The startup has booked more than 10 million guest nights since its founding in 2008, and incidents like the one last year are "incredibly rare," she said. "Over the course of the four years we've been in business, we have not been contacted by our community about significant liability claims, attempts at claims, or judgments."

Claims Data

Mang, the former McKinsey consultant, said he expects that the insurance industry will craft policies to help manage some of the risks. Beth Leri, an outside spokeswoman for Lloyd's, declined to comment as did Hiscox's Alyssa Daskalakis. Berkshire didn't respond to a request for comment left with Buffett's assistant.

"It'll be costly" for the startups, Mang said in a phone interview. "But I don't think this will be the issue that stops their development."

Prices for coverage should come down as sharing becomes more common and insurers accumulate data, said Getaround's Zaid. The startup sends Berkshire a monthly report and sometimes has conversations to clarify policy terms, such as when a car owner in the Bay Area asked whether he could list his DeLorean.

The stainless-steel sports car featured as a time-travel device in the "Back to the Future" movie trilogy was produced for the U.S. market in the early 1980s. Getaround's policy requires that cars be model-year 1995 or newer.

Berkshire's response, according to Zaid: no problem.

The startups need to partner with insurers to grow, said Love Home Swap's Wosskow, whose company's Europe-only coverage, to be underwritten by Hiscox, will protect against property damage and last-minute trip cancellations. The new firms are different from Web companies that don't require users to interact in the real world, she said.

"The business of my business is physical," said Wosskow. "It's about sharing, and sharing is about people."


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