Incidental damage

Incidental damage is the small, expected residue of normal use: a faint mark, a minor scuff, a single broken glass. Accidental damage is a discrete unintended event that goes beyond that, like a dropped laptop cracking a glass table. Negligence is harm a reasonable guest would have prevented, like leaving a tap running or ignoring a clear safety instruction.

The categories matter because they map to who absorbs the cost. Incidental items are usually the host’s to swallow. Accidental and negligent damage are recoverable, but only with proof that the event happened during this guest’s stay.

A common mistake is filing real accidental or negligent damage as if it were obvious, with no evidence of severity or timing. The reviewer then reclassifies it downward, often as wear and tear or an incidental cost, and the claim shrinks or fails.

The fix is not better wording. It is a clear before-and-after that shows the item was intact at check-in and the extent of the change at check-out. Severity and timing, shown rather than asserted, are what hold the higher category in place.

AirCover is built for guest-caused damage above the incidental line. It does not reimburse the slow accumulation of small marks, and it will not pay an accidental or negligent claim that the host cannot tie to a specific booking with evidence.

This is why documentation, not the label you choose, drives the payout. The same broken item can be an unrecoverable incidental cost or a paid accidental claim depending entirely on whether you captured the baseline.