[m__]

Why don't you start a business that offers competitive insurance packages to people who want to use airBnB (and similar products) instead of demanding a law that obviously would have a lot of unwanted side effects on people who _do_ know about the risks they are taking by entering this business?

Protective laws have very high hidden costs. These costs are hard to quantify and routinely are neglected when discussing pros and cons of said laws.

[m__]

Car insurance is different, because it also covers damages you inflict on others and other people's property.

I am speaking out against mandatory insurance of your own property. Yes, there will be cases where people are underinsured. But mandatory insurance would make some people overinsured. There is a long argument to be made for balancing this tradeoff, but in short: Owners are in a better position to judge whether they should insure their property than lawmakers and thus it should be up to them (again: as long as their property doesn't have a high probability of damaging other people; in such cases mandatory insurance might be reasonable).

[dlss]

It's very easy for younger smart people to be anarcho-capitalists (which I take it you are), but IMHO becomes progressively harder as you age.

The basic problem is that a "people know what's best for themselves" policy screws over dumb people for the simple reason that they don't.

Car insurance is a very interesting thing to legislate, because although the expected value of buying insurance is slightly negative, when you factor in the economies of scale on dealing with someone else's car getting repaired (figuring out if a bill is over market, handling multiple bills, tracking any medical expenses, etc), purchasing car insurance is strongly positive EV.

I think landlord insurance is similar.

>> Car insurance is different, because it also covers damages you inflict on others and other people's property.

Landlord insurance of course also covers this (if your property catches fire while you're renting it out, you may very well be legally responsible, if a previous renter breaks in and steals the new renters belongings you are probably legally responsible, etc).

Regardless, it seems based on what you said that you might be in favor of requiring renters to buy insurance. Is this correct?

[m__]

No. I wasn't even making an argument for mandatory car insurance. I was merely pointing out the difference to mandatory property insurance and said that this difference _might_ be the basis for a convincing argument in favor of the former.

[dlss]

Are you against requiring car insurance to drive? (another situation with a small chance of a large loss that most people can't afford)

If yes, please explain why. If not, please tell me what's different here. I'm genuinely confused why you said what you said.

[stumm]

Usually the only insurance you're required to have is for damage you do to others, not your own car. You're allowed screw yourself over.

[cpeterso]

But if the driver who hits my car can't afford insurance or the repairs for my car, then the other driver has screwed me over.

[prostoalex]

Rental property insurance is not a brand new idea.

Probably not worth to be codified as a law, after all, some may choose to bypass it, but other than that there are plenty of companies selling it (vacation properties and rentals existed long before AirBnB), and AirBnB could benefit from linking to those vendors.

[m__]

Of course. I didn't mean to say that she/he should actually start an insurance company. I wanted to point out that there are market-incentives that might motivate someone to offer such a service without the need for a law.