Airbnb Property Damage:
Every Type. What to Do.

AirCover covers guest-caused property damage including physical damage to furniture and fixtures, stains on furnishings and carpets, structural damage to walls and surfaces, appliance damage, and missing items. It does not cover normal wear and tear, pre-existing damage, damage caused by pets without disclosure, or damage resulting from activities prohibited in the house rules without a disclosure clause.

AirCover can cover smoke damage, but it is one of the harder damage types to approve. You need documentation that smoking was prohibited in your house rules, evidence that smoking occurred during this specific stay, a specialist cleaning invoice showing the scope and cost of smoke remediation, and ideally photos showing visible staining or discolouration. Claims without specialist documentation are frequently denied or classified as wear and tear.

AirCover covers missing items that can be documented as present before the stay and absent after. It is treated as property damage rather than theft for claims purposes. You need a pre-stay inspection showing the item, a post-stay inspection showing its absence, and a current replacement cost from a named retailer. Items not shown in the pre-stay inspection are significantly harder to claim.

AirCover advertises up to $3 million per stay in property damage coverage. The advertised maximum is rarely the amount paid. Actual payouts are determined by the claimed amount, the supporting documentation, and the reviewer's assessment of the evidence. Claims with itemised costs and professional quotes produce amounts closer to the claimed value. Round-number estimates without documentation are frequently reduced.

Yes. A single AirCover claim can cover multiple damaged items from the same stay. Each item should be documented individually with before-and-after photos and its own repair or replacement cost. List items separately in the claim rather than combining them into a single total. Claims where individual item values can be verified produce better outcomes than lump-sum claims.

Based on patterns across claims, smoke and odour damage, gradual staining, and damage classified as wear and tear have the highest denial rates. Physical breakage with clear before-and-after documentation has higher approval rates. The approval rate for any damage type increases significantly when the claim includes a pre-stay inspection showing the area undamaged from the same booking.

As soon as possible after guest checkout and before any cleaning or repairs begin. Once cleaning or repairs start, the condition of the property at the time the guest left becomes harder to establish. The post-stay inspection should be the first thing that happens after checkout, before the cleaner enters.

Property damage is a discrete event: something broke, tore, stained, or was destroyed during this stay. Wear and tear is cumulative deterioration from normal use over time. Reviewers make this classification at their own discretion. A pre-stay inspection showing the item in good condition before the stay makes the "wear and tear" classification much harder to apply, because it establishes that the condition changed during a specific stay rather than gradually over time.