Commercial insurance purpose built for short-term rentals.
Ask ten vacation rental operators what insurance they carry and most will describe a homeowner’s policy with a short-term rental endorsement bolted onto it. That arrangement holds up fine until the day it doesn’t: a cleaner is hurt during a same-day turnover, a booking platform breach exposes guest payment data, or a maintenance van clips a parked car on the way to a burst-pipe call.
Once you have staff, vehicles, software, contractors and dozens of doors under management, you are no longer insuring a house. You are insuring a company that happens to operate houses. Commercial Lines, offered in partnership with ePremium and RentalGuardian, was built to close exactly that gap: comprehensive commercial coverage paired with year-round risk management designed to strengthen your business and position it favorably at renewal.
Why Standard Commercial Insurance Doesn’t Fit Short-Term Rentals
Most commercial policies treat a short-term rental company like any other small business. The exposures are not the same. Your revenue depends on strangers holding keys to properties you do not live in, on cleaners and contractors moving through those homes in tight windows, and on a software stack that stores guest identities, card data, and door codes. One bad weekend can produce a liability claim, a workers’ compensation claim and a cyber incident from the same set of facts.
Underwriters notice that. Operators who cannot show inspections, screening procedures, written policies or documented training tend to get priced as unknowns. Operators who can show that work tend to get priced as managed risk. The difference between those two positions compounds every renewal cycle, and it is the strongest argument for a commercial program built specifically for this industry.
Eight Coverage Lines, Written for the Way You Operate
The program covers eight lines, so there are fewer seams between policies and the gaps are easier to spot before a claim finds them.
| Coverage line | Where it earns its keep in a short-term rental operation |
|---|---|
| General Liability | Guest and third-party bodily injury or property damage arising from your operations and the homes you manage. |
| Workers’ Compensation | Cleaners, maintenance techs and in-house staff injured on the job, including the turnover work that drives most of your labor hours. |
| Business Auto | Company and staff vehicles running turnovers, supply runs and emergency maintenance calls. |
| Property | The buildings, offices, storage units, and supply depots your business owns or occupies. |
| Business Personal Property | Linens, furnishings, tools, appliances, and inventory held for the properties you manage. |
| Cyber | Breaches involving guest data, booking systems, smart-lock platforms, and the payment information you handle. |
| Professional Liability | Claims arising from the management services you provide to owners, from listing and pricing decisions to accounting and reporting. |
| Excess Liability | Additional limits above your primary policies when one severe loss would otherwise exhaust them. |
Writing these lines together does more than simplify your certificate binder. It gives one advisor visibility across your entire risk picture, which is how gaps get caught during a review instead of during a claim.
The Best Claim Is the One You Never Have to File
The part operators tend to underestimate is what comes attached to the policy. Every commercial policy includes a built-in risk mitigation program: the plans, training, and protections that stop losses before they start. It is not an add-on product or a paid upgrade. It is value built into the coverage, and it is organized around four areas.
Cybersecurity and incident response
You get an information systems security policy covering baseline controls, data classification, and retention; a laptop and mobile security policy setting encryption, password and remote-wipe standards; and a formal incident response plan that names roles, communications, containment and recovery steps. Penetration testing and vulnerability scans arrive with prioritized findings and a remediation roadmap. Annual cyber awareness training includes phishing simulations and staff education. If a breach does happen, you get a breach playbook plus on-demand technical and legal triage.
People and employment risk controls
Employment claims are quieter than guest injuries and often more expensive. The program includes an employment practices toolkit with handbook and policy templates, harassment prevention and HR training paired with a legal helpline, background screening and anonymous reporting to reduce insider risk, and workplace violence prevention checklists with response referrals.
Technical controls and assessments
A network and system audit brings vulnerability scanning and log review. Secure configuration guidance covers the wi-fi, routers and IoT devices sitting in every unit you manage, including the smart locks, thermostats, and cameras that make modern operations efficient and also widen your attack surface. Documentation and evidence retention guidance keeps your record keeping claim-ready, which matters enormously on the day you need to prove what happened.
Property, operations and casualty
Property inspections and loss control surveys identify hazards and produce a written mitigation plan. Physical security assessments review lighting, access control, and camera placement. A vendor and contractor safety program handles insurance verification and contract clauses so a subcontractor’s mistake does not land on your policy. Tenant safety for short-term rentals covers what is unique to this industry: guest screening, emergency procedures, and signage.
How It Works: Assess, Mitigate, Respond
The program runs on a three-step cycle rather than a binder that sits on a shelf.
Assess. Inspections, audits and security assessments pinpoint your actual exposures instead of assumed ones.
Mitigate. Policies, training and playbooks close the gaps before a loss occurs.
Respond. Incident response and preferred vendors speed your recovery when something happens anyway.
What Arrives in Your Insurance Packet
This is where the program separates itself from a generic resources page. Your packet includes:
- A written incident response plan
- Laptop and information systems policy templates
- A penetration test schedule or report with a remediation summary
- An annual cyber awareness training schedule and completion proof
- An employment practices summary with hotline information
- A property inspection summary with an action list
- A preferred vendor list and post-loss contact sheet
Those documents do double duty. They reduce the chance of a loss, and they are exactly the evidence an underwriter wants to see when your renewal comes up.
Value Adds That Work Before and After a Loss
Three insurance-linked benefits round out the program. Policy-linked playbooks give you tailored response plans for your general liability, property, workers’ compensation, and errors and omissions exposures. Post-loss support connects you to preferred forensic IT, legal, and restoration vendors the moment a claim hits, so you are not sourcing a restoration firm at eleven at night. Co-funded remediation provides partial reimbursement for qualifying cyber or safety work, which lowers the cost of fixing a problem you already know about.
The combined effect is straightforward. Fewer losses, faster recovery, safer guests, and less of your time and budget spent on insurance so both can go back into the portfolio.
Backed by Industry-Leading Carriers and Partners
The program is supported by AmTrust Financial, Arlington/Roe, Ryan Turner Specialty, and LocalEdge, part of Bridge Specialty Group. Alongside the coverage lines, the agency provides OSHA compliance guidance, best hiring practices, and drug and safety protocols as part of a year-round risk management partnership.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need commercial insurance if I only manage a handful of short-term rentals?
It depends less on door count than on how you operate. If you employ or contract cleaners and maintenance staff, drive vehicles for the business, handle owner funds, or store guest data in a booking system, you have commercial exposures that a personal policy with a short-term rental endorsement was never written to cover.
Download our Commercial Lines flyer.
Is the risk mitigation program an extra cost?
No. It is built into the commercial coverage. The inspections, policy templates, training and response plans described above come with the policy rather than as a separately priced service.
Download our Risk Mitigation flyer.
Is the program available in my state?
Commercial Lines in partnership with RentalGuardian and ePremium is available in all 50 states.
How does any of this help at renewal?
Documented controls change how underwriters see you. Completed inspections, a written incident response plan, penetration test results, training completion records and a vendor safety program give an underwriter concrete evidence that your operation is actively managed, which supports better positioning when your policies come up for renewal.
Build It into Your Next Renewal
Don’t just insure the risk. Reduce it. If your current program was assembled policy by policy as your portfolio grew, a single review with a commercial risk advisor who works in short-term rentals will usually surface gaps you did not know you had.
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