Does homeowners insurance cover Airbnb?

What this means for you

• Read the two clauses in your own policy, not ours. Find the definition of "business" in the definitions section and the business exclusion under liability. If your form is written on the ISO wording above, the $2,000 test and the "occasional basis" exception decide the question. If your carrier uses its own wording, it is usually tighter than ISO, not looser. Your agent can send you the form; the declarations page will not tell you.
• The occasional exception is narrower than it sounds. It rescues a homeowner who lets the house for a festival weekend or a month over the summer. It does not describe a listing with a calendar. And because the definition of business is separate from the exception, an activity that paid you more than $2,000 last year is a business even if you consider it occasional; the exception then has to rescue it on its own terms.
• A landlord policy does not fix this. Owners who have been told to move to a dwelling fire form are usually surprised to learn it carries no liability at all; that is bought as a separate form, and the separate form has the same business exclusion. The DP-3 also does not cover theft, which on a furnished rental is the loss you have most often, and it withdraws vandalism and theft cover after sixty days empty, which a seasonal property will hit every year.
• Silence is the expensive option. An insurer that learns about the listing from a claim can deny the claim under the business exclusion. An insurer that learns you had a listing when the policy was written can rescind the policy back to day one, which is worse. Tell them. Some will endorse limited letting, some will non-renew, and a non-renewal you know about is a problem with a solution.
• The fix is a policy that names the use. For a listing that runs most of the year, that means a short-term rental policy written on a commercial form, which replaces the homeowners policy rather than sitting on top of it and covers the building, the contents, guest injury and lost bookings. For a house you let a few weeks a year, it may mean the homeowners or second-home policy you already hold with a rental endorsement. We read what you have and tell you which, without charge.

Related questions

Does landlord insurance cover Airbnb?

No, and it covers less than the homeowners policy did. A landlord policy is usually a dwelling fire form, which insures the building and, thinly, the contents, and nothing else: no liability unless a separate form is added, and that form excludes business the same way. Theft is not a covered peril on the DP-3, and after sixty days of vacancy vandalism and theft cover stop. A landlord policy is written for a tenant with a lease, and a guest with a booking is not one.

What a dwelling fire policy does and does not do

What if I rent a room while I still live there?

The form treats it differently and still carefully. The exception covers renting part of the home "for use only as a residence" unless you lodge more than two roomers or boarders, so one guest room may sit inside a homeowners policy where a whole-house listing does not. Two things still bite: the guest’s own property is excluded outright, and the $2,000 definition of business applies. A spare room that earns $9,000 a year is a business, and you need the carrier to confirm in writing that the exception applies to it.

Will my insurer find out?

Assume yes. Listings are public and searchable by address photograph, insurers run them at underwriting and again at claim time, and the platform records every booking. A claim adjuster who finds the calendar will apply the exclusion; an underwriter who finds a listing you had at inception has grounds to rescind the policy back to its start date. The question is not whether they find out but whether they find out from you.

My carrier offers a home-sharing endorsement. Is that enough?

For some owners. Home-sharing endorsements typically extend the homeowners policy to occasional letting of your own residence, with limits on nights and on the number of guests, and they answer the exclusion for the host they describe. They do not describe a second property let full-time, they usually keep the guest-property exclusion, and none of them pays for the bookings you lose after a fire. Read the endorsement’s conditions against your calendar. Where they match, take it; where they do not, the honest answer is a different policy.

Does an umbrella policy cover the gap?

Almost never. Personal umbrellas carry their own business exclusion, and the carriers that sell them say so plainly: losses related to a business are not covered even when the business is run from home. An excess liability policy is narrower still, because it inherits the exclusions of the homeowners policy underneath it. An umbrella extends cover you have. It does not create cover you lack.