@Helen3 - Since writing that initial post, I have had situations that were much larger than $200. I had one set of guests do around $2,000 in damage, both to the structure and furniture (and they also stole a number of items outright). I do have my cleaners take photos now, and I do have a trusted co-host who has access to file claims via my account, when I am unavailable, but I will say that was not enough in that sitaution. I had no choice but to cancel the next guest's reservation, even though the room was totally habitable. (If it were my choice, I would have offered them the option of a partial refund or penalty free cancellation, etc. and not left them with nowhere to go the day of check-in). Basically, if you estimate the damages too low, Airbnb won't pay any more than your initial estimate (I have experience with that), and in this situation my initial "ballpark figure" was in fact far too low. In order to file a claim, I basically had to track down receipts for decorative items that were damaged and get estimates from contractors for repairs like fixing dents in the walls. Initially I thought this would be less than $1,000, but it was a lot more.... Also, though the cleaners did their best to snap photos, there were things I only saw myself, after an in-person walkthrough. That can happen. Had I let the next guests check in, those damages would not have been covered.
In the end, despite my best efforts to document everything, I have to say my experience with Airbnb's insurance team was not the best. They only covered around $400 of damages, and claimed the rest was "wear and tear" (despite the fact that many items had been stolen outright.) They knew these guests were probably on drugs - I had communicated with the safety team, who had cancelled the rest of their reservation, due to repeatedly breaking the rules, but apparently the people on the insurance side didn't care about that. It was obviously not "wear and tear" - I have never experienced "wear and tear" like that before (the guests actually actively destroyed things like furniture). The way I got in that situation with the tight bookings is someone else booked a date almost instantly, as soon as these guests' reservation was cancelled. (The fact that that can happen so quickly I can't update my calendar to make sure the room is turned over and ready - dates become available almost instantly - is another gripe.) Lucikly these guests did leave voluntarily and quickly but I wasn't able to host the next party.
As far as suing guests go, this often isn't feasible. It only really is somethig you could do easily with locals, but I do not take local guests (only out-of-the area travellers) with limited exceptions.... You have to go to the guests' jurisdiction to sue them, and that can be difficult/expensive. Some of my guests are even international, and I'm not about to fly to France to sue someone there. That is the reason for insurance like this.
Although I am still a fan of the Airbnb platform in general, I would say this is not one of the high points. I'm not about to stop taking reservations on Airbnb, but this has made me start looking at branching out into other plaforms. The host protection insurance was one of Airbnb's main advantages over some fo the other platforms that did not offer anything simlar, but at this point, I assume I will not get full coverage and will probably just have some unreimbursed damages, and (even ones beyond trivial stuff like pillowcases.)
