replacement cost value

Replacement cost value pays what a new equivalent costs today. Actual cash value pays what the damaged item was worth at the moment it was damaged, which is the replacement cost minus depreciation for the life it had already used.

On a five-year-old sofa with a ten-year expected life, those two numbers are roughly double each other. Nothing about the damage changes; only the basis does.

A platform damage programme is designed to restore your position, not to upgrade your furniture, so used goods are generally settled on a depreciated basis. That is standard indemnity practice rather than a quirk of any one platform.

It is also the reason experienced hosts hold a policy behind the programme rather than instead of it. The layers are compared in AirCover versus host insurance, and the practical consequences by item type are in how much AirCover actually pays.

If you want new-for-old on contents, it comes from your own policy and it is a specific choice with a premium attached. Check what basis your current cover is written on before an incident, because hosts frequently discover mid-claim that they assumed one and bought the other.

It is worth paying for on a small number of items rather than everything: the expensive, hard-to-source, or business-critical pieces. Specialist policies for short-term rental are compared in short-term rental insurance providers compared.

Since services do not depreciate, a documented repair usually recovers a larger share of your real loss than a replacement that will be written down. Where a professional says repair is reasonable, claim the repair and attach their recommendation.

And keep purchase dates for anything expensive. Age that is documented is assessed; age that is assumed is estimated, usually not in your favour. The full arithmetic sits in actual cash value.