect is under my property, protect.com and they not only have insurance for the host at usually about $5 a night premium, but they also have damage waiver.

So security deposit waivers. A lot of companies, a lot of insurance companies are moving towards this, and it's actually pretty nice because your guests can go and purchase security deposits. So let's say you have a really nice property and you want like a five or $10,000 security. Not a lot of people have five or $10,000 roaming around and they don't want to put it on their credit card because maybe it maxes out their credit card and they won't have any room to buy anything when they get down there.

So this is a great way because depending on them and their credit and everything else, they can purchase a security deposit waiver. Let's say for that $5,000, they need a $5,000. They can go purchase one of these. And it's basically them purchasing insurance that says we're not going to damage your property.

And if they do, you get to get that money from the insurance company, you get to have your damages and expenses all paid for by property protect. I don't know how they make money on it. I really don't. I mean, obviously if somebody's buying a waiver, they're probably going to be pretty careful because.

Maybe it's very expensive. Maybe they get a kickback. I have no idea. I've never purchased one. The point is your butt is covered and that's all we really care about. And property protect also does long-term rentals. So it's great resource for people who just need their own rental insurance when you're staying someplace for a year or so.

And even if you rent storage unit, now you need rental insurance and they cover these. The next one is Waymo. It's waymo.io. They do vacation rental damage protection, and they do the same thing. They have the resources for you, and they also have the resources for your guests, for them to not even have to do deal with you.

You just send them to wave out and Wavell handles everything with a security deposit, and it's really nice to be. It cuts you out of there and you don't have to be the bad guy or anything. You just send them there. And it's really nice. Now there's also safely, safely boasts that their claims are answered and paid for within four days.

And so that's nice to know, try to get that from Airbnb. It's not going to happen. And there's a lot of people that recommend them. I've never used them safely, but I know people who have, and they had good coverage. They're happy with them. It says their protection is as low as $8 a night. So be careful with them.

Because a lot of services we'll have you pay by night and they'll link up to, let's say your Airbnb account. And let's say somebody has booked a stay from the second to the fifth. They've got those three nights. Right? So second to third, third to fourth, fourth of fifth. And those three nights, they're going to charge you let's say $8 a night.

Well, when they do all the empty nights are not protected. So I don't like the per night protections. I never have. You're not covered. If somebody breaks in on in-between days, it just leaves you wide open. And I really don't like that. That's why I like having proper insurance. They cover me 24 7, 365. I mean, we're always covered whether we have people in there, whether we don't, whether they did something on purpose or whether it was an accent, it doesn't matter.

It's. These coverages can be very, very tricky. So you need to read everything. And I really hope that you decide to go with a coverage. That's going to cover you even when your place is empty. You never know. You can have an ex-employee know that you have a big screen TV in there and go in there and steal stuff.

Or you can have an ex guest in there where you going to have somebody who doesn't even know, but they know it's a rental property. So the point is you've got to be covered all the time. So the ones that are, pre-night just be careful with those they're a little bit trickier slice has been around for a while.

They're an on demand insurance. So they cover a lot of different things, but you get to pick and choose use on them. So that's why they call it slice, I guess, because, you know, it's like slicing up the pieces of the pie that you want. You can log in and check out their company. They have insurance, they have other small business insurance and stuff too.

It's not just short-term rentals there. There's also Generali and they have another name it's initials, but I can't remember what it is off the top of my head, their travel insurance. So this is insurance for your guests, and this would be something that you would want to just like, I read that letter to you.

Something that you would want to send them and say, Hey, you can use this company to cover you while you are traveling around. They'll have the baggage coverage and sharp cancellation. Somebody gets sick injuries and stuff like that. So this is the kind of company like that. If you're on their homepage and you scroll down, it depends on what kind of coverage you want to get.

And it's, it's pretty good to have. I always think, I mean, when I travel, I always get travel insurance. It's one of the things I love having, because then you're. And you don't wonder if, especially when you're in another country, are they going to cover this? Are they going to cover our medical expenses? If somebody gets sick or injured or something, you don't have to worry.

You just buy it. Red sky, same thing. It's travel insurance. They have different packages depending on where you're going. Kind of. So basically they have packages. For your trips to sunny locations, your trips out to the mountain, like camping stuff or ski trips. And then if you've got like a ski trip pass, where you go skiing.

Then you can get that one. So red sky, same thing. I think they only have those four packages. I'm not positive. It looks like. Yep. That's it. That's all, they got four, but again, travel insurance. Great thing to have. There's also rental guardian rental. Guardian has been around for a little while they protect the things that matter most is what they say.

So they have insurance for. Not just your property, but insurance for travel too. They have a few different things. And what's cool about rental. Guardian is they give a referral fee or a commission to people who recommend them. So you can set something up with them. And then when you refer it, you get a little kickback.

That's going to be like, Well, Pablo takes it one step further. Maybe we should, let's go over Pablo right now while I explain the difference. So when you're doing rental guardian, that's really nice. That's nice that they give you the commission and everything, but Pablo they're spelled P a B L O w. It's the Blowfish Pablo, the Blowfish.

And when you use Pablo, Pablo allows you to create a website and that website is your unique website for your business. And so when someone's staying at your property and you say we have a strict cancellation policy, we don't allow cancellations, but we do recommend that you do get rentals insurance. We do have a company.

If you click here, you'll be able to go right to that company. You're not going to have to tell them you're an affiliate because your name and everything is going to be geared right towards you. So they're going to know that you have something to do is selling this insurance because they're going to.

Your branding and whatever you put on that one page on there. So they're going to know it's not just an affiliate site, it's your site, because it's going to look like it's going to be coming from you using Pablo as your insurance company. So they'll be able to tell right then I do like Pablo though.

The next one is CBIZ. So biz, if you want to say it that way, but it's a vacation rental insurance. Same thing. They do have the COVID policy update right on their site as well. It's all about vacation rental insurance. I do not believe they have anything for your guests there it's simply and specifically for vacation rentals, but it's one of those, but he's, it's been around for a while.

So, and thank God they're still business. Right? The last one I wanted to tell you about is all. Allstate happens to be one of the big companies. You know, everybody had state farm, Allstate farmers, insurance, those big companies though, your home policies or your landlord policies do not cover short-term rentals.

Allstate is one of the only companies that actually has something called host advantage. It's their home sharing insurance, and it's specifically geared toward. Short-term rentals. They're one of the only big companies that do it. It is a little bit more expensive, but I mean, if you feel better with them and maybe they've got a package, so.

When you have their home insurance, you know, their car insurance or something, you might get that, you know, would they link all the packages together and they give you a lower rate. So you might be able to get a lower rate, but you have to look for it specifically. Okay. All states host advantage, home sharing insurance.

Okay. And the link is going to be. As a matter of fact, the links for all of these, again, just go to bnb-boss.com. Let me go there so I can tell you exactly what you're going to hit. Cause it's already up and running. Scroll about halfway down. It will say looking for the latest tech and tools for your BNB business and then browse our director.

When you click that browse our directory, it's going to take you to a page and it says, excuse our dust on there. But it's all the tools that you need to build a successful short-term rental business. It's our business to business directory. And the very first category we have in there are insurances for you and for your guests.

And you'll see there's 11 of them. Right? And the non-existent logo. It's like a filler logo is there until we get all the logos for the companies and you can click right above the name and click that, and it'll take you to the company or click on the name itself and it'll take you right to the company.

And all of those links are active and ready. So right now there's 11 of those. And I can see that they're loading the bookkeepers and the CPA is right now. And we'll have a lot more in there. There'll be a lot of stuff in there, but you'll notice that we're building it. So it says, excuse our dust, but we just want to have it active in life for you, or it's not going to look really pretty right.

And the way it will look, but it's working and it's ready for you. And we, as we get the information and stuff, we want to get it to you right away. That will be a great resource page. It's going to have a ton, a ton of information for all types of companies. So your guys are going to love it. Hey, I want to thank you again.

If you got a chance to go and leave me a five-star review over at iTunes, I appreciate it so much. And for the rest of you, please get over there. We've got to get more reviews into the system. It helps us get our ranking up, and that helps us to get sponsors, to pay for the show. We want to make sure you pay.

We won't be able to offer you $7 courses. If we keep spending the money the way we do without any kind of sponsors. So we would rather get sponsors, then charge a ton of money. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you tomorrow. Have a great day. God bless. Go and grow.