Plantation residents urge city to ease $2 million insurance rule for vacation rentals

Several Plantation homeowners asked the City Council on Tuesday to review the city's vacation-rental insurance requirement after their permit applications stalled while they tried to obtain the required certificate of liability insurance.

At a public comment segment, resident Aaron John told the council that his family's vacation-rental application (VR25055) is complete except for the city's insurance certificate and that agents he contacted said the $2,000,000 aggregate requirement is costly or unavailable for many small operators. "The only thing that's pending right now on the vacation rental application is the certificate of liability insurance," John said.

John and his mother, Angela John, said they tried multiple insurers and found $1,000,000 policies readily available but had difficulty finding the $2,000,000 aggregate the city requires. Angela John told council members that several insurers said the $2,000,000 aggregate premium was "extraordinarily priced" and in one case quoted about $575 (presumably a monthly or other periodic cost) for some coverages but no final placement. Neighbor Stanley Calliert said his family faces the same delay and has submitted written correspondence to staff.

City staff said the requirement originated from concerns about high-risk events and experience with severe incidents at some licensed short-term rentals. Assistant Director of Planning and Economic Development Michael Alpert and Planning staff said the requirement is intended to be "rigorous" and that other cities and property owners have been able to provide the form and substance of the coverage. At one point Mr. Alpert said the city would not recommend deviating from its insurance requirement "on the fly."

Several speakers asked the council to accept insurers provided by short-term rental platforms such as Airbnb and Booking.com, which they said include some liability protections, or to allow lower limits (for example, $1,000,000). John asked the council to "consider accepting that insurance instead of having the Plantation residents deal with the burden of trying to get that. Since it's already there, we would rather not pay for something that's already there." The speakers also noted delays in the city's review of online application documents and asked staff to streamline portal processing.

City staff replied that the city could bring options back to the council for consideration and said staff would prepare comparisons of other jurisdictions' requirements and examples of whether $2,000,000 aggregate coverage is necessary to protect the city's interests. Staff also said they would return with an analysis that separates hosted versus non-hosted rentals, and the differences between corporate-backed short-term rental operators and owner-occupied or small-scale hosts.

Ending: Council members did not take an immediate vote. Staff agreed to review the concerns, gather comparisons and insurance-market information, and report back to the council. Residents were advised to leave contact information with the city clerk; speakers said they would submit documentation of their attempts to purchase required coverage.