I'm sure there's a law somewhere that says Airbnb can't offer "insurance" because you need license for that. That's why there are many companies called "banc". But what's the practical difference between "insurance" and "guarantee"?

Maybe start with the fact that the guarantee doesn't pay out claims to neighbors, and renter's insurance does.

That's why its not liability insurance, but not all insurance is liability insurance. (Typical homeowner's/renter's insurance includes both liability and non-liability coverages.)

There's a fun little research jag to be had in comparing the two; the big two basic differences I can find are:

* Providing insurance subjects you to state regulation on insurance policies, which are more onerous than those governing warranties.

* Guaranties and warranties indemnify against flaws in a product or service; they protect you from wrongdoing on the part of (or foreseeable by) the vendor providing the service. Insurance indemnifies against damage that is potentially unrelated to the service itself.

The latter difference seems material for something like Airbnb, where the protections you need include liability claims by short-term tenants and liability claims for neighbors, some of which might arise not simply by malicious acts from those tenants but from things like "the tenant left the door unlocked and the whole building got broken into".

Either way: take a closer look at what Abnb is offering here; it's not like renter's insurance.

Insurance policies can differ in what they pay for, but I don't see what would disqualify the airbnb guarantee from being essentially insurance policy, albeit with different terms than standard renters insurance.

It seems overly generous to assume AirBnB isn't offering insurance because they can't. Do we have reason to assume that, instead of them simply not wanting to? (As insurance, after all, costs money)

Since the term "insurance" sounds better and more universally accepted, I'd assume they would call it insurance if they could. There might be of course any number of reasons why they do not call it insurance despite it looking like one, I just assume most frequent and most probable one.