Insurance for hosts

In most cases a personal auto policy excludes using the car for money, and renting it to someone is exactly that. If a renter crashes, the insurer can deny the claim, and some insurers will also refuse to renew the policy once they learn the car was being rented. Read your own policy's exclusions, or ask your agent, to know where you stand.

That is true whether the rental came from Turo, from your own booking page, or from a friend of a friend. The policy looks at what the car was doing, not where the booking came from.

Turo's host protection plans, and the equivalents on other marketplaces, cover trips booked through that marketplace. They do not cover a trip you booked yourself.

A booking that comes in through your Odomo page is a direct rental. No marketplace is standing behind it. Between your personal policy's exclusion and the platform's limits, that trip may have no coverage at all unless you have arranged it yourself.

Florida's peer-to-peer car sharing law puts the duty to insure a shared car on the car-sharing program, during trips booked through the program. As we read it, it does not reach a rental you book yourself. For a direct rental there is no program between you and the renter.

Under Florida's dangerous instrumentality doctrine, the owner of a car is generally liable for the driver's negligence. Florida law caps that liability for a business that rents cars to the public, and a federal law does the same for owners in the rental business who were not themselves negligent. Whether a host with a few cars qualifies is not settled by anything on this page. It is the question to put to a Florida attorney.

Florida's state minimums, $10,000 of personal injury protection and $10,000 of property damage liability, are far below what a rental business needs. Treat them as a floor, not a target.

One more Florida rule that matters for your agreement: by default, the car owner's insurance is primary on a rental. The renter's insurance is primary only if the rental agreement says so in at least 10-point type, using the exact sentence the statute prescribes. Odomo's default agreement includes that sentence. If you use your own agreement, check that it does too.

• Carry a commercial auto or rental-fleet policy, or a car-sharing endorsement if your carrier offers one. This is the coverage that pays when a renter has a crash.
• Collect proof of the renter's insurance and keep it on file. Odomo has a place for it on every renter, with the expiry date. Many personal policies follow the driver into a rented car for liability, and for collision only if they carry collision on their own car, but policies differ and some carriers exclude cars rented from private owners. When in doubt, have the renter confirm with their carrier.
• Verify the driver's license, and take a deposit. Both back up the damage clause in your agreement.
• Use an agreement that says the renter is responsible for damage and that names the renter's insurance as primary. Odomo's default does both, and it is marked as a draft until an attorney has reviewed it for your business.

A contract clause settles who pays between you and the renter. It does not stop an injured third party from suing the car's owner, and it is worthless if the renter's insurance turns out not to exist or not to apply. That is why the policy in your own name matters most.

Florida imposes a rental car surcharge of $2 per day, for the first 30 days of a rental, on cars rented for hire by a motor vehicle rental company, collected by the rental company. Peer-to-peer programs pay a reduced $1 per day on their trips. Short-term car rentals are also generally subject to Florida sales tax. Marketplaces handle these on their trips. On a direct booking, whether and how they apply to you is a question for your accountant, and if they apply, you are the one collecting and remitting them.

Odomo does not calculate, collect or remit taxes and does not advise on them. Your Finances page shows what you took in so your accountant can work from it. Ask a Florida accountant before your first direct booking.

• Florida Statutes s. 627.7263, rental and leasing driver's insurance to be primary: https://www.flsenate.gov/laws/statutes/2024/627.7263
• Florida Statutes s. 324.021, financial responsibility definitions and lessor liability limits: https://www.flsenate.gov/laws/statutes/2024/324.021
• Florida Statutes s. 627.7483, peer-to-peer car sharing insurance requirements: https://www.flsenate.gov/laws/statutes/2024/627.7483
• Florida Statutes s. 212.0606, rental car surcharge: https://www.flsenate.gov/laws/statutes/2024/212.0606
• Progressive, peer-to-peer car rental insurance: https://www.progressive.com/answers/peer-to-peer-car-insurance/
• Liberty Mutual, does car insurance cover peer-to-peer rentals: https://www.libertymutual.com/insurance-resources/auto/does-car-insurance-cover-peer-to-peer-rentals
• Turo, off-trip insurance for hosts: https://turo.com/us/en/car-rental/united-states/host-hub/resources/off-trip-insurance

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