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Accidental Rental Damage Insurance Posted: April 23, 2009, 5:15 PM ET Here is a business plan for handling security deposit issues, damage to your property and new market conditions. Ivacationonline.com has partnered with Travel Guard and released a new option for the owners and managers of vacation rentals called ACCIDENTAL RENTAL DAMAGE INSURANCE. There is now an interface in your property admin area to turn this feature on and off. Just select YES or NO depending on if you want to offer this to your guest. This is under Travel Guard DI. Accidental Rental Damage Insurance will cover the guest for up to $3000 in ACCIDENTAL damages to your property. This cost the guest $39 at the time of booking. The owner or manager receives $5 of this fee as a referral fee for providing this service to your guest. So this is another stream of income for the property. So you make money by using this service. You can turn this off and on if needed for your bookings. We suggest the following set up on your properties. Have the Travel Guard Accidental Rental Damage Insurance ON for each booking. Then also take credit cards through eCom and Authorize.net for more protection. This offers 2 layers of protection. You can have in your terms and conditions that you will not take a security deposit and that you use the Accidental Rental Damage Insurance. You can also have in your terms that you will also keep the guest credit card on file for any damages that exceed $3000 that is covered by the insurance or for any intentional damage that may occur. By charging the guest the $39, the guest does not have to come up with a security deposit that may make them feel the price is too high. By collecting a $500 security deposit, the total amount of initial money given to you from the guest is higher now. This may make them shop around. And then you only have $500 of coverage. For $39 in insurance you have $3000 in coverage! For anything that is not covered, having the credit card on file with eCom and Authorize.net will give you a back up plan if you need to charge for something that is not covered or is excess of $3000. This is much better coverage for you than having only $500 on hand. With new PCI compliance that is coming out, we will no longer be able to keep guest credit card on file for the owners use. (PCI compliance is now an industry standard for merchants and storing credit cards in a transaction.) All credit card information by law will need to be stored with vendors like Authorize.net. They store it for up to 90 days. By taking a payment either first or second within 90 days of the lease date gives you the option to bill that card IF you encounter a violation of your terms and conditions that exceeds the Accidental Rental Damage Insurance or is not covered by this policy. What is covered by the Accidental Rental Damage Insurance? Great question! There is a claim form in your property admin under the Travel Guard DI link. Fill out that form and send it thru our system when you need to file a claim. That is the first step. What is covered is Accidental Rental Damage. That means the damage can not be intentional. If a pet "accidently" stains the carpet that will be covered up to $3000 to have it cleaned or repaired. If a guest intentionally breaks a window, that is not covered and you will have to go to your terms and conditions as they have violated them and then you can charge the credit card on file with Authorize.net for the cost to fix the issue. Many owners have a NO SMOKING policy and ask for a set amount of money for cleaning if evidence of smoking is found in the property. This is NOT covered by Accidental Rental Damage Insurance as it is not an accident. The guest intentionally smoked in your unit. So you still need a back up to cover yourself in this situation. There are many variations to this and there are phone numbers to call to ask questions. They are below. The rule of thumb will be, "was this an accident". Ask your self that first. These are 2 great ways to minimize your exposure as an owner/manager and give the guest a great alternative when booking your property to keep the out lay of cash to a minimum. |
Patent Pending Automated Online Booking System for Private Owners
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