Your Own Home, that’s also rented

Renting out your home as a short-term rental (Bachcare, for example) or have boarders living with you? This is all-year-round insurance for the family home, that’s also partly or entirely rented out.  Get replacement insurance for your home & contents, including liability, rents, and guest damage.

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Protection for your own home as an short-term rental

Our combined own home and short-term guest insurance provides protection for important events including fires, earthquakes and floods, as well as short-stay or flatmate risks such as loss of rent, damage and theft by guests. It also covers host & owner liability. This policy is made for people who live in their own house but also have renters, like flatmates or short-term guests. Your guests share your kitchen and entranceway.

Got boarders?

This cover is for you if you want added insurance protection on your property from losses or damage related to boarders who live in the home with you.

  • Cover that’s always active

    Whether you rent out your entire home on AirBnB (or similar), or just a room, our policy provides extensive cover for your home and contents for when you have paying guests and when you don’t.

  • Trusted by the best

    Initio is the selected insurance partner of the New Zealand Property Investors Federation, and Bachcare. We insure New Zealand’s leading property owners.

  • Smart. Secure. Online.

    We use our technology to save you time and money, with features including instant certificate of insurance to your inbox and the ability to make changes to your cover in real-time with NZ’s only Live Policy Management. It also means that we pay claims fast.

Benefits of our cover – from the Initio CEO

Own home that's rented - some of the benefits

Full comprehensive insurance for the house itself

Full cover up to the house insured value
Excess is your choice starting from $400

Accidental damage by You or Guests

Full cover up to the house insured value

Replacement Contents Cover (new for old)

Your choice of $60,000 - $220,000 Cover
Excess is your choice starting from $250

Contents covered anywhere in New Zealand

If you leave the property and take contents with you
eg. Jewellery, laptops, phones, cover continues

Deliberate damage or theft (house and contents) by paying guests

$25,000 cover

Loss of Rent - following property damage

Up to 52 weeks based on historical & future bookings
Your choice of $20,000 - $80,000 cover

Host/Owner's Liability Cover

$1 million cover
Includes Bodily Injury and Defence Costs

Natural Disaster

Full cover up to the house insured value
(includes EQC cover)

Hidden Gradual Damage (e.g. a leaking pipe)

$3,000 Cover

Alternative Accommodation

While you live elsewhere while the home is repaired
Covered up to 52 weeks and $20,000

Excess

Your choice of $250 - $2000.
No additional excess when rented to guests

Keys & Locks - Nil excess

Guest taken your keys?
$1,000 cover - no excess

Blocked Pipes - Nil excess

Blocked sewage or water pipe?
$1,000 cover - no excess

Home Policy - includes landlords protection benefit

Contents Policy Wording

Common questions about insuring a short-term rental home

Not exactly. The AirBnB Host Guarantee is not insurance, it’s really a discretional promise to put you right if something goes wrong while you are renting your property to short staying guests. It is not insurance that’s backed by a registered and rated insurer, and it’s not regulated by New Zealand’s stringent insurance rules.

So it’s important that you have a primary insurance policy that provides robust cover for when you do and when you don’t have paying guests staying in the property. It is also more beneficial to have this cover all in one place so you don’t have to deal with both your insurer and the guest platform provider (e.g. AirBnB). This is especially important in situations where there is a loss that is both guest related and non guest related (e.g. a storm).

Guarantees or contingency policies do not replace insurance cover on your own home. It’s important to have a fit for purpose primary home and contents insurance policy that provides protection when paying guests are in the home.

Yes – thats exactly what the ‘Initio Own Home thats Rented’ policy is designed for.

We know because it’s your own home the property will have a combination of personal effects and general contents items.

Contents you take with you:
If you rent your entire home out and take any contents items with you (e.g. laptop, clothing, phone, bikes, jewellery, etc.) these are insured for their full replacement value (new for old). Note that for jewellery and bikes you will need to specify an individual item if it’s over a certain value (e.g. unspecified jewellery items are limited to $3,000).  Items over the limits can be specified  through your initio dashboard or during sign up.

Contents you leave at the home:
In addition the contents that stay in the home, while the property has guests in it are insured up to the contents sum insured you have chosen if it’s a general loss (e.g. storm, fire, flood, accidental damage by the guest etc).

If the guest steals or deliberately damages your contents cover is limited to $25,000 under the home insurance policy.

No, unlike other insurers the excess you pay is the excess you choose for your own home.  No additional excess applies for when guests are renting the home.

Yes.  The policy comes standard with 52 weeks of rents cover (limited to $20,000).  You can choose to increase this to either $40,000 or $80,000 for a small additional premium.

The loss of rents insurance cover will provide cover when the home is damaged and can no longer be rented out. We take a historical and future looking approach to calculate what this loss is. The occupancy of your home’s location region is also taken into account. We aim to cover you for the loss of rental income you would have received if you were still able to rent out your own home.

In addition the policy provides cover for Alternative Accommodation costs ($20,000) which means that if you and your family are also not able to live in the home (e.g. after a major fire), insurance will contribute to the costs of renting an alternative home while we fix or rebuild your damaged home.

Yes.  This is an all-in-one home insurance policy, that includes insurance protection for the home when its rented to paying guests.

It’s a robust home and contents insurance, that has been supercharged to provide protection for guest risks (e.g. accidental or deliberate damage, loss of rental income, liability).

We recommend that you insure your home for the amount it would cost to replace it with a new one, with modern building materials. Within this total rebuild value you will also need to include extra things like fences, driveways, and swimming pools.
It is also recommended that you add in a provision for the inflation in the cost of materials and the cost to demolish and clean up the site.

Online tools such as SumSure are a helpful guide to calculating your rebuild cost, including a provision for demolition.

For more accuracy a quantity surveyor such as CCC will provide a full and accurate breakdown of the replacement value. See here for more information about a rebuild valuation.

Lean more about calculating the insured value of your home.

Yes.  You can rent your entire property out to short-staying guests (e.g. through AirBnB or Bachcare), while you travel overseas or stay elsewhere.  The initio ‘own home rented’ cover is designed for this very situation.

Yes. Your home and contents are covered when you have guests and when you don’t.

The initio policy is an all-in-one cover for losses to your home (e.g. fire, wind earthquake, storm, flood, etc etc) and for the guest related losses (e.g. theft, accidental damage, liability, loss of rents).

Contents is optional. You will need to choose to include this cover when you get your instant quote from us. You can select your amount of cover on the quote page.

Yes.  Your home and contents are covered when you have guests and when you don’t.

The initio policy is an all-in-one cover for losses to your home (eg fire, wind earthquake, storm, flood, etc etc) and for the guest related losses (eg theft, accidental damage, liability, loss of rents)

Contents is optional. You will need to choose to include this cover when you get your instant quote from us. You can select your amount of cover on the quote page.

This policy will only work for you you and your family also use the separate structure/house when it is not rented to short staying guests. The secondary dwelling also cannot have its own full cooking or toilet facilities. If the structure is capable of being lived in full time and it’s not used by you then it’s likely it will not meet the Earthquake Commission’s requirements for classifying it as a residential property, meaning that there is no EQC cover.

If you use it yourself as part of your property and it’s not the full monty in terms of living, then you’ll be able insure this with us under the ‘Own Home that’s Rented’ policy.

Get a quick quote here 

Yes it does.  This policy provides you with added protection (over and above and standard own-home policy) for the risks associated with flatmates.  This includes cover for things like

  1.  Loss of rents (resulting from damage, ie the house not being liveable)
  2.  Deliberate Damage to your property (up to $25,000)
  3.  Theft of household contents (present day value cover up to $25,000)
  4.  Accidental damage (up to your house sum insured)
  5.  Your liability to the boarders

Yes, cover continues as per normal.

If the part of the house the boarders live in has a separate entry and has its own kitchen, living and toilet facilities then this policy does not work as the boarders are really tenants.

In this situation you should ensure you have a formal tenancy agreement to manage your tenant risk, and for insurance you will need to insure your Own Home on a separate policy, and the boarders part of the property on a Rental Property Insurance Policy.  Both can be done quickly online with initio.

This approach also ensures that the correct fire service and Govt. Earthquake levies are collected.

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