Home share hosts can look forward to enhanced protection on their short term rentals with the announcement that Airbnb insurance broker, Pikl Insurance, has hooked up with online broker Quoteline Direct to offer Airbnb-style short-term letting cover to its clients, closing loop holes in the insurance market where standard home, landlord and holiday home policies fail to cover guests and short-term lets.

The partnership means that Quoteline Direct will now be able to private home host, landlord host and landlord tenant host products to its clients who are  providing short-term hosting arrangements.

Louise Birritteri, CEO of Pikl, said: “We’re delighted to enter this partnership with Quoteline Direct. It is a clear sign that the key players in the industry have recognised that their clients who are operating in the sharing economy are doing so without the necessary protection they need. Those who believe that their standard home or landlord policies will cover them are sadly mistaken and it could be that they only discover that when then need to make a claim.””

“Products that are tailored to the needs of sharing economy hosts”

Phil Stevens, product , manager for home and buy-to-let at Quoteline Direct said: “The sharing economy has blossomed in the last few years and much of the insurance industry are playing catch up.

It’s fantastic that Pikl has not only recognised this gap in the market but that they have managed to fill it with specialist products that are tailored to the needs of sharing economy hosts, and importantly are straightforward for brokers to sell. We anticipate a large take up in the Pikl cover over the coming months as we approach the peak season for short-term property lets.”

“Airbnb-ers can now get the best of both worlds”

The new partnership comes following Pikl’s Its report published in March which showed that the insurance needs of more one million short-term rental hosts are not adequately covered by the UK’s major insurers. They are either being excluded from, compromised by or voided from their existing home insurance policies.

As Birritteri explains: “By creating wholesale insurance products for brokers working alongside the insurance industry, Pikl is solving this problem for consumers. It means that the generation of Airbnb-ers can now get the best of both worlds – the best deals for both their standard and shared economy cover and, where they struggle to find cover, in Pikl they’ll have a brand that will accommodate them for both types of cover and will always have their best interests at heart.”