GoCompare and Pikl help to bridge home insurance gap with cover for AirBnB hosts and short-term lets

GoCompare has partnered with Pikl, a specialist insurer providing cover for people who rent out their home, to ensure that homeowners are getting the right insurance cover for their needs.

GoCompare is the first comparison site to integrate this into the home insurance quote process, helping homeowners who want to let their property make sure they have the right insurance cover in place.

Traditionally, standard home insurance policies do not cover commercial use of a property – such as letting a room or driveway and claims for theft would not be covered if the theft was by a guest. But “host insurance” is a type of insurance that can complement a home insurance policy and will provide cover for guest injuries, property loss, or damage caused by hosting activities. It may also include cover for:

• Fires caused by a guest
• Escape of water caused by a guest
• Accidental or malicious damage caused by a guest
• Third-party property damage caused by guests

Within GoCompare’s home insurance quote process, an option is now presented to customers to declare whether or not they let their property on a short-term basis, which allows customers to return quotes from a panel of insurers offering a specialist Home Insurance product along with Pikl’s Host Insurance.

Ryan Fulthorpe from GoCompare Home Insurance commented: “The sharing economy looks only set to increase with the world opening up once more – people can now share driveways, cars and even their homes, with a whole host of innovative businesses making this a feasible way for people to live more sustainably and make money. While this brings lots of positives for homeowners who want to make extra cash, it’s important that the insurance side of this is considered. There would be nothing worse than making money from letting a room in your property, only to be caught out if you need to claim for damages but your policy is invalid.

“At the moment, when it comes to hosting or short-term letting a property, not many home insurance policies will cover you if you need to make a claim, so there is a potential risk for a lot of people who “host” not to have the right insurance cover in place. Which is why we felt it was important to address this during the quote process – before someone takes out a policy.”

Ryan added: “Many people, through no fault of their own, might not realise they need this type of cover so it’s something we are signposting as a way to help people get the right cover in place.”

Louise Birritteri CEO and Founder of Pikl also commented: “Our industry-wide report ’Insuring the sharing economy in 2019’ highlighted that the insurance needs of over 1 million short-term rental hosts were not being adequately accommodated by major insurers in the UK.   We’re delighted that this partnership with GoCompare will now go a long way to making sure people in the sharing economy are operating with the right type of insurance cover and won’t be left at risk from theft, damage, fire or even public liability. We expect many other product manufacturers and distributors to follow suit.”

For more information about host insurance, please visit: https://www.gocompare.com/home-insurance/holiday-let-insurance/                        

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For further information please contact:

Lynsey Walden on lynsey.walden@gocompare.com

Or Kathryn.chadwick@gocompare.com

Or you can call the press office on 02920 020360

Keep up-to-date with GoCompare on Twitter; @GoCompare

Notes to editors

About GoCompare

GoCompare is a comparison website that enables people to compare the costs and features of a wide variety of insurance policies, financial products and energy tariffs.

It does not charge people to use its services and does not accept advertising or sponsored listings, so all product comparisons are unbiased. GoCompare makes its money through fees paid by the providers of products that appear on its various comparison services when a customer buys through the site.

When it launched in 2006, it was the first comparison site to focus on displaying policy details rather than just listing prices, with the aim of helping people to make better-informed decisions when buying their insurance. It is this approach to comparing products that secured the company an invitation to join the British Insurance Brokers’ Association (BIBA) in 2008, and it is still the only comparison site to be a member of this organisation.

GoCompare has remained dedicated to helping people choose the most appropriate products rather than just the cheapest and works with Defaqto, the independent financial researcher, to integrate additional policy information into a number of its insurance comparison services. This allows people to compare up to an extra 30 features of cover.

GoCompare is part of Future Plc and is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

More information can be found here www.gocompare.com or here https://www.futureplc.com/brands/.