What sorts of insurance can I get when using a service like AirBnb?

Question

I recently ran into a situation when staying at an AirBnb where there was an overflow in a toilet, the homeowner blamed me, and tried to get a good deal of money from me through AirBnb. AirBnb found in my favor, but this makes me hesitant about using AirBnb in the future if I essentially have uncapped liability. I was under the impression that the security deposit was the maximum they could extract, but that seems to be incorrect.

I know there is liability insurance, but I have always thought that was for professionals that performed the work.

So, my question is, whether AirBnb or a direct booking: What insurance can I get to limit my liability as a renter/guest?

Answer 1

What you're looking for is called "third party liability insurance" and is widely available worldwide. In the US it is usually sold as part of homeowners/renters insurance. Outside the US I've seen it sold as a separate product. Some travel insurance companies also include it as part of their package. It will cover accidental damage to other people's property and even more than importantly they have a team of lawyers on hand to scare off various scammers trying to charge you for no good reason. That being said, insurance is quite often a fraudulent product too and I strongly recommend avoiding to buy a policy without first finding several verified reviews where people received an actual payout after a claim. Unfortunately there's no such centralized website for insurance reviews, so you'll have to do some Googling for each insurance company.

Another option is often self-insurance. If you don't expect the claim to go over whatever you're comfortable spending in case of an accident, you don't need to buy insurance. A flooded toilet is probably a few thousand dollars at most, which might be okay depending on your income.

Finally some countries offer legal insurance where you pay a small fee each month and have access to a lawyer in case of a legal dispute. Having a lawyer send a strongly worded letter to the other party is often sufficient to stop them. If not, having a lawyer on hand is very useful to defend yourself in court. Remember that the other party can't just charge you willy nilly. They have to prove you're at fault in a court of law if you dispute their claim.