Airbnb offers some form of insurance to owners and hosts as well as tenants with the Host Guarantee. What are the conditions?
While in the best of all possible worlds, Airbnb’s private-to-private vacation rentals are running smoothly, the fact remains that disputes between hosts and tenants occasionally mar the American platform. To help resolve these disputes, Airbnb has introduced the Host Guarantee. How does it work? What are its limitations? Here’s a brief summary of what Airbnb’s Host Guarantee can and cannot do.
With its Host Guarantee, Airbnb covers you in the event of disputes…
Two forms of cover are offered to hosts and tenants by Airbnb. Host Insurance and Host Guarantee. While both have a ceiling of up to 800,000 euros, benefiting from them is above all an obstacle course, since the platform has made them so complex to operate.
As a reminder, Host Insurance covers damage or lawsuits caused by a third party, i.e. someone other than the host or tenant. Whereas Garantie Hôte covers material damage (excluding common areas, valuable property, pets or other) caused voluntarily by the tenant. So, in either case, to request coverage in the event of a dispute with Airbnb, you’ll either have to prove that the tenant knowingly damaged the property in your accommodation or the accommodation itself, or prove that a third party was responsible.
But alas, that’s not all, because to hope for Airbnb’s intervention in a dispute, the conditions are even crazier.
…but this coverage is limited and subject to some pretty crazy conditions
Since contracts with service aggregators are all about wordplay, Airbnb has literally barricaded the clauses governing how and under what conditions a guest can benefit from its coverage in the event of a dispute.
These clauses initially mention the fact that you can only benefit from this Host Guarantee if your accommodation is eligible. And by eligible, Airbnb hasn’t really specified what it’s actually talking about. Nevertheless, the platform emphasizes the need to be the owner of the accommodation at issue in the dispute. Or, if you are a tenant yourself, you must have authorization from your landlord to rent out your property on the platform in order to be eligible for this guarantee.
For example, if you own a primary or secondary residence in your own name, these are eligible under Airbnb’s criteria. If, on the other hand, you rent an apartment and wish to rent out one of its rooms on the platform, you will need to obtain the legal agreement of the property owner, in the form of a sublease authorization, in order to be eligible for the platform’s Host Guarantee.
But that’s not all. Airbnb’s move to compartmentalize the clauses of its Host Guarantee clearly stipulates that this guarantee can only be invoked when all attempts to resolve the dispute with your seasonal tenant have proved unsuccessful. In this case, you’ll need to provide proof that you were unable to find a solution on your own. This could be a conversation with your tenant, or a phone record proving that your tenant is not answering your calls. In short, you’ll have to spend a lot of time and money to prove that you’re eligible for a limited warranty.
A host warranty that in no way replaces home insurance
Given its limitations, it’s clear that Airbnb’s Host Guarantee is intended more as a last resort than a systematic solution in the event of a dispute with a tenant. This greatly reduces its value. Airbnb itself implicitly reminds owners that they should only offer accommodation for rent if it is insured.
We therefore strongly recommend that you learn more about howhome insurance works whenrenting out your accommodation on Airbnb.