AirCover Claim Checklist: 9 Things to Verify Before You Hit Submit

AirCover reviewers decide whether to approve, reduce, or deny most claims in the first thirty seconds of opening the file. The decision is shaped less by the damage itself and more by what the host packaged around it. Run through these nine checks before you submit, and you will catch the weaknesses they would have caught for you.

The checks are ordered roughly by how often they kill claims, not by importance. Skip the ones that obviously do not apply to your situation. Spend the most time on the ones you almost passed over.

1. Are you still inside the 14-day filing window?

The first check is the one that catches more claims than any other. AirCover requires you to file within 14 days of the responsible guest’s checkout, or before the next guest checks in, whichever comes first. The clock starts at the official checkout time on the booking calendar, not when you discovered the damage.

If the window is past, you can still submit, but the path becomes discretionary rather than policy-driven. Attach a one-paragraph explanation of why the discovery was delayed. Honest, specific, no melodrama. Hosts who silently file late almost always get denied; hosts who acknowledge the delay and explain the reason occasionally get paid.

If your next guest has already checked in, the window for the previous booking is closed. Standard AirCover escalation is unavailable. You can still document for your own records, but the approval path is now customer support, not policy.

2. Do you have a before record, not just an after record?

AirCover’s policy describes acceptable evidence as showing damage caused by the responsible guest. A single set of checkout photos cannot prove that on its own. The guest’s defence is always “it was already like that.” A before record is what dissolves that defence.

Acceptable before evidence includes a timestamped check-in inspection from the same booking, a check-out inspection from the previous booking, a recent maintenance log photograph, or a professional cleaning report showing the affected area in the prior state. Any of these breaks the “already like that” argument; none of them require special equipment to capture.

If you genuinely do not have a before record for this specific incident, do not invent one. State the gap directly in the claim and lean harder on the other pillars. Reviewers are more forgiving of an acknowledged weakness than a fabricated one.

3. Did your photos retain their EXIF metadata?

EXIF metadata is the timestamp, camera model, and (when available) the GPS coordinates embedded inside the photo file. It is the difference between a photo that proves when and where it was taken and a photo that proves nothing on its own. AirCover reviewers cannot verify a phone photo without it.

Three workflows strip EXIF and you will not always notice: sending photos through WhatsApp, iMessage, or social messaging apps; uploading to Google Photos and re-downloading; running photos through an editing or filtering app for “clarity.” The last one is the most dangerous because the result still looks like a normal photo but has lost the verifiable layer underneath.

Before you upload, check at least one photo’s file properties on the original camera or phone. If you see a date, time, and ideally a location, the metadata is intact. If those fields are empty, the photo has already been laundered. Re-export from the original source if possible. For more on why metadata matters, see why Airbnb rejects your photos.

4. Did you contact the guest before escalating to AirCover?

AirCover policy is explicit: you must request payment from the guest through the Resolution Center before escalating. The guest then has 72 hours to respond. Only after that window expires, or after the guest declines or ignores the request, can you push the case to AirCover.

This step is procedural, but reviewers also read it as a tone signal. A neutral message asking the guest to acknowledge the damage often gets ignored or denied, which strengthens your claim. A combative message gives the guest grounds to counter-escalate and forces the reviewer to read the thread as a dispute rather than a documentation case.

Keep the initial message factual and short. State what was damaged, attach the dated photos, give a specific repair or replacement cost, and ask the guest to accept or decline within the 72-hour window. Do not negotiate, threaten, or argue. The thread becomes part of the file the reviewer eventually sees.

5. Are repair costs documented, not estimated?

A specific itemised amount with documentation almost always outranks a round number with none. AirCover accepts dated repair receipts, contractor quotes on letterhead, replacement invoices from the same vendor you originally bought from, and cleaning bills that itemise the damage-related work separately from routine cleaning.

What AirCover does not accept: a screenshot from a furniture website as “replacement cost,” your own estimate of repair time multiplied by an hourly rate, or a round number with no breakdown. These get reduced or denied because the dollar amount has no third-party corroboration.

If the damage is too small to justify a contractor visit, request a written quote by email or get a same-day invoice from a handyman who already works at the property. A $180 invoice on a service company’s letterhead outperforms a $200 self-estimate.

6. Does the written description read like documentation or escalation?

Reviewers process the written description in seconds. They are looking for a sequence of factual statements. A clean description tells them: what was damaged, when you discovered it, what the guest said when you contacted them, what the documented cost is, and what evidence is attached.

Two patterns kill claims at this stage. The first is emotional escalation: “the place was completely destroyed,” “these were the worst guests we have ever had,” “I am furious.” The second is vagueness: “extensive damage throughout,” “significant cleaning required,” “multiple items broken.” Both read as fishing rather than documenting, and both push the reviewer toward a denial they can justify in one line.

Rewrite the description as if you were filing a police report. Replace adjectives with quantities. Replace round numbers with specific ones. Drop any reference to the guest’s character. Three short paragraphs of plain factual statements outperform a long paragraph of frustration almost every time.

7. Have you submitted only the relevant photos?

A reviewer faced with 80 photos will not look closely at any of them. Each image gets less attention as the count grows. Ten to twenty focused, clearly labelled photos consistently outperform forty unsorted ones.

Aim for three angles per damaged item: a wide shot showing the location in context, a mid shot showing the surrounding area, and a close-up showing the damage detail. Add the before reference photo if you have one. Skip the duplicates, skip the photos of undamaged rooms, skip the photos of the cleaner’s supplies.

Name your files if the upload interface lets you. “01-living-room-before.jpg,” “02-living-room-after.jpg,” and so on. This is a tiny effort that signals organised documentation and saves the reviewer time. Saved reviewer time is correlated with approval rates.

8. Have you avoided AI-enhanced or filtered photos?

In April 2026 Airbnb introduced its “Legitimate and Verifiable Evidence” standard, which explicitly rejects AI-enhanced or AI-generated photos. The wording is broad enough to include common smartphone enhancements: HDR boost, scene optimisation, brightness or sharpness filters applied through editing apps, and any third-party tool that uses AI to “clean up” the image.

The intent of the rule is to prevent staged or invented damage, but the practical effect catches hosts trying to make legitimate damage look clearer in a low-light photo. If a reviewer suspects enhancement, the safer move for them is to deny rather than verify; the burden of authenticity sits with the host.

Submit the original camera files, not edits. If the original is too dark to see the damage, retake it with better lighting rather than brightening it. If you have already enhanced a photo, recapture it from the same angle if possible. For damage that is no longer visible, fall back on the contractor’s assessment in writing.

9. Is the claimed amount proportionate to the property?

AirCover applies internal fraud triggers when a claimed amount looks oversized for the type of property, the booking length, or the host’s claim history. Triggered claims get escalated to a more skeptical review tier, where denials and reductions are more common.

Hosts hit this trigger by submitting one large round number for diverse damage, by claiming replacement cost for items where repair would be standard, or by including hard-to-justify line items in an otherwise valid claim. A $4,000 claim composed of $3,200 in documented contractor work and $800 in itemised replacements reads differently than a $4,000 claim with one line that says “general damage.”

If your number is unavoidably large, split it. Make the largest line items the most thoroughly documented ones. Drop any line you cannot defend with a receipt or quote. A claim that survives review at $2,800 returns more cash than one that gets denied at $4,000.

Run all nine before you submit

These nine checks correspond directly to the four pillars AirCover reviewers implicitly weight: evidence depth, filing timeline, evidence quality, and presentation. A claim that passes all nine is in the top quartile of submissions the reviewer will see that week. A claim that misses three or more usually pays a fraction of the requested amount or none at all.

Running this checklist takes about ten minutes if you have your file organised. The same ten minutes done before you submit is worth far more than the ten minutes you would spend appealing a denial.

Want this scored automatically? The free AirCover Claim Strength Checker runs the same nine checks in your browser, returns a 0-to-100 score with a per-pillar breakdown, and lists which fixes will move the needle most in your remaining filing window.