TL;DR: Insurance housing is some of the steadiest, longest demand on Radius — displaced residents placed by insurance housing companies for months at a time, and about 90% of those bookings need extensions. These bookings are month-to-month, so this guide walks you through picking the right property, furnishing it for long stays, building a strong listing, configuring your calendar so you don't block long placements, setting a rental agreement and cancellation policy that win these bookings, and handling extensions and Notice to Vacate once a booking is live.
Who this is for: 🏠 Host
🚨 Insurance Housing: This entire guide is about insurance housing bookings — a common use case of month-to-month stays on Radius. They behave differently from a typical short-term stay: longer durations, real-time placement, and a high rate of extensions. The setup choices below are what make your property attractive for them.
Overview
When a home becomes uninhabitable after a covered loss — fire, water damage, a storm — the displaced household needs somewhere to live while repairs happen. Insurance housing companies place those residents into furnished accommodations, and they search Radius for 30+ day stays. These guests live in your property, not vacation in it: they cook, do laundry, and settle in for months. Radius is the platform and the facilitation layer for these bookings — we provide search, the booking workflow, the e-signature rental-agreement flow, and payments — but the rental agreement itself is between you and the guest. This guide is the practical setup that gets your property selected for this demand and keeps it bookable for the full length of the stay.
🏠 Host: Insurance placements book month-to-month, and month-to-month eligibility is on by default on every listing — so you're set up to accept them without flipping a switch. You can turn it off anytime in your listing configuration; bookings already confirmed keep their original terms.
How it works — step-by-step
1. Select the right property
Displaced residents are generally placed close to their original home and in a comparable, "like-kind" property — if they were in a three-bedroom, two-bath house with a fenced yard, that's roughly what gets approved. The single biggest factor in winning these bookings is having a property that matches what's actually displaced in your area.
Match local inventory and demand. Look at the housing stock around you. If most homes near you are three-bed family houses, a comparable property will see far more insurance demand than an atypical one.
Parking and garage. Prioritize properties with parking for one to two vehicles, and a garage if that's standard for your area — displaced families usually arrive with their own cars.
Pet-friendly with a fenced yard. Many displaced households have pets and kids. A fenced backyard meaningfully widens the set of placements you can accept.
🏠 Host: Think "comparable family home in my market," not "premium short-term rental." A standard, well-kept home that matches local housing wins more insurance placements than a unique or luxury one.
2. Stage and furnish for midterm stays
Because guests live here for months, furnishings need to be durable and genuinely livable — not the lightweight pieces that survive a few short-term weekends. Furnish it like a home someone moves into.
A full, real kitchen. These guests buy groceries and cook. Stock a complete set of cookware, utensils, knives, bakeware, and basic small appliances.
Backup linens. Provide at least one spare set of sheets and towels per bed and bath — months-long stays mean wear and laundry cycles.
Cohesive, durable design. A consistent design theme throughout and sturdy furniture reads as a real home and holds up over a long stay. This is good practice for any midterm property.
🏠 Host: A useful test: could a family of four comfortably live here for six months? If something would frustrate them by week three, upgrade it before you list.
3. Set up and optimize your listing
A strong listing is what turns a good property into a booked one. Radius listings are entire-home only, which fits insurance housing exactly.
Professional photos, sequenced deliberately. Lead with an exterior shot — or, if the exterior is the weaker angle, lead with your best interior "hero" shot. Order the rest as a natural walk-through.
A thorough description and complete amenities. Be specific and exhaustive about amenities — these are often how a search specialist filters, and a missing amenity can quietly drop you from results.
One-click import from your PMS. Radius supports one-click import from supported PMS platforms, so bringing an existing, fully-built listing over is fast — you don't have to rebuild it by hand.
🏠 Host: If your listing already lives in a PMS, import it rather than starting from scratch — then tighten the photo order and amenities for the insurance audience.
4. Configure your calendar for insurance housing
This is the step Hosts most often get wrong. Insurance placements happen in real time with very little lead time, and they run long. Scattered short future bookings can make your listing unavailable for a long insurance placement that would otherwise have been yours.
Commit to a calendar model. Decide whether a listing is for short-term or longer midterm stays, and keep its calendar consistent. A few scattered confirmed future bookings can take a property out of the running for the longer placements.
Understand the short-term ↔ midterm spectrum. Pure short-term turns over constantly; midterm commits the calendar to one guest for months. Insurance housing sits firmly on the midterm end.
🚨 Insurance Housing: When a listing takes a month-to-month booking — which is how insurance placements book — Radius holds its calendar for 120 days past the scheduled checkout so the stay has room to extend (more on that in Step 6). A calendar kept open for long stays is a calendar that gets them.
For a deeper walk-through of short-term vs. midterm calendar strategy, see our Learn article Insurance bookings and a committed calendar.
5. Configure your rental agreement and cancellation policy
Every booking is governed by a rental agreement between you and the guest — Radius provides the template, the e-signature flow, and the workflow, but is not a party to it. You configure a base agreement once on your listing, and you can use one agreement across all your properties or vary it per property.
Keep it friendly and clear. A readable agreement signs faster. Add any custom clauses you require to the base template.
Choose your cancellation policy deliberately. You select a cancellation policy per listing (Firm or Strict). For insurance housing, the less-strict Firm policy is generally the better choice — an overly strict termination policy works against you for these bookings.
Radius flags conflicts. The setup check flags anything in your agreement that conflicts with the Terms of Service or with the cancellation policy you selected, so you can correct it before it costs you a booking.
🏠 Host: Set the base agreement and a Firm cancellation policy once. For bookings placed by a partner network you've joined, that partner's overlay terms attach automatically — you don't redo anything per booking. Full walkthrough in Set up your rental agreement.
6. Handle extensions and Notice to Vacate
Insurance placements book month-to-month, and roughly 90% of them need extensions. Two things drive that, and both are outside the guest's control: the insurance side typically authorizes housing in increments rather than all at once, and repair and restoration projects frequently run long. Because extensions are the norm, being set up to accept them — and knowing the few actions on your side — is what makes you a reliable insurance Host.
Your calendar is held for 120 days past checkout. When a month-to-month booking confirms, Radius holds those trailing dates so the stay can extend without a competing booking landing on them. The hold moves forward automatically each time you approve an extension.
Every extension needs your approval. When the Booker requests more time, you'll get a notification with a response deadline — 48 hours, 24 hours, or 12 hours, depending on how soon the current stay ends. Approve or decline before it expires; no response counts as a decline.
Extensions bill at the original nightly rate. Extended nights are billed at the booking's original nightly rate — not your current listing rate — and the flat 8% booking fee applies to them just as it did to the original booking. Partner-network overlay terms attach automatically for that partner's bookings.
You can give Notice to Vacate too. From the booking, you can give NTV to signal the stay will end; you'll confirm a short warning first, since it affects the placement. Host-given NTV can't be reversed by you — contact Radius Support if you need to undo it.
If no one acts, the system steps in. If neither side gives NTV and no extension is pending, Radius records an automatic NTV once the notice deadline passes, and your held calendar opens back up. You'll get reminders the day before and the day of that deadline.
🏠 Host: Respond promptly to extension requests — the windows are short, and a missed one is treated as a decline, which can cost you the placement. For the full mechanics, see How do extensions work?
🚨 Insurance Housing: If you reliably approve extensions and do good work with these placements, insurance housing companies can invite you into their partner network. Being a partner has real upside: that company can filter its search to its partner Hosts, so your listings surface to them. Once you accept, the partner's overlay terms apply to your rental agreement automatically for their bookings and their rebate is handled automatically — and you can be in more than one partner network at a time.
Setup checklist at a glance
Area | 🏠 What to do |
Property | Comparable family home for your market; parking/garage; pet-friendly with fenced yard |
Furnishing | Durable furniture, full kitchen, backup linens, cohesive design |
Listing | Professional, well-sequenced photos; thorough amenities; one-click PMS import |
Calendar | Commit to midterm; avoid scattered short bookings that block long placements |
Agreement | Friendly base agreement (one or per-property); Firm cancellation policy; fix flagged conflicts |
Extensions & NTV | Month-to-month; expect extensions (~90%); approve promptly (48/24/12h); calendar held 120 days |
Common situations
My property is nice but not in a residential family area
Insurance placements are tied to where the loss happened and aim for a comparable home, so a property that matches typical local housing tends to see more demand. A property that's atypical for its area can still book — it just competes for a narrower set of placements.
I already have this listing in a PMS
Use the one-click PMS import rather than rebuilding. After importing, refine the photo order and amenities for the insurance audience and set your calendar and cancellation policy as above.
A guest needs to stay longer
That's expected — most insurance stays extend. You'll receive an extension request to approve, and it bills at the original nightly rate. Respond quickly, since these requests have short response windows (48, 24, or 12 hours) and no response is treated as a decline.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to accept every extension?
No — every extension requires your approval. But because roughly 90% of insurance bookings extend, a property set up to accommodate extensions is far more valuable to insurance housing companies than one that can't.
Can I use one rental agreement for all my properties?
Yes. You can use a single base agreement across every property or vary it per property — whichever you prefer. Partner-network terms attach automatically on top for that partner's bookings.
Which cancellation policy should I choose for insurance housing?
Generally the Firm policy rather than Strict. An overly strict termination policy works against you for insurance bookings. See How refunds and cancellations work for exactly how each policy behaves.
How do I become a partner with an insurance housing company?
Partner networks invite Hosts directly. Consistently doing good work on these placements — including approving extensions promptly — is what gets you invited. Once you accept, the partner's overlay terms and rebate apply automatically for their bookings, and that company can filter its search to its partner Hosts so your listings surface to them.
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Still need help?
Click the chat icon at the bottom-right of any page on help.bookradius.com, then click Contact Radius Support under "Create a ticket." Full walkthrough in How do I contact Radius?