Trigger for Travel Insurance NOT Purchased

There is a trigger for Travel Insurance Purchased, Available, and Not Available, but not for Not Purchased.

Adding the latter will allow me to send a message to only my guests who don't purchase the insurance a Cancellation Policy/Travel Insurance reminder when they book.

Hi Scott,

I'm just getting the feel of everything so I dont know for sure.  However, I would think that the <Available> option would mean 2 things:  1) Trip insurance is offered.  2) That guest hasn't purchased trip insurance.   If you bought insurance then it is no longer available.  Otherwise, it implies that you can purchase several trip insurance policies against the same booking days.

Hi Ed, that's a thought. Hopefully someone from OR can elaborate what "Available" and "Not Available" mean.

It's actually a bit more complicated than that - we can't necessarily always tell whether insurance can or cannot be purchased, because of some geographic and nationality limitations that OR may not know enough details to properly judge.  In addition, we don't always accurately know whether travel insurance has been purchased, because it is also possible for guest to purchase it directly, or for OR servers to not be properly notified.  So, "Available" and "Not Available" are our best guess, but not guaranteed to be accurate.  For this reason, we're hesitant to add a trigger dependent on not-always-certain data.  We are continuing to work with RentalGuardian to improve the API and overall process to make this possible.

Thanks for that clarification, Ken!

Scott,

What's your take on trip insurance?  do you get a lot of guests to purchase it?  If so, I'd love it if you could share your pitch to guests.  Also, could you comment on those guests that do cancel and their reason for cancellation is not one that is reimbursed.   How often does that come back to you?

Cancellations are the one area that causes me the most frustration.   My position is that a guest can or buy trip insurance or self-insure and save the approx 12%.   Guests tend to think that the host should eat the cost which drives me nuts.

I've written a nice write-up explaining our business model is different than a hotel and more similar to a cruise ship.  Motel/hotels get 50% of their bookings on the day of stay.  No one is going to drive by my place on the day of stay and book it.   Guests tend to think hosts can put the days back and use them another time (works for a hotel because someone else uses them).  My position is that once booked a lack of stay is between the guest and their trip insurance.  YET every time, I'm in the middle defending that they can't rebook another time and NO I'm not going to give them their money back, and I still have to pay my full mortgage even when the place wasn't used for 1/2 the days.  If the guest does release their days and I can rebook, I do refund 80% of what I recover as I do not want to profit on a guest's misfortune.  

Hi Ed,

I've struggled with this too. But now that I'm much more clear with my guests that they can purchase travel insurance in the event that they need to cancel, they know that the ball is in their court. I find that kind but firm communication is what wins the game. Guests who don't like my policies can book somewhere else. I don't need the headaches.

Hi Scott,  Available and Unavailable in relation to Travel Insurance means that either the guests are still able to purchase travel insurance vs. Unavailable whereas the guest's booking no longer qualifies.  There are specific eligibility rules on when travel insurance can be purchased (available) and when it would no longer be available for purchase (unavailable).  We do have a great support document that you may find helpful:  https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/offer-travel-insurance-email