Your guest didn’t purchase a protection plan. That’s great!
On an almost daily basis you’ll see new hosts in Facebook groups asking what to do when they notice a guest booked their vehicle but did not purchase a protection plan.
“Should I cancel the trip?”
“Should I demand that they purchase one?”
“Should I require them to provide me with their personal insurance?”
The answer to all of the above is a resounding “No!” What you should do when a guests books your vehicle without choosing a protection plan is relax and be thankful that the guest chose to accept full responsibility for the total repair cost of your vehicle instead of being limited to an out-of-pocket maximum.
You see, that is the purpose of the guest protection plan, to protect the guest, not to protect you. Provided you followed all of the TOS at check-in, you will always be paid the repair cost of your vehicle (less your deductible), based on your host protection plan, not a guest protection plan. And in fact, it actually works in your favor when a guest declines a protection plan. Let’s explain why.
There are two ways to resolve a damage claim and be paid.
When a guest damages your vehicle, your first order of business is to file a damage claim with Turo within 24 hours of the trip end. As you are submitting the claim you’ll be asked if you’d like to settle the claim out directly with the guest or let Turo process it.
In many cases it is better for both the host and the guest to resolve the claim directly. You, the host, can collect from the guest the total cost of the repair (unless they chose a protection plan) and avoid your deductible. The guest can avoid being charged $300 to $500 in additional estimating and admin fees.
If you choose to just let Turo process the claim, your deductible will be subtracted from your payout and the guest will be charged those estimating and admin fees in addition to the repair cost for your vehicle.
It’s better for you if the guest declines the protection plan!
So an accident has happened, you’ve filed the claim, and you want to settle directly with the guest so you don’t have to worry about your deductible. Perfect! The repair cost of your vehicle is $3,800.
Sadly, for you, the guest purchased the “Minimum” protection plan with an out-of-pocket maximum of $3,000. They chose to protect themselves by limiting how much you, or Turo, can collect from them. This leaves $800 repair cost that will now come out of your pocket, not the guest’s, unless you choose to convert it to Turo for resolution, and then your own deductible will come into play, which could be even higher depending on your protection plan choice.
If the guest had declined a protection plan, you could have collected the full $3,800 from them (or their insurance company) and experienced zero out-of-pocket expense yourself.
Some hosts do choose to ask guests for their personal insurance information.
It’s perfectly fine for you to do so. When you opt to settle a claim directly with a guest, you can do it with them, or their insurance company. It is, however, a violation of the Terms of Service for you to cancel a trip solely because a guest does not have, or will not provide information for, their personal insurance.
There are plenty of things to think and worry about when hosting your vehicles on the Turo platform. There are also plenty of things that new hosts stress over which are completely unnecessary and this is one of those topics.