The Endorsements That Limit CGL Coverage for STR Managers & Co-Hosts
A cleaner leaves a sink running. The unit floods. Twenty thousand dollars in water damage to a home you manage.
Most managers assume that is exactly what their general liability policy is for. Many find out otherwise at the worst possible moment.
Damage to managed properties is one of the most frequent and costly claim types in short-term rental management. It is also one of the most commonly removed, by endorsements that read as administrative and function as decisive.
Two show up repeatedly in policies sold to vacation rental managers. This guide covers what CG 2270 and CGL 1613 do, why carriers use them, and how to tell whether either one is on your policy.
What Commercial General Liability (CGL) Insurance Is Supposed to Cover
Commercial General Liability (CGL) protects the management company against allegations that it is legally liable for harm arising from its operations, across three categories.
Bodily Injury Liability
A person is physically injured and alleges the manager is responsible. Slip and fall accidents, stairway falls, pool and hot tub incidents, dog bites, burns, falling objects, and wrongful death allegations.
Guest injuries happen daily across hospitality. The question is not whether one is possible at a property you manage. It is whether your business is prepared when it happens.
Property Damage Liability
Worth being precise about the term, because the confusion here is expensive.
Property Damage Liability refers to allegations that you caused damage to someone else's property and are legally liable for it. It is not insurance for property your business owns, which is Property Insurance and a separate thing entirely.
Examples include water damage, fire and smoke damage, vendor-caused damage, maintenance-related damage, and damage arising from your operations.
A manager hires a plumber to repair a toilet. The repair looks successful. Days later the toilet overflows and causes extensive water damage. The owner alleges the manager failed to properly oversee the work. Whether or not that holds up, the manager is now in the claim.
Personal and Advertising Injury
Allegations involving defamation, slander, libel, wrongful eviction, and certain privacy claims. For managers, the practical exposures are listing content, review responses, and guest removals.
The Endorsement That Removes Property Damage: CG 2270
Here is where a lot of managers discover their coverage is narrower than they believed.
CG 2270, Real Estate Property Managed, modifies a CGL policy by excluding coverage for property damage to the properties you manage.
Read that again against the claim list above. Property damage to managed properties is not an edge case in this business. It is one of the most frequent and costly claim types there is:
A cleaner leaves a sink or toilet running and the unit floods
A refrigerator water line leaks
A window AC unit leak damages flooring
A plumbing repair leads to pipe failure and water damage
An electrical appliance causes a fire
A maintenance repair leads to an electrical fire
Real claim: The Icemaker Leak That Soaked $50,000
When these happen, the owner may file suit against the manager. Or the owner's carrier pays the loss and then subrogates against the manager, which is the version most managers never see coming.
A policy carrying CG 2270 does not respond to any of it. Guest injuries are still covered. The most common category of loss in the manager's operation is not.
The Endorsement That Makes Coverage Conditional: CGL 1613
This one is less known and arguably more dangerous, because it does not remove coverage. It makes coverage contingent on paperwork.
CGL 1613, Real Estate Property Managed, Conditional Coverage, is included in many policies sold to vacation rental managers. It reads as administrative. It determines whether coverage exists at all.
Under CGL 1613, coverage is valid only if the manager satisfies a strict set of requirements for every property they manage, beginning at the time management commences. Those requirements typically include:
Obtain a valid Certificate of Insurance from each property owner
Ensure the owner carries minimum CGL limits, typically $1,000,000 per occurrence and $2,000,000 aggregate
Be listed as an Additional Insured on the property owner's policy
Verify the owner's policy is written with an A-rated carrier
Confirm certain coverages, such as assault and battery, are not restricted
Maintain updated COIs annually for every managed property
Provide documentation to the carrier on request
Miss any one of them, on any one property, and the policy is void.
Now hold that against how management companies actually operate. Properties are added and removed. Ownership changes. Owner policies renew on different dates. COIs expire. Additional insured status gets overlooked in the rush of onboarding a new door.
Even a well-run operation will struggle to maintain perfect compliance across every property, every year, without exception. And the compliance failure will not surface during a routine audit. It surfaces after a claim, when the carrier reviews the file.
Conditional coverage does not eliminate risk. It redistributes it back to you, and it does so at the moment you can least afford it.
This is also why additional insured status deserves a second look. Many managers treat being added to the owner's policy as a form of protection. Under CGL 1613 it is not protection at all. It is a condition of your own coverage, and failing to secure it on a single property can void the policy across your entire portfolio.
Why Carriers Do This
It helps to understand that these endorsements are not tricks. They are underwriting logic.
Once property is in your care and control, insurers treat it differently, because you are the party positioned to prevent the loss. That line runs through commercial insurance generally, not just this industry.
There is also a product mismatch. Liability policies are priced for low-frequency, high-severity events. Damage to managed homes is the opposite: common, moderately expensive, and steady. That is attritional loss, and it grinds down a liability book in a way carriers price hard against.
Short-term rental makes it worse. These forms were written for real estate management generally, which historically meant long-term tenants and a manager touching the building a few times a year. Cleaning crews cycling through every two or three days is a different exposure entirely.
Most carriers will not write it. Specialty programs built for this industry price it in rather than endorse it out.
How To Check Your Own Policy
Pull your declarations page and endorsement schedule, and answer four questions.
Is CG 2270 attached? If yes, damage to the properties you manage is excluded, and that is the most common claim type in your business.
Is CGL 1613 attached? If yes, your coverage is conditional. Find out exactly what you are required to maintain, and be honest about whether you are maintaining it on every property.
Does your coverage extend to all managed properties, or is it limited to designated premises?
What responds to a professional services allegation, and what responds when that allegation ends in physical harm?
If you cannot answer these from your own documents, that is worth a conversation before a claim rather than after one.
These endorsements limit what CGL does. Worth knowing that CGL has its own boundaries even without them, since it generally excludes professional services. That is why a complete program for a management business also includes Professional Liability (Errors & Omissions) and Contingent Bodily Injury and Property Damage Liability. For the full picture, see the complete short-term rental management insurance guide.
To Get A Free, Unbiased, Policy Review…
Frequently Asked Questions
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Yes. Managers and co-hosts face allegations of Bodily Injury and Property Damage Liability arising from operations at properties they do not own. Commercial General Liability (CGL) is the foundational coverage that responds to those allegations and provides legal defense.
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CG 2270, Real Estate Property Managed, is an endorsement that modifies a Commercial General Liability (CGL) policy by excluding coverage for property damage to the properties the insured manages. Because damage to managed properties is one of the most common claim types in short-term rental management, this endorsement removes coverage for a large share of a manager's real-world exposure.
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CGL 1613, Real Estate Property Managed – Conditional Coverage, makes coverage valid only if the manager satisfies a set of requirements for every managed property, including obtaining certificates of insurance from owners, securing additional insured status, verifying owner limits and carrier ratings, and maintaining updated documentation annually. Failure to comply with any requirement on any property can void the policy.
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Property Damage Liability refers to allegations that the insured caused damage to someone else's property and is legally liable for it. Examples include water damage, fire damage, vendor-caused damage, and maintenance-related damage. It is distinct from Property Insurance, which covers property the business itself owns or leases.
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Yes. Co-hosts perform management activities including vendor coordination, guest communication, and property oversight. Those activities create liability exposure regardless of portfolio size or business structure.
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No. Additional insured status provides limited protection under someone else's policy for that owner's exposure, and it does not respond when the owner is the party bringing the claim. Under a conditional coverage endorsement such as CGL 1613, additional insured status functions as a requirement you must satisfy to keep your own policy valid rather than as coverage in its own right.
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No. It is foundational but not comprehensive. It generally excludes professional services, which is why a complete program for a management business also includes Professional Liability (Errors & Omissions) and Contingent Bodily Injury and Property Damage Liability coverage.
The Takeaway
The question is not whether you have CGL insurance. Most managers do.
The question is whether the policy you have still covers the losses your business actually produces, or whether two endorsements you have never read have narrowed it to something else. Damage to managed properties is the most common claim in this industry. Make sure yours is covered, and make sure that coverage is not conditional on paperwork you have not kept current.
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