What's your thoughts on Weather cancellations?

[Justin8]

We have rentals in South Florida.  So, everyone comes here for the sunshine.   When guests book through out website we Strongly urge them to purchase travel insurance that allows them to cancel and we still get paid.  We tell them them medical emgergencies and come up and Miami Beach can have hurricanes.  The cost of the insurance is usually only $20-$50 but rarely does anyone purchase it.  So, those few times when someone needs to cancel due to a medical problem or a pending hurricane, we tell them to contact the travel insurance company that we strongly recommened they purchase.  When they say they didn't want to spend the extra $20 on insurance they realize it's not responsibilty to cover their cancelation. 

Now guests that book through airbnb are not offered that travel insurance and we have 5 bookings this weekend that want to cancel their bookings because Hurricane IRMA Might hit Florida.  It seems airbnb is agreeing to refund them their bookings and pay me nothing.. Why should I as a host have to cover all the housing expense of a cancelled booking by a guest that didn't purchase travel insurance.   Airlines and hotels don't cancell bookings and refund customers because a hurricane Might happen. 

Any thoughts?

[Jenna-And-Drew0]

We have a disclaimer about no refunds for weather related incidents, cancelled flights, etc and recommend the purchase of travel insurance in our listing and house rules. We even send the guest our house rules and if they cannot agree to them recommend they cancel within 48 hours of booking for a full refund. We called Airbnb and they said our rules supercede their policy. We will always offer to split the loss with the traveler if they neglect to purchase travel insurance because we understand it sucks to have weather interrupt travel plans. To the person that says you want to keep money for services not rendered. We say...this is a business and revenue lost that other travelers could have booked and not been lost revenue. We deal primarily with winter weather in Colorado. 

[Dorothy190]

Thank you for this information.  I will be adding this to my house rules.  I hope Airbnb will agree that this supersedes their policy if I ever have to use it.  

Thanks again,

Dot

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Jenna-And-Drew0 I fear you were misinformed. Hosts rules do not supercede Airbnb policy as evidenced by all the Covid cancellations. Also neither Airbnb policy or your house rules can supercede national laws.

[Jenna-And-Drew0]

In this instance, the house rules did supersede Airbnb policy, and Airbnb's actions reflected as much. I double and triple-checked before communicating back with the impacted guest. Our insurance provider considers our house rules the contract with the guest. They required we add a few items prior to agreeing to cover us.