Landlord insurance for monthly rental = short term rental?

[Valerie Menke]

Hi all!

I'm having trouble finding landlord insurance in Santa Barbara, California. My main issue is, that I would like to rent a unit as a furnished monthly rental meaning a minimum of 30 nights- most guests are looking to stay 3-6 months. Now I have been talking to insurances and they told me any rental activity under 12 months would be considered "short term rental". I'm pretty confused because I know plenty of people here that sign 6 months leases (it's a college town) or rent month to month. So do they just don't know that their insurance technically wouldn't cover that? Or am I talking to the wrong people? I understand that a policy for actual short term rentals (with nightly turnover) would be more expensive. But the city of Santa Barbara considers anything under 30 days short term rental so I just assumed insurance companies would do the same. Did anyone run into this issue and find a satisfying solution?