When you find damage after a guest checks out, the owner is the one who files the claim, but you are the one who saw it. This guide explains how the free Incident Report Builder turns what you found into a report the owner can act on, where its numbers come from, and how to use it well.
The tool is a four-step wizard. You are not writing a report from a blank page. You answer a short set of questions about the stay and the damage, and the tool assembles the report for you, with the cost figures, the checklist, and the deadline already worked out.
Pick the country and platform, then add the property name, the guest, the reservation code, and the checkout date. The country sets the currency and the cost data. The checkout date drives the filing-window countdown.
For each item, choose the room, the item, and how bad it is. Pick from the list of common items to get a sourced cost range, or write your own item when it is not listed. You can add as many items as the incident involved.
Note who found the damage and what happened, and mark what proof exists for each item: photos, a receipt, a repair quote. This is what the readiness checklist reads. Honest answers here make the report worth more, not less.
The tool builds a clean, printable incident report: the damage with a sourced cost range, the estimated exposure, an evidence-readiness checklist, the AirCover filing-window status, and a recommended next step you can send straight to the owner.
The whole flow takes a few minutes. Nothing is saved to an account, and no sign-up is required.
On most short-term rentals, the person who finds the damage is not the person who files the claim. A cleaner or co-host spots a burn on the counter at turnover. The owner, who has the AirCover account, is somewhere else. What travels between them is usually a quick message and a blurry photo, and that is where time and money leak out.
A vague message starts a slow back and forth. The owner asks what it will cost, whether it is worth filing, and how long they have. By the time those answers come back, days of the filing window are gone. A structured report answers all three questions at once: here is the damage, here is the typical cost, here is how many days are left. The owner can act instead of asking.
It also protects you. A clear, dated report shows the owner you handled the turnover properly and flagged the problem in time. That is a better position than an informal text that is easy to lose and easy to dispute later.
Use it the moment you find damage during or after a checkout, before you message the owner. It is built for the gap between the turnover and the claim: you have seen the problem, the owner has not, and the clock is already running.
It fits any platform that has a damage process, including Airbnb, Vrbo, and Booking.com. The filing-window guidance is written around the 14-day AirCover deadline, which is the tightest of the common ones, so building the report early keeps you safe across platforms. If the damage is trivial and clearly normal wear, you may not need a claim at all, and the report will tell you when everything you listed is minor.
The cost figures are not guessed. For each common item, the tool holds a sourced, country-specific range: a typical low and high for repair or replacement in that country, in the local currency, including VAT where the country applies it. When you select a country, every figure in the report switches to that country's data.
They are ranges on purpose. A broken dining chair does not cost one exact number across every home and every supplier, so the report shows a band rather than a false precision. The honest framing is built in: the report states that these are typical ranges for the country and that you should replace them with the actual quote or receipt when the owner files.
When an item is not in the list, you enter your own estimate. The report keeps that figure clearly marked as your estimate, separate from the sourced ranges, so the owner can see at a glance which numbers are backed by data and which are your judgment. For more on what AirCover pays per damage type, see the property damage guide.
The report gives three separate readings. None of them is a prediction of whether the claim will be paid. Each answers a different practical question the owner is about to ask.
It adds the sourced ranges of the items you listed into one estimated exposure, shown as a low-to-high figure rather than a single number. Items you wrote yourself are flagged as your own estimate, not a sourced figure.
It lists what an AirCover claim usually needs and shows how many of those you already have. It is a checklist of what is required, not a prediction of whether the claim will be approved.
From the checkout date, it counts the days left in the 14-day AirCover window and flags the case as open, closing, or expired, so the owner knows how urgent the next step is.
Kept apart on purpose, the three readings are honest about what they are. The cost range is an estimate of money at stake. The checklist is a list of what is needed. The window is a deadline. The tool never blends them into a single score that pretends to know the outcome. To see how strong the case actually is, the next step is the Claim Strength Checker.
The output is a single, clean incident report. It opens with the property and the stay, then lists each damaged item with its sourced range, the estimated exposure for the whole incident, the evidence-readiness checklist, the filing-window status, and a recommended next step written in plain language.
You can use it three ways. Download it as a PDF, which carries the Checkout Shield header so it reads as a real document. Share it as a link. Or send it straight to the owner by email. Privacy toggles let you blur the money figures or hide guest and personal details before you share, so the report is safe to forward.
Five minutes of care before you open the tool makes the report far stronger:
For the full version of this, the co-host and VA guide to guest damage walks through the whole turnover-to-claim workflow.
Send the report to the owner the same day, while the window is open. Then the path is short:
The Incident Report Builder is free. Checkout Shield is the system that captures the evidence it asks for: GPS-verified, server-timestamped inspection reports at every turnover, so the next incident is documented before it happens, not reconstructed after.
Found damage after checkout? Send the owner a real report
For STR virtual assistants and co-hosts. Build a professional incident report in four steps, with a sourced cost range for the country, an evidence-readiness checklist, and the AirCover filing window. Free, no sign-up required.
Build the Incident Report, FreeThe common questions about the VA Incident Report Builder, answered.
It is a free tool that turns damage found after a guest checks out into a structured incident report the property owner can act on. It is built for the person who is usually first on the scene at turnover: a virtual assistant, a co-host, a cleaner, or a property manager. In four short steps it produces a sourced cost range, an evidence-readiness checklist, and the AirCover filing-window countdown.
Anyone who handles a short-term rental on behalf of the owner. Virtual assistants and co-hosts use it to report damage to the owner without writing the message from scratch. Cleaners use it to hand off what they found at turnover. Property managers use it to keep the report consistent across many listings.
No, and that is deliberate. The tool does not score the claim or guess the outcome. It gives you three honest readings instead: a sourced cost range, a checklist of the evidence AirCover usually needs, and the days left in the 14-day filing window. Whether a claim is approved is decided by Airbnb on the evidence submitted.
They are sourced, country-specific typical ranges for each item, shown in the local currency and including VAT where that applies in the country you select. They are typical ranges, not a quote for your exact item, so you replace them with the actual receipt or repair quote when the owner files. If an item is not in the list, you enter your own estimate and the report marks it clearly as your estimate.
It is free and needs no sign-up. You can build the report, download it as a PDF, share it as a link, or send it straight to the owner by email, with privacy toggles that blur the money figures or hide guest and personal details.
Send it to the owner the same day, while the filing window is open. The owner files the AirCover claim in the Resolution Center inside the 14 days and attaches the photos, receipts, and quotes. Before they file, run the case through the AirCover Claim Strength Checker to see what is still missing.
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For short-term-rental virtual assistants and co-hosts. Found damage after a guest checks out? Build a professional incident report for the owner in four steps, with a sourced cost range for the country, an evidence-readiness checklist, and the AirCover filing-window countdown. Free, no sign-up required.
Build the reportEstimate your annual exposure from denied claims and undocumented damage.
Calculate your riskScore your damage claim before you submit and see exactly what is missing.
Score my claimPersonalized evidence checklist by platform, host type, and property zones.
Generate my checklistScore your whole documentation workflow and find the gaps that get claims denied.
Get my scoreSee the real cost of a damage incident, including the part AirCover never repays.
Estimate my real costThe Incident Report Builder is free and takes a few minutes. Build the report, then run the case through the Claim Strength Checker before the owner files.
Free plan, no credit card. Ready in 2 minutes.