House Fire

[Marsha-And-Bill0]

@Catherine-Powell   Hi Catherine, 

My name is Marsha Beezley.  I am writing to you to hopefully get answers to my problem.  Months ago a house I manage was caught on fire by a guest.  It has been a painful and frustrating process to get someone from Airbnb to take this seriously and contact me.  I only get answers like: We have escalated it and someone will be contacting you.  I received an email but it got closed out because I didn't respond fast enough.  I requested a phone call, not an email so I was not expecting it.  Then I had someone tell me to open a claim and when I tried to do that, the amount of money I'm requesting is over the cap that is set by Airbnb on the resolution center. This is absolutely crazy!!  Please have someone call me in regard to this matter asap.  I'm stuck and cannot continue with no direction from Airbnb on what to do next!!  In big situations like this house fire, Airbnb should have a special number to call to get faster help and direction on what to do.  How do you expect me to put in a claim on the resolution center when it has a cap on the amount of money you can request? Fire damage is very costly.  The guest was **

**Sensitive information removed

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Marsha-And-Bill0 This is a public community forum not customer support. You may get a response but it's highly unlikely

[Helen3]

Sorry to hear this. How much are you claiming exactly aa hosts are able to claim up to 1 million (you said your claim was over their limit). It must be a huge amount to go over 1 million. 

Has the owner tried claiming on their specialist home insurance for STRs? 

[Liv]

Hi @Marsha-And-Bill0,

I'm really sorry to hear you had to deal with a fire, I can only imagine how frustrating that must have been. 

As the community is not a dedicated support point of contact, I recommend you get in touch with the CS team again. They'll be able to reopen your case and hopefully look into it further.

Also, have you followed this procedure in order to open your claim?

I hope this helps.

Thanks,

Liv

[Kristi1645]

@Marsha-And-Bill0   We have had the same problem. While an Airbnb guest was staying at our home, a major house fire destroyed 2/3's of the house, incurring significant losses.  It has now been 10 days and I have called and emailed multiple times to get help. I have filed a Host Guarantee Reimbursement request with no response. Each time I manage to get a person on the phone they put me on hold repeatedly and end up saying the case is being considered.  Emails have said the case is serious and has been assigned to a special claims person who will contact me immediately. Still no response.  Has anyone been successful in receiving the supposed Host Guarantee? They promise hosts that they are covered up to 1 million but it seems to be a scam. Or perhaps others have been luckier than I in receiving some sort of help, or a simple communication to advise us in this situation.

[Michael627]

@Marsha-And-Bill0 @Kristi1645   Sorry to hear of your losses.  I had a similar incident where a guest left a grill unattended in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the house caught on fire and was 100% smoke damaged, a total loss. 

I was curious how ya'll made out? 

In my scenario the my insurance company made sure I filed the claim w/ the Airbnb Host Program.  My loss occurred on 6/31/21.  Soon thereafter, Airbnb funded a pricey independent fire investigation.  After denying me access to the full report, the investigator and Crawford Insurance claims adjustor that Airbnb hired informed me they "could not eliminate the guest as a cause of the fire." 

Its now nearly a year, 12 months, since the incident.  An expectation was set by the Crawford agent the turn around time for settlement would be about "2 months."   Not a dime or a penny yet.   

It's amazing they can get away with such misleading advertising of the program as "top to bottom coverage" "free" "Up to $1MM" "Turn around in 2 weeks" 

[Kristi1645]

@Michael627  We experienced the same thing you did. Airbnb hired Crawford and for awhile it seemed that we were making progress as they claimed everything would be resolved quickly. Crawford led us on to suggest that we would recovery at the very least “ lost income” since we had to cancel many reservations and the rebuild still has occurred, plus the list belongings that our own insurance wouldn’t cover.  But by the time they sent out their fire inspector, the burned sections of the house had been bulldozed away. At first they acknowledged that the fire would not have happened had the guest not been there and broken so many rules, such as smoking our the property, and lighting massive numbers of fireworks, etc Airbnb now refuses to engage because they were able to obtain a fire inspection. 
BEWARE the Airbnb Host Protection Guarantee does not protect you from anything. They will NOT “make you whole again”. Makes me wonder about their new “aircover” which supposedly protects guest from Host cancellations!  Airbnb would be out of business without all the Hosts who allow guests to use their properties - you would think they would work harder to support the people they depend on since there are so many other lodging options available now. Let us know if you make any progress - we haven’t given up but they are working hard to wear us down!

[Michael627]

@Michael627  Such a bummer to hear Krisiti!  Lots of careless guests out there.  Ours left a grill unattended for who knows how long, but long enough to melt the hose to the propane tank and causing a huge mess.   

Airbnb did hire a private fire investigator in our scenario too.  

They did deny me access to the report when I asked to see it, however, the investigator was "not able to eliminate the guest as a cause of the fire" (nor was the fire marshall).   

After that, the Crawford Adjustor said we are eligible for the program payment benefits.  As of now its been stuck in Airbnb's corporate "for approval" by "stakeholders."  The incident was 6/30/21, nearly a year ago.  

If you were open to it I would like to take this conversation off-line? 

I can be found online at Live Swell Beach Bungalows.  I've also posted a few videos and updates of the fire process so other listing on the platform can have an informative case study.  

"Top To Bottom Coverage" "Two Week Turnaround" and the other list of marketing banter are not accurate!!! 

[Patrick3082]

Hey, curious what you learned about the process from experience.  We had a fire at our air bnb Saturday due to a dog hitting a stove on which had a bag on it while the guests were out.  To remediate the house from the smoke damage (due to the spot and toxic plastic particles), it’s probably going to be $40k.  Air bnb doesn’t seem to require they approve the expenses before incurred so we were going to pay it and then seek reimbursement from the air bnb insurance (I am of course assuming the guest isn’t going to pay this).  We hit our busiest time starting in two weeks and the company said that they could be done by then.  Does this seem ok based on what you learned?

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Patrick3082 I would definitely claim from your insurance policy and not rely on Airbnb. If you don't you may well end up out of pocket by a large amount.

[Michael627]

@Kristi1645 It seem like most fire claims like ours have ended up in litigation.   I hope I don't have to go this route, but if its the option that Airbnb forces us to take we won't back down.   

Our Crawford adjustor and the Airbnb email address provided have completely stonewalled us. 

Its been months now having no contact, its starting to feel like no one at Airbnb is taking a $500k+ claim seriously.  

I'm so baffeled by the lack of integrity by Airbnb.  

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Marsha-And-Bill0  Catherine Powell doesn't respond to awkward questions. Please tell me you didn't rely on Airbnb insurance as it has so many exceptions it is highly unlikely to pay out.

Host ProtectionInsurance from the Airbnb help site-  Note that Host Protection Insurance doesn’t cover damage to hosts’ property

Host guarantee has a huge list of exceptions but the key appears to be that the guest has caused the damage. If an accident happens then I am not sure if it is covered - probably not.

[Annie1372]

@Marsha-And-Bill0 , @Kristi1645  and @Michael627 ,

you true life stories about your house in fire 🔥 due to an AirBNB guest are awful 😢 

Just a fire is terrible, but that AirBNB is ignoring you, it is even worst.

good luck to all of you with your cases.

sending you positive vibes

[Michael627]

@Annie1372  

Yes fortunately no one was injured.  

Its a real hoax to market a damage protection program as Airbnb describes "AirCover" "Host Guarantee"  or whatever it is.

You know every host gets reviewed on "accuracy" every time they host a guest.  I have nearly 1000 reviews on AirBnb....

AirCover's rating on an Accuracy scale at this point in my experience would be near a 1. 

[Megan822]

I had a fire last night- it is my primary residence with a second unit we rent out. The fire was not abb related so I will not be filing a claim. However, the lack of response from CS is making an already difficult situation even harder.