Let’s talk about Damage Waivers & Damage Protection

You should know that safely has a deal with lodgify.  They offer damage only (not liability) for just a few dollars a night that I charged to my renters. It was way cheaper than what they offer for hospitable. I called them and asked them for the same deal. They say that that is special for logify.  I think hospitable needs to reach out to them and ask for the same deal for their customers!

Its been about 6 months since this thread was created. Is Safely still the preferred option or has something better surfaced for direct bookings in the US? 

Can I please have access to waivers? I want our guests to choose either the security deposit or waiver prior to receiving check-in instructions.

I still am very happy with Safely if you’re not “self-insuring” - paid out easily on ALL claims but 1 in 3 years.

We left safely (they were good) because after a 6 month audit I saw how much money they were keeping and I decided to self cover.

Hi ​@Mikey! We haven't launched waivers yet. Tim is away this week, but I'll check in with him for an update once he's back.

Can we get an update on just how soon Hospitable will have the damage waiver issue solved?  At least an estimation?  This issue needs to be priority.  

I understand. It IS an arm & a leg, even if we “pass it along.” We could go back to self-insuring and take in more revenue until that large damage claim occurs and wipes it out. It’s really all a dice roll, isn’t it ​@The Orange Cabins 

well if we handle it likely safely, they cover only $1500. So we choose to only cover $500 and then we always have ability to use Aircover as well. I have an app to closely track earnings vs claims overall and per property. 

Oh ​@The Orange Cabins - I have $10K coverage on 1 property & $3K on our others… of course we pay MORE for the $10K one, but we’ve had some large expenses (pool cover) damaged and safely came through. Though, i’d venture to say if we “self-insured” and had an app like the one you do it’d come out in the wash probably...

Yea agreed if we were doing that level of coverage I’d probably agree. But at 10k we would generally go to air cover. What does 10k coverage cost per night? I would expect it to be very high. 

Hi all, just providing an update here. We’re aiming to have waivers & damage protection insurance launched by mid Q4. 

Very interesting as I was able to recover a full reinbursement through Aircover for a hot tub drain and clean after guests partied and left broken glass around the tub. The difference might have been that they routed the claim through Generali as they are required to do for all claims in WA state.

​@Nadia You wrote this 9 months ago, so I'm wondering if you're still paying $28 for $1,500 of coverage? I was recently quoted $39 by them for the same coverage so I'm wondering if it's because they've increased the price recently, or whether maybe it varies based on the number of listings you have. 

I think with Waivo it is $39 for $1500 and $59 for $3000.  Since there is not a section to add this fee into our pricing  for Vrbo, I asked Smarty AI if I could add the $59 cost under “management fee” and then disclose that fee and what it is for in my rental agreement.  Smarty told me I could and that it was a good idea to solve the issue we have right now and so I don’t have to charge the guest for a damage waiver after their booking.  

​@LindaE - We also include the mandatory damage waiver fee in our mgmt fee section and simply explain that they have that coverage in our rental agreement. It’s likely overlooked, but since we don’t have to involve the guest at all it doesn’t bother us or impede our ability to collect.

​@anthonyrallo Is there a reason to even tell the guests though that you're buying a damage waiver for their reservation? I charge a management fee on co-hosted listings to cover the cost of a waiver, but it occurred to me that maybe it's better not to even tell the guest about it, because that way if there is an issue I can still attempt to collect it from them some other way. 

Not only that but guests have less incentive to treat the property well if they think insurance will cover their damages and they won’t be personally liable.

​@Tom Beerley We do it as full disclosure and as mentioned, presume most don’t read it. It doesn’t mean that you are forbidden on attempting to collect damage costs another way. 

​@Lee Goldman We haven’t found that to be the case (beyond normal guest behavior when in someone else’s home). My credit card covers damages in my rental car but I still don’t have a demolition derby with it :-)

What is this “self insuring” option many of you are talking about? Just escrowing a damage fee from each res for the inevitable issue that comes up? Is there a good resource on that? 

To me it just means “going without insurance” and deciding you’ll pay for things out of pocket rather than inflate your price with the cost of damage waivers that give away profit to some third-party insurance company who’s going to fight you on your claims anyway.

Do the math on how much your guests are paying for damage waivers, compared to how much you can reasonably expect to pay for damages over the course of say, 5 years. In my case the difference was “several thousand” vs “a couple hundred.” 

Sure you could set the money aside in a separate account if you want, but you don’t have to unless you’re worried you wouldn’t be able to afford a repair.

You can still charge the guest a fee that’s equivalent to what they’d pay for a damage waiver. And you can bank that money for a rainy day. (The “management fee” is probably the most appropriate slot to place this charge.)  

Or you could just tweak your prices upward over time as you figure out what you can charge without slowing down your bookings. Since guests shop based on the total all-in price, it doesn’t really matter which way you do it.

At this point, I don’t get the “tweak your price” approach to offset any expenses, since we are basically maximizing price already. If you nickel and dime price relative to new expenses, it just undercuts any analytics pricing models you are doing relative to the market. Thats my take. 

​@Daniel at Mountain Haus - This is also a true statement. In a true P&L perspective having waiver fees and such or even “self-insured fees” separated out can be helpful to keep the RevPAR clean to a certain extend. Of course, net profit washes all of the expenses out eventually.

​@Daniel at Mountain Haus all I meant was that because you’re not charging $40 (or whatever) for a damage waiver, you’re free to raise your accommodation rate by that same $40 without guests noticing. Whereas if you DON’T charge anything at all to make up for the break you’re giving guests on the cost of a damage waiver, you’re giving the entire break to the guest, which defeats the purpose of socking that extra $40 into your rainy-day fund.