UK: As the summer holiday season winds down, GUARDHOG has unveiled its GUESTCOVER guest protection insurance, in light of scammers targeting users of home-sharing properties.
Polling 2,000 members of the public, the pay-per-stay home-sharing insurance specialist found that nearly one in ten Brits has at some time arrived at an Airbnb or short-term rental property only to find it does not exist. Even when properties do exist, 25 per cent are left disappointed by their holiday rental property when it fails to live up to expectations.
The GUESTCOVER protection, which GUARDHOG claims is the first of its kind in the market, helps travellers who book properties through sites such as Airbnb or Booking.com. It provides insurance coverage throughout a guest’s stay with the added benefit of sourcing alternative accommodation as well as safe transport should guests be left in the lurch.
Meanwhile, for £15-£20 per booking, GUESTCOVER offers comprehensive protection for guests during their stay, covering pretty much everything that could go wrong from home misrepresentation to fraud.
According to the research, over 69 per cent of Brits are unaware that traditional travel insurance does not cover guests if there is a problem with the property they have booked, including the property being a scam, fraud, misrepresentation or cancellation. When booking on a platform such as Homeaway, Airbnb or Booking.com, while there is a chance that disappointed guests could be offered a more suitable location should their accommodation not be as advertised, it is far more likely that due to limited availability, they will not be able to be accommodated.
GUARDHOG co-founder and CEO, Humphrey Bowles, said: “The majority of travellers using home-sharing platforms haven’t even considered what happens when the home they’ve booked has a holiday-ending incident: a leak, a fire or it’s simply not there. This is compounded as there is an alarming mis-perception that their travel insurance covers home-sharing disasters.
“Guests deserve to stay in the property they’ve paid for and when their expectations are not met – or when they fall victim to scams – they deserve to be compensated.
“That’s where GUESTCOVER comes in. We are committed to helping travellers book their accommodation with full confidence that if they don’t get what they booked, we’re there to help,” he added.
For more information, visit the GUARDHOG website here.
