ATLANTA — An Atlanta man is warning people about an insurance loophole that is making him foot the bill of thousands of dollars in damages after a group of teens turned his rental house into a party house.
"I feel violated by not being informed whenever I was buying the policy that it would not cover these types of situations," Brady Mills told Channel 2's Lauren Pozen.
Mills used Red-Awning to rent out his second home in Nashville.
Renters threw a raging party, some of it captured on his outdoor security cameras.
“There was about $10,000 worth of damage to the property and $2,000 to $3,000 of loss income as we tried to renovate and fix the damage,” he explained.
But Mills has a short term rental insurance policy or so he thought.
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"I found out through the process that policy was a landlord policy that was marketed as a short term rental policy,” he said.
Under that policy, Mills says certain damage wasn't covered.
“Damage that is caused by a tenant intentionally so that could be theft or intentional vandalism," he said.
Attorney Evan Kaine said there’s not a "one size fits all" policy for any type of insurance coverage.
"The key boils down to what the policy says every policy is different and you have to read the policy language to make sure you are getting what you think you are buying," he said.
It's a costly lesson, but one Mills said he's learned from.
"It doesn’t matter if it is a huge insurance company or not the most important thing you need to know what is in your policy," Mills said.
One might think Mills would shy away from short term renting after this experience. But that's not the case.
He told Pozen he got a new policy with a new company and plans to rent out his home again in the future.
Cox Media Group
