AirBnB Host Insurance - Actually a scam?

Answered!
Kerina0
Level 1
Oakland, CA

AirBnB Host Insurance - Actually a scam?

Dear Fellow AirBnb Hosts, 

 

I am writing to see if any of you have had a similarly frustrating and disappointing experience to ours. My partner and I have been renting on AirBnB for almost three years. We've had 99% good experiences, and have always felt reassured by AirBnB's "million dollar insurance for hosts," which comes as a part of being a host. We thought, hey, if any one of these virtual strangers that we meet through the internet robs us blind, we're covered! No worries.

 

We were dismayed to learn that this insurance plan is essentially a hollow falsehood.

We had a guest stay with us who smoked so much marijuana he ruined the carpet my imbedding an odor that did not dissipate even after professional cleaning and washing the walls. The carpet cleaners said if the smell doesn't go away, we would have to replace the carpet pad and subsequently the carpet. I called Home Depot and got a quote for this, which was around $700.

 

The next step was submitting a claim through AirBnB.

The first surprise there was -- you cannot submit a claim directly to AirBnB, you have to request this fee from the person who rented. So we requested this money from the renter, whose son was the guest in the room. That renter referred us to our son, who we learned after the fact is mentally unstable, and took this request of funds as a personal offense. He called and left threatening voice messages, wrote a series of angry emails and incessantly texted me at work. He threatened to report my partner to the police for crimes he did not committ, and sent so many insane messages that I ended up filing a police report for harrassment. Not only was that extremely stressful, he also managed to lose two of our house keys, so we became extremely stressed that he would return and gain access to our house.

 

I called AirBnB and filed a report of the harassment, and took their advice, which was to file a report to the police. AirBnB does not allow you to get them involved in the claim until 72 hours have passed, even if you feel physically unsafe, which I did as soon as possible.

 

The next surprise was that after you involve them, they do not allow you to submit an insurance claim of any kind, even though I asked them repeatedly to do so. At first, they just said it would be hard to get money out of the guest since there was "no proof" that they committed this damage. I submitted my proof, which was the series of emails and text messages in which the guest admitted to smoking marijuana and offered to pay for the carpet cleaning, but not the replacement. 

 

Then, AirBnB responded with "great news." They were able to get the guest to pay $300 odd dollars. I was glad to hear that, and then asked again how to fill out a claim to have the rest of the cost of the carpet replacement reimbursed by their insurance policy. They then told me that, despite the quote for the fix being $700+ dollars, they thought that "$300" was fair and they would not let me submit a claim nor offer any additional funds.

 

They did not make any effort to assess the damage, nor the cost of repair, despite the fact that we were threatened repeatedly by the guest, filed several reports, filed a police report, and followed all of their procedures. Oh and, by the way, we never received the $300 they said they retrieved for us, and cannot figure out how to actually get the funds. Great!

 

My questions are:

Has anyone else tried to submit a claim to AirBnB's "insurance"?

Is this actually a scam that means nothing?

Why did AirBnB express no concern for the fact that the person I hosted through their site was threatening me?

Do you feel safe renting through this website after reading this account?

 

How long do you think it will be until this becomes a serious legal and safety issue that will eventually threaten the well-being of their billion dollar company?

 

As you can gather, we are no longer going to be renting through AirBnB, and we hope you seriously consider this account of a series of unforunate events before you continue to rent through them.

 

Best of luck to you all!

 

1 Best Answer
Gerry-And-Rashid0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Kerina0

 

The Host Guarantee is very restrictive and really there for when there is total destruction, not for damage to a carpet.

 

The advice is that in addition to a security deposit, you need to have your own insurance cover,  which fills the gap between that and the Host Guarantee.

 

In this case (and I am not defending AirBnB here as it is common in the insurance industry as well) you were offered a solution of a £300 cleaning reimbursement but decided a total replacement was required. Many insurance companies would not cover you for a replacement in this instance. It is possible to get rid of smells including marjiuana from carpet would be the standard response. It would be an uphill battle with any insurance company to get a total replacement in this situation.

 

Many hosts don't have appropriate addiitonal cover in place and they are leaving themselves exposed. AirBnB should make this much clearer rather than trumpeting about $m cover with their Host Guarantee scheme.

 

Sorry to hear what you went through..

 

 

View Best Answer in original post

40 Replies 40
Albert92
Level 2
San Jose, CA

I am experiencing this right now. Guests throw a big party in our house. The party was recorded on our cameras. So far, all I have got from Airbnb are generic cut & paste responses.

 

Since it is happening to so many of us, have any of you guy think of a class action?

Hl0
Level 3
London, United Kingdom

I had a very frustrating and similar experience too - a guest of mine went into my private storage and stole a bunch of expensive clothing items from me, she got caught in my house, where I called airbnb to report this incident immediately. When I asked them about advice in what I should do, they told me to 'file a negative comment about the guest' , wait or the guest to review,and from then on would take it from there. 

Turns out the guest had stole a series more items as I go through my closet very carefully after she checked out. I did exactly what I was told - filed a negative comment, raised a red flag and then contacted airbnb about the issue. And you guys could already expect the answer - the other representative with whom I contacted this time of course said that 'oh you have to file this before your next guest checks in' which was completely different from what I was told when I first called in to file the incident. ( to wait for the other guest to comment will definitely take longer than when the next guest checks in for most hosts). I called several time time to escalate this case, of course the only reply I got was that they 'had reviewed the case decided it is not valid to further investigate. This is a final decision.' without even asking me for any sort of detail about the case ( like detail of the incident, etc. ) I reached out to them on Twitter and got the same administrative reply. 

 

What frustrates me the most is how they have provided me with false information, made me turn around in circles only to find out that in following their false advice I missed the 'deadline' as set out by their policy, which was never made aware to hosts when they sign up. 

 

And what about the guest? Of course airbnb is not going to do anything about the guest, and it really puts me off sleep thinking that she is out there possibly doing the same for many other hosts under a different account. 

 

All i can say is, airbnb's false advertising with their host guarantee as backed up by many stories here deserves a class action. We have let thieves and psychos into our homes because of the site and it's false claims - in a world where people can sue for the most absurd things, the class action of multiple hosts would definitely make a case ( or at least let them know that they have to suffer the consequences of not honoring their word to so many people.) 

 

Any suggestions on how to take things up to airbnb so someone who's really in charge and care will help? Wondering if there's any class action that's already going on?

Class action lawsuit is deserved 

Luca86
Level 4
HKI, Finland

Something similar happened to me, I had a really unrespectful guest who had stolen items and damaged my propriety.

It took me really long to work the matter out and airbnb wanted the tickets of the items that were stolen, I didn´t have them of course!

I did get a small refund at the end, but was a big stress.

 

Another time a guest damaged the sofa cover and I didn´t get any refund at all. Even though the guest himself admitted the damage.

In EU there is an online dispute service, I have even appealed there but it didn´t help:

https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr/main/?event=main.trader.register

 

Airbnb pollicy forces you to open a claim within 24hours after the guests check-out.

It´s impossible to check every corner in that short time, sometiems you are not even back at home yourself direcrly after the guest check-out.

 

Finally I left a negative review to airbnb headquarters:

https://goo.gl/maps/qdofdHiZFCK2

 

 

Lisa1995
Level 2
Malvern, Australia

Would you like to join me. i have provide photos, evidence, invoices, statements and nothing. The guarantee is a fraud. Let do a class action for sure. please email me lisathomasluca@icloud.com

Rosana69
Level 2
San Diego, CA

I am in the process, over 20k in damages. not sure what will happen.

I have a damage this cost and after the 3rd party inspector that airbnb hired, airbnb offered me a joke amount which is $959.50. What happened to yours?

Joy960
Level 2
Independence, MO

Only being a Host for 6 mo. we have had a set of horrible guests that had one of their friends overdosing in our upstairs rental, which we could not help but overhear since we live downstairs.  Thinking all the noise and screams were from fighting my husband and I finally announced we were letting ourselves in because we could still hear beating and a person yelling help every 30 seconds over and over.  We found them restraining a guy saying he was convulsing but with 3 years health experienced I reckognized this was not a grand mal seizure or any other type of seizure, renters claimed they didn't know what drugs he was on even though they were obviously messed up, I announced I was going down to call 911 and by the time i came back only the man who rented and my husband were restraining the man, who was beating himself against our floor, the wife and other people all ran.  We got the man in ambulance with 2 officers and 3 emt's and husbands help.  Our place was trashed although I didnt inspect at that time, but we text and told them to clean up our home and have no other guests for the rest of their stay, and for them to respect his wishes.  As soon as my husband went to work there was a houseful, and they sent me multiple texts to say they apologized and they would clean and were leaving one day early because of the disturbance and how generous we had been and they understood why we were keeping the deposit {I have posted on house rules that if Police are called for any reason other than natural cases of health or to file a police report from inflicted criminal behavior that the renter forfeits the deposit to compensate for damages to the reputation of our business, which is legitimate as there are public nuisence laws in all of USA/ to many police calls to any single business can result in the city/local authority shutting it down}  They left about 10min after my husband came home from work.  I requested the money and of course they had lied and refused to pay and threatened a harassment suit.  I filed a claim  and airbnb sends me a link that DOES NOT ACCEPT REPLIES, and 12 attempts latter through every contact link there is on airbnb, begging for a legit way to submit my proof, I get the auto 'CASE CLOSED' and the review I wrote on the renters that would warn the rest of you of their behavior is not even displayed, only one good one and one that says that the Host had to almost have them removed 2 hours after checkout and how uncomfortable it was...I have begged and pleaded with attempts to prove and Airbnb wont reply with any request for an email address that I can send my info to???ANY RECOMMENDATIONS WOULD BE APPRECIATED BEFORE I GET SO MAD I SUE THEIR PANTS OFF!  They destroyed my home and left used syringes and two meth pipes and burn marks on bedding, carpet, and furniture, admitted portions of it, and Airbnb wont even allow me to send the proof??  Customer support sent me an email saying if I didn't respond in 48hrs to an email that wont accept incoming messages or direct replies, they would close my case, and closed it before 48  had passed with me trying 12 times to contact within the 48hrs notice that will end tomorrow!  Got any ideas Hosts?  Joy Eastman **

 

**[E-mail address removed due to safety reasons - Community Center Guidelines]

Fullerbeds
Heather1198
Level 2
Atlanta, GA

Our place was trashed this past weekend - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tE1mfBS59hM&feature=youtu.be

We will see if airbnb comes through for us...

What happened?

Did you hear anything from airbnb?

Luca86
Level 4
HKI, Finland

I understand your situation, I had a similar situation a while ago. Finally, Airbnb decided to offer refund, but it was not too easy.

 

Keep us updated please.

Marie321
Level 2
Malmö, Sweden

this has just happened to me too.  Airbnb srtarted as a lovly thing and i stil enjoy visiting nice peoples houses instead of a hotel but as a host and with the raised fee i can tell this is just part of the evil **bleep** show playing out in the world now so i will get out of here and either find or create something new.  maybe somebody have advice of a good page world wide someone small probably as it seems as only the bad guys get to steal the show today as they also own the media...anyways... that means we have exciting new things ahead. Now to the topic. It was 3 months ago i filed to get the expences 250 euro to put in a new window. pictues and all that. now i dont even see where i shall contact them regarding this?! has anybody ever got anything back??? a month after this accident i had to cancel my first time since 2012 and the next day they took out 90 euros from my account. any advice what to do? or just close the account forget about airbnb and the accident?! thanks ! all the best to you! marie

Mark172
Level 2
Alexandria, VA

I have a dozen examples of exactly is happening to my family member who is a host. Yes, It’s all true. Everything you wrote. And ever since going public, they’ve gotten worse. The very best thing I can say for Airbnb is they did not delete this post

@Mark172  This forum is moderated by a team of moderators who are not Airbnb direct employees. They work for a company that contracts out moderating services. And they do a great job.

 

Posts are removed or censored only if they violate forum policy- i.e. use profanity, express discrimination towards a demographic of people, include personally identifying information, make personal attacks on other posters, etc. The usual public forum etiquette.

 

Posts here don't get deleted because they are critical of Airbnb. 50% of the posts here fall into that category 🙂