@Nina75
Nina, I have been here for 6 years now, I don't know how many thousands of posts I have seen! I do know I have responded to 7,212 posts over that time and one of the most frequent posts are from hosts who have tried to claim either against their 'Security Deposit' or against the 'Host Protection Scheme' and in 98% of those cases we see here, their claim has been unsuccessful or manifestly downgraded to a pittance of what was claimed.....which is why they ended up here.
With 1,070,458 users belonging to the Community Centre, a good percentage of the hosting community do, or have been here at some time. So we are seeing a good cross section of the general Airbnb community. You will note that the community boards are principally aimed at the hosting community, not guests, so there would not be a large portion of guests represented in the CC. Of that 1 million + CC members it is probable that 75-80% would be hosts. Now that represents about 1/4 of Airbnb's active host pool.
Nina it is possible to have a successful claim on Airbnb for damage created by an Airbnb guest, but the chances appear to be around one in ten of that happening.
If you had 2 successful claims with Airbnb the chances of that happening would be one in a hundred.
If you have had multiple successful claims with Airbnb you are absolutely the exception to the rule and are indeed living a charmed hosting life.
All of us long term hosts have read and re-read the TOS a hundred times and we know precisely what is said, and that doesn't have a strong relationship to what is actually done. Not all the reasons for that are Airbnb's fault, I can quote you dozens of examples that I know of where the host has tried to defraud Airbnb. But most hosts start out genuinely believing Airbnb.....as they say.....have your back covered.
Nina, they do not........end of story!
Cheers........Rob