Host Damage Insurance Policy Changes Needed

[Jennifer62]

I have been on AirBNB and another site for several years. The other site allows me to have my guests purchase a damage insurance policy that protects me (and them) against accidental damages, up to a preset amount. I recently had a guest do a great deal of damage, by accident. The policy through CSA actually covered the damage. I am wondering what would have happened if this was an AirBNB guest where I only have ever asked for a nominal deposit? 

Yes, I have home owner's insurance for guests, but that isn't the point. as no one in their right mind wants to file claims with their own home owner's insurance when policies like CSA exist. 

Why won't AirBNB start using something that is a proven to work? I've seen nothing but bad comments about the AirBNB experience with guest damage claims and am so very grateful it wasn't an AirBNB guest who accidentally did damage to my home. Has made me wonder if I should be on AirBNB at all, or should raise my security deposit, as it's not ever collected by AirBNB anyway. Would appreciate hearing thoughts on this.

[Marzena4]

@Jennifer62 I can't agree more with you. I've been hosting in general for quite a while, on Airbnb - for two years. And more or less over the same period of time on another site, which allows me to collect a deposit from a guest upon their arrival.

Every time I read a post here about damage done by guests three things come to my mind: I feel compassion for the host, I fear a similar thing might happen to me and it leaves me feeling insecure because I know all too well that the measures to protect hosts look promising only in writing. 

At the moment I am offering my whole place only at weekends but, lucky for me, nobody has ever booked it. A vast majority of damage cases here on Airbnb have occurred in entire place listings. Some of the damage has been unintentional. But most have been deliberate actions of the guests like partying, or incidents due to their lack of common sense.

The logic is simple - if places cannot be supervised, and in the case of entire listings they can't because it would violate Airbnb policy, a measure is needed to make hosts feel secure. And until a reliable policy is introduces, one that will work in practice, no hosts here will feel secure.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Jennifer62 I agree 100% with you and @Marzena4 . Here on Airbnb hosts are playing Russian roulette all the time 😞 I wish Airbnb hosts can collect security deposit as on VRBO. 

[Theresa-And-Tom0]

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[Cindy275]

same issue here. $99 for a $5000 policy -- we have never had issues using CSA. I dread the day a guest reserving through Airbnb does any substantial damage. Luckily, only 10% of our guests come from Airbnb. 

[Yvonne41]

They make it like pulling teeth.

1) Guest has to volunteer to be gracious enough to pay for something they didn’t admit to in the first place.

2) Owner has to hustle their butt to do repairs in an intense window of time and do so before any new guests

3) You literally cannot do an honest review of these guests and have to pray they don’t strike with a retaliatory review of you, because you have the wherewithal not to eat the costs and the loss of your time, and anxiety caused.

I dream of a day when I can consolidate all of my business to one rental platform who appreciates the fact that I am serious about maintaining my place so people feel that they are getting a true, clean and well maintained home. But they make it hard.

My fridge looks like it was used for a punching bag, my tables have been scraped and scorched despite the pot holders, cutting boards, coasters and runners on EVERYTHING, and don’t get me started with the door jams and house trim,

etc. How I spend my time at my own vacation house is with touch up kits, magic erasers and penciling out budgets for replacing doors, trims, buckled water damaged floor boards and the like. And much of that “wear and tear” loss and damage is from the good guests!

[Letti0]

A word of causion here regarding CSA. Make sure you the host are the one purchasing the policy, not the guest. I had a friend who's guest purchase the policy at her request and then the quest said they did not do the damage, so the policy covered nothing.