Your customers share everything. What could go wrong?

This article is part of a series sponsored by the Academy Journal.

Uber launched in 2010 in San Francisco with just a few cars and in the fourth quarter of 2024 it paid its drivers $20 billion. The Airbnb website says it was born in 2007 when two hosts welcomed three guests into their home and by 2023, the hosts will earn more than $57 billion. Your clients don’t just live in their homes and drive their cars to and from work. They “drive” the sharing economy with their cars, trucks, houses, pools, RVs, their time, and more.

In an economy where people feel crowded everywhere, sharing apps offer the promise of spending more money, while at the same time, getting better use out of the things people already own and use. As the share market has grown, it has also changed. What used to be the question of whether or not someone was listing a bedroom online, or whether or not they were logged into the delivery app is now the question of what they can share.

And the worst part is that, unless their insurance agent asks the question directly, most customers won’t think to say it.

Making money from everything

Consider the basis of sharing your home, or part of it, in the eyes of your clients, who are renting out their property. They own the house. They don’t use that room, and they put in an outside door when their 25-year-old comes home from college for a few years. It just sits, why not make a few extra dollars on the side. Since it is my home and I already pay for my home insurance, it should be covered. It’s not even worth mentioning because they’ve paid for homeowners insurance for the past 25 years, never had a claim, and can’t imagine ever having one.

Now, take that thought process and apply it to everything else they might be sharing.

“I’m already going to do some errands, I might go on Uber Eats and see if I can get a few things delivered.”

“I get off at five o’clock. I can take a few minutes to eat a quick dinner, then I’ll be out to the airport for a few hours to catch a flight.”

“I only use my travel trailer one or two weekends a month. I can set it up in the yard and list it online. Someone else might enjoy it and help pay for it.”

The hardest thing to get clients to think about is that this isn’t just about sharing their stuff with someone else and making money. Their insurance company looks at you differently than that. Issue any of your customer policies: HO-3, HO-4, HO-6, Personal Auto, or Recreational Vehicles. They will all tell you why the insurance company sees this exposure differently.

Excluded, limited, or problematic exposure

What they do matters. It’s not just that they’re making extra extra money in their spare time, or with stuff they don’t use. They change the risk factors in their lives, which means they change the risk factors that their insurance companies will see, which can make what they do a big deal for an underwriter or claims adjuster if something goes wrong.

Think about rooms that the owner does not use. It can be a spare room (with or without a separate door). It could be a swimming pool. They may have moved and instead of selling their house, they listed it online and paid their brother and his family to make sure the property was maintained between leases. Maybe they took the shed and turned it into a “small house” behind the building. Now, instead of regular guests, who come for a dinner party, a play date with their kids, or an overnight stay, there are guests who pay to use the place, and treat it like a hotel.

What if your client has a car that they don’t use every day? Maybe it’s a little exotic. Not like a 1969 Pontiac GTO judge, but maybe a late model Corvette. They don’t drive it often and learn that they can rent it out with Turo and make some money from it. They think, what’s the danger. My agent told me that anyone who drives my car with my permission is covered, so what’s the big deal if I let someone drive it and pay for it?

That same client loved renting her car so much that she listed her RV online on Airbnb and Outdoorsy. Now people can sit in the fifth wheel, or they can pick it up and drive it across the country on their vacation. Of course, there is no problem because I hope everyone has insurance and if there is an accident with someone driving their car, nothing will be their responsibility.

Your client just learned that they can sign up for Poplin and go pick up other people’s laundry, wash it, dry it, fold it, then return it and make some money doing something they already do. They don’t think about the fact that they have other people’s property in their hands. They do not think at all that something is happening and that the property is damaged when they have it.

At this point in the post, you should start looking at policies to find out where exclusions, limitations, and other issues may arise. Here is your RTFP alert. Read the FULL policy. We are not adding any policy words here. Think about your clients, what they do and don’t tell you about, and read their policies. When your risk meter recovers, come back here and check out a few tips on how to handle all the fun.

Good conversations make better clients

Never assume you know everything you need to know about your clients, even if they have been with you for years. Life changes and those changes are not always communicated to everyone who may need to know, such as their insurance agent.

It all starts with asking questions. Ask what apps they use. Ask how often they use the apps. Ask if they have other accommodations on site or if they have other properties listed anywhere online. A beautiful RV. Is it Outdoorsy? Hello. I see you put in a pool recently. Do you rent that? You don’t have to go too deep, but if you don’t start a conversation, you won’t know what’s going on.

Regardless of what questions you ask, and how the conversation goes, every conversation needs to be recorded in its own file. In fact, knowing that you’ll be writing an interview can encourage you to think about what questions you need to ask, and that can get you thinking about checklists. Having a checklist of common questions you ask, or a flowchart of questions to ask after asking each question will help you get the information you need in an organized way without having to memorize it.

If I may be direct, you need to write these conversations for at least two reasons. Your customers won’t remember a conversation without papers, especially if something happens and their claim is denied, or their policy is canceled due to a material misrepresentation. They will want to know where the money is coming from to fix the problem and if you don’t have good documentation, you can call your E&O company so you both can start writing checks. That’s where getting their signatures down the checklist comes in handy, too.

Another reason is that you won’t remember the conversations you had or didn’t have if they weren’t written down somewhere. You cannot control the quality of the conversations your team has with customers. You cannot ensure the effectiveness of training without having good record keeping standards within your agency. You lose a significant amount of good information if you don’t get things right.

Maybe you don’t have clients with exposure to share. Maybe this doesn’t fit your business letter at all. Or maybe you don’t know. Have conversations. Understand coverage gaps. Make sure you write everything down. It will probably be the best thing you do for your customers and your book of business in a long time.