Blog

Sort by

• Newest Reply
• Newest Topic

This is true. We are going to be amending our settings to not allow the "make required" option. We have heard this as well and the carriers are confirming it. Very few people have that in place, so it shouldn't affect the majority. Insurance is heavily regulated and one of the fundamental tenants of insurance law is that it must be something the consumer chose to buy.

Incidentally, this is why Damage Protection is carefully worded to be insurance for the owner, not the guest, and why it does not involve the guest for verifying damage. If it was insurance for the guest, the guest would have to choose to buy it. When we add "Optional Guest-Selected Damage Protection" option in the future, it will be a different product that covers the guest.

They can buy standard TI on or before the final payment is due or on the booking date or up to 30 days before arrival, whichever comes last.

They can buy CFAR TI within 14 days of the booking date or up to 3 before arrival, whichever comes first. So if it's more than 14 days from original booking date, that's it - can't buy it. If you booked within 14 days of arrival, then it's up to 3 days before arrival.

Now if you book inside of 30 days, then both standard and TI are available on that booking date. The next day (which is no longer the booked date) only the CFAR would technically be possible.

What many of our users do is to use a trigger email to tell Air/HA bookings about TI after the fact and ask them to buy it using the TI guest form link in the email. This can all be done dynamically using email templates and triggers. There is a specific criteria on triggers to only send if TI is not purchased and still available.

Here's an example email template that you might send about buying travel insurance:

In the above text, you might create clickable links around some of that language and the link at the end.

For those of you who've been with OwnerRez for awhile, you've encountered (and fought with!) the rates system. We've added and enhanced it over the past decade, including new concepts like spot rates, but the underlying rates and seasons concepts and editors have been basically the same for that period.

Over the holidays this year we did a lot of thinking about rates and came up with a new modernized design that makes seasonal rates simpler, more powerful and a LOT easier to work with -- using a similar editor as Spot Rates has in the Rate Calendar.

Note: If you're not using seasons/seasonal rates at all and are just using spot rates, or are using a tool like Pricelabs, this won't affect what you're doing now. But if you like the idea of being able to set seasonal default rates, then set spot rates on top, this makes it a lot simpler to do that!

We've been hard at work on the new rates system and editor ever since, and are proud to finally announce the culmination of all of that work!

The new rate editor puts your seasons and seasonal rates all on one screen and lets you set and update the amounts at a click. That gives you a foundation of seasonal default rates which you can then override with spot rates to tweak amounts for specific dates. Read more about the seasonal rates editor.

We've also removed a lot of the fiddly settings that tend to trip people up -- like priority, stay allowed, rate length and taxability, etc. -- in favor of simple rules based settings like Length Of Stay (LOS) discounts that play well with spot rates and are supported by channels.

If your account doesn't use any of the old concepts, you've been automatically upgraded to the new rates editor. If you have been using the old concepts, we haven't upgraded your account yet and left it in legacy rates mode for the time being. There is an upgrade tool you can use to convert to the new system.

We've got a lot more updates planned over the next year, both for the new seasonal rates system and the spot rates system. Very excited to see these two concepts coming together to make a powerful whole!

How does this work for bookings that come from Airbnb and Homeaway?

I didn’t know that. I would imagine that they just do not book my rental if they do not want to purchase it. Wouldn’t they get a total, before booking?

Another question, if the guest booked less than 2 weeks ago but their arrival date is less than 30 days away, are they not allowed to purchase the CFAR because the travel date is less than 30 days away? No matter what, in order to get TI or CFAR TI they must be 30+ days away; am I understanding this correctly?

Curious, you are trying to make it required? I thought by law in the USA you can not make travel insurance a requirement? Are you in another country by chance? Or was there a change in the USA?

I thought I entered Rravel insurance as required, but it does not seem to come up during quote.

That is possible yes, but you'd have to adjust the "booked" date to today as well. That is typically not done (it's buried under the booking > Info tab) but that would make sense in the scenario you laid out. The booked date is what CFAR time restrictions hinge off of.

What if a guest decided, today, to push their dates back to 3 months from now and there was a cost to move the dates; would today mark the date as if this was a new booking? Since we are applying outstanding balance due, a new reservation date and a new agreement?

is there a template email for the announcement to send to customers if they'd like to purchase it now ( or would it be worth it now for current reservations?

Normally the CFAR can only be purchased via OwnerRez within 2 weeks of the booking being made. Sometimes, if the guest has the basic travel insurance already, they can call the number in their insurance policy and upgrade with the insurance company directly.

I tested how it appears to some of my bookings 5-6 months out and the CFAR says it is not available for that booking. Can we confirm for sure that existing guests get the option?

I'd like to send out a special notice to my guests telling them, but don't want them to go to the page and find it is not available.

Will the basic coverage (not CFAR) cover a guest if the government closes the destination to travel?

@Sheila: Sorry, I missed that first part! In theory, you can upgrade standard TI to CFAR but you'd have to call RentalGuardian to do that as we don't have the ability built in yet and it would have to still be within the CFAR time frame. So if it's been more than 14 days from initial booking date, you could not upgrade to CFAR.

@Lydia B: Yes, CFAR is still available for pre-existing bookings/guests, however the CFAR limitations apply. Notice above how we mentioned the 14 day rule. The 30 day/final payment is for standard TI, not CFAR. CFAR has it's own special time limitations.

@Ella: Yes, due to NY and WA state insurance laws, the CFAR policy is not legal for residents of that state. Residency is based on billing address. So if your guest has a billing address in a different state, they can use that when buying the insurance.

@Lisa O: The exclusion is for residents (ie. travelers or guests) who live in those states. So when the guest goes to buy CFAR and enters a NY address in their credit card info, the system will kick it back with an error message. The property itself (eg. your rental cabin) can be anywhere, even outside the US

@Sandy R: Yes, it sure can! And we highly encourage that - emailing OTA guests and pushing them to buy it right after the booking comes in. You can create a trigger in OR specifically designed to go out to anyone that does not have TI right after a booking comes in.

Is this something that could also apply to reservations through OTA's like VRBO? Maybe give the guest an option to purchase it after they book?

What does the Exclusion mean? Only residents in these states or because the VR is in these states?

Paul W says:"Also, NY and WA state residents are excluded unfortunately.
can you clarify. Does this mean that any guests that resides in New York state or WA CANNOT purchase the insurance?

Thank you so much!

Paul - Normally you can purchase the insurance up to 30 days before traveling or at any time before final payment. Is CFAR included if guests who are already booked for travel later in the year decide to purchase (assuming the 30 day/final payment conditions)?

Thanks, Paul... Can guests who have already purchased standard insurance for upcoming trips upgrade to CFAR or is this only offered on a moving forward basis for new reservations?

@Sheila: You can't make CFAR required at this time. The guest would have to select it.

@Solterra Beach V: The purchaser (ie. traveler) must be a US resident to buy CFAR. This is a hard and fast requirement at the moment. We are checking to see if there is a program for Canada, but nothing at the moment. The address of the destination (ie. property) doesn't matter - it can be outside the US. Also, NY and WA state residents are excluded unfortunately.

Is there any chance this can be extended to those outside the US?

This is great news! Can guests who have already purchased standard insurance for upcoming trips upgrade to CFAR or is this only offered on a moving forward basis for new reservations?

Also, will we have the option to make CFAR a requirement like (I believe) we can standard insurance?

This depends on entirely when the TI policy was purchased. If it was purchased back before covid-19 was a known event and thus "unforeseen" then it might. On the other hand, if they cancelled because of the scare alone and not because their travel was restricted (ie. government mandated curfew, STR shut down, airline stopped flying) then it may not. So it depends entirely on the time of purchase and the trigger event both.

But CFAR will cover 60% if the standard side does not work regardless. CFAR always works no matter the trigger event or reason.

yay... thankyou for being so responsive to our needs!

YOU GUYS ROCK!!!! THANK YOU

Does the CFAR cover cancelling for the co vid 19 virus at 100% or 60%?

THANK YOU SO MUCH!