Vacation rental damage, claims & inspection glossary

Coverage & protection

AirCover for Hosts

Airbnb's free protection package for hosts. It bundles Host Damage Protection (reimbursement for guest-caused damage, up to $3 million), Host Liability Insurance (up to $1 million for third-party injury or property-damage claims), pet-damage and deep-cleaning coverage, and income protection if you have to cancel bookings because of damage. According to the Airbnb Help Center, it applies "in the rare event your place or belongings are damaged by a guest during an Airbnb stay." It is not a replacement for short-term-rental insurance.

Host Damage Protection

The damage-reimbursement piece of AirCover. Covers guest-caused damage to your home and belongings (and certain extra cleaning, like smoke-odor removal or pet accidents) up to $3 million, but, per Airbnb's terms, not normal wear and tear, theft of cash or currency, natural disasters, or liability claims. Reimbursement is conditioned on filing within the deadline with verifiable evidence.See also: Airbnb AirCover damage claim guide

Host Liability Insurance

The liability component of AirCover (up to $1 million per occurrence) covering claims that a guest or other third party was injured or had property damaged in connection with an Airbnb stay. Separate from damage protection, which covers your property.

Vrbo damage protection / property damage protection

Vrbo's equivalent. A property manager can either require a refundable damage deposit on the booking or offer a non-refundable damage protection plan that covers accidental damage up to a set limit. Vrbo also lets travelers add their own damage protection at checkout.See also: Vrbo damage claim guide

Damage waiver / damage protection fee

A small, non-refundable fee charged per booking (commonly $20–$100) that covers accidental damage up to a cap, often around $3,000, instead of holding a refundable deposit. Guests prefer it because nothing is held against their card; operators like it because it removes the deposit-dispute friction. It does not cover intentional damage or amounts above the cap.See also: Security deposits vs. damage waivers vs. platform protection

Security deposit / damage deposit

A refundable amount either charged or pre-authorized against the guest's payment method and held against the cost of any damage during the stay; released after checkout if no claim is filed. On Airbnb, hosts generally don't set their own deposits; AirCover plays this role. On Vrbo and direct bookings, refundable deposits are common.

Short-term-rental insurance / STR insurance

A dedicated commercial or landlord policy that covers the structure, contents, liability, and lost rental income for a property rented to short-term guests. According to Obie, a single-family STR policy typically runs $1,500–$3,500 per year. A standard homeowner's policy usually excludes commercial short-term renting, which is why platform protection alone is not considered sufficient coverage.See also: How to choose STR insurance

Travel / trip damage protection (guest-side)

An optional add-on a guest buys when booking (through the platform or a travel insurer) that reimburses accidental damage they cause to the rental, typically up to $1,500–$3,000. It shifts the first line of recovery from your deposit or AirCover to the guest's plan.

Claims & reimbursement

Resolution Center

Airbnb's tool where a host first requests reimbursement directly from the guest. The guest has 24 hours to respond. If they decline, pay partially, or don't respond, the host can escalate the request to Airbnb Support under Host Damage Protection.

Reimbursement request / AirCover claim

The formal request a host files to be reimbursed for guest-caused damage. On Airbnb it starts in the Resolution Center; if unresolved, Airbnb Support reviews the evidence and decides the payout. Vrbo handles it through a refundable-deposit deduction or a claim against the damage protection plan.

Claim window / filing deadline

The period during which a host can still bill the guest. On Airbnb: within 14 days of the responsible guest's checkout, or before the next guest checks in, whichever happens first. On Vrbo, the practical window is about 30 days after checkout (per Avada Properties' analysis of 20,000+ bookings). Damage discovered after the window is, in practice, the operator's cost.See also: Back-to-back booking damage attribution

Guest response period

On Airbnb, the 24-hour window the guest has to accept, partially pay, or decline a reimbursement request before the host can escalate it to AirCover for Hosts.

Claim approval rate / reimbursement rate

The share of the amount a host claims that they actually get paid. According to Avada Properties' analysis of more than 20,000 Airbnb and Vrbo bookings, the average host is reimbursed for about 56.75% of the claimed amount on Airbnb and about 68.29% on Vrbo. The gap is mostly documentation: claims that can't prove the damage is new, or can't prove the cost, get cut down.See also: How much does Airbnb actually pay on damage claims

Claim denial

Rejection of a reimbursement request. The common reasons are documentation gaps (no before/after evidence, no proof of cost, missed deadline) and excluded losses (normal wear and tear, consumables, theft of cash, natural disasters).See also: Why STR damage claims get denied

Consumables exclusion

Most damage protection won't reimburse consumable or perishable items (toiletries, coffee, firewood, paper goods) or general restocking; coverage is for durable property that was damaged, not supplies that were used up.

Wear-and-tear exclusion

Damage protection covers sudden, guest-caused damage, not the gradual deterioration that comes from normal use (faded paint, traffic-worn carpet, a sagging older mattress). Where guest damage ends and wear and tear begins is the single most-disputed call in STR claims.See also: Wear and tear vs. damage on vacation rental finishes

Police report requirement

Airbnb's Host Damage Protection terms require a police report for theft claims (and certain other claim types) for the loss to be eligible. If a guest takes items, file the police report before, or alongside, the reimbursement request.See also: Stolen and missing items: vacation rental claims

Subrogation

When an insurer that has paid a claim pursues the at-fault party (or the platform) to recover what it paid out. Relevant when your STR policy covers guest damage and then goes after the guest or platform; it's also why your insurer will want the same documentation a platform claim needs.

Valuation & money

Actual cash value (ACV)

The replacement cost of an item minus depreciation for its age and condition at the time of the loss. According to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, ACV is "the amount to replace your damaged or stolen property, minus depreciation." Most platform damage programs and many STR policies pay on an ACV basis, which is why a six-year-old sofa is reimbursed at a fraction of a new one's price.See also: How Airbnb calculates damage payouts

Replacement cost value (RCV)

The full cost to replace an item with a new one of like kind and quality, with no deduction for depreciation. The more generous valuation basis; an RCV insurance policy costs more for that reason. The difference between RCV and ACV is the depreciation, which on a worn item can be most of the value.

Depreciation

The decline in an item's value over time from age and use. It's subtracted from replacement cost to get actual cash value. Insurers use standard depreciation schedules; widely cited rates (from ClaimsPages.com) include upholstered furniture roughly 10% per year, mattresses about 5% per year, sheets about 20% per year, and HD televisions about 10% per year, with the "useful life" of the item setting the rate.

Betterment

The value a claimant would gain by getting a brand-new item in place of an old one. It's the reason ACV settlements deduct depreciation: a claim is meant to make you whole, not leave you better off than before the damage. "Betterment" is essentially a synonym for the depreciation amount in a settlement.

Useful life

The expected service span of an item, used as the basis for its depreciation rate. Under heavy guest use, common useful-life assumptions run roughly: interior paint 3–5 years, carpet 5–7 years, a mattress 7–10 years, upholstered furniture 7–15 years, major kitchen appliances 10–15 years. An item past its useful life has little or no depreciated value to claim, even if a guest finished it off.

Deductible

The amount the insured pays out of pocket before insurance contributes. AirCover and most damage waivers have no deductible; a commercial STR policy almost always does, which is why a small guest-damage incident is usually handled through the platform or deposit rather than filed on the policy.

Reserve / FF&E reserve / capex reserve

Money set aside out of revenue to fund future repairs and the eventual replacement of furniture, fixtures, and equipment. Operators commonly budget a few percent of revenue per year for it; it's separate from the per-incident damage you recover from guests, and it's what absorbs the damage you don't recover.

Damage recovery rate

An operations metric: the share of total guest-damage cost an operator successfully recovers (from guests, platforms, or insurers) versus absorbs. A low recovery rate usually traces back to weak documentation or missed filing deadlines rather than to platforms being stingy.See also: What is damage recovery rate?

Inspection & documentation

Turnover / changeover / flip

The window between one guest's checkout and the next guest's check-in, when the property is cleaned, restocked, and inspected. In practice it's about 3–4 usable hours between a 10 AM checkout and a 4 PM check-in, which is why inspection so often loses out to cleaning.See also: How long does a vacation rental turnover take?

Turnover inspection / changeover inspection

A check of the property's condition after cleaning and before the next guest, to catch new damage, missing items, and maintenance issues while there's still time to fix them or file a claim. Distinct from cleaning verification, which only confirms the place is clean.See also: Turnover inspection checklist

Baseline / reference set / "before" documentation

A known-good record of the property's condition, in photos or video, that every later turnover is compared against to detect change. It is the single most valuable piece of evidence for attributing damage to a specific guest: without a before, "the previous guest could have done that" is a valid objection.

Condition report

A documented record of a property's state at a point in time, usually with photos and notes. In long-term rentals it's the move-in/move-out report; in short-term rentals, the per-turnover version serves the same purpose, capturing what the place looked like the moment a guest's stay ended.

Property inventory

An itemized list of the furnishings, appliances, electronics, and amenities in a unit, used to verify after a stay that nothing is missing or broken. Pairs with the condition report: the inventory catches what's gone, the condition report catches what's damaged.See also: Vacation rental inventory checklist generator

Damage attribution

Establishing which guest caused a specific piece of damage, by showing it was not present before their stay and was present after. Attribution is what turns "there's a stain on the sofa" into a chargeable claim, and it's impossible without a baseline and a timestamp.

Damage detection

Identifying new damage by comparing a property's current state to a prior baseline. It can be done manually (a person reviewing turnover photos against last week's) or with software (automated comparison that flags differences). The bottleneck in the manual version is volume: a 50-unit portfolio generates thousands of photos a week that no one has time to compare.See also: How automated damage detection works

AI damage detection

Software that compares turnover photos or video against a baseline of the same property and flags apparent changes for a human to review. It doesn't replace the inspector; it triages, so a person looks at the ten frames that changed instead of the four hundred that didn't. RapidEye is built around this.See also: Is there AI that reviews Airbnb turnover photos?

False positive (in damage detection)

When a detection tool flags something as damage that isn't, a shadow, a moved cushion, a reflection, a lighting change. The false-positive rate is the key quality measure for any automated system: too high and reviewers stop trusting it; too aggressively suppressed and real damage slips through.See also: AI damage detection accuracy and false positives

Walkthrough video

A continuous video of every room captured at turnover. It records more context than still photos, is harder for a guest to dispute, and naturally timestamps itself. Increasingly the documentation standard for higher-value properties.See also: Video walkthrough inspections vs. photos

Timestamped / geotagged evidence

Photos or video carrying verifiable metadata showing when (and sometimes where) they were taken. Platforms and insurers weigh this heavily because it's hard to fake, and it's what closes the "when did this happen?" question that determines which guest pays.

Back-to-back booking

A same-day turnover: one guest checks out and another checks in the same day. It compresses the time to clean, inspect, and document, and it collapses Airbnb's "before the next guest checks in" claim deadline down to a few hours, making attribution of any damage much harder.See also: Catching damage between back-to-back bookings

Operations & metrics

Ops failure rate / operational failure rate

The share of turnovers with at least one operational failure, a late clean, missing supplies, missed maintenance, missed damage, or a guest issue in the first 24 hours. The benchmark cited by Opago is about 12.5%, with best-in-class operators below 5%. Missed damage is one of the five failure categories.See also: What is ops failure rate?

Inspection pass rate

The share of turnover inspections that pass with no issues found. A useful health signal for an operation, though only as good as the inspection behind it: a 99% pass rate on a checklist that never looks behind the headboard isn't telling you much.See also: What's a good inspection pass rate?

Quality assurance (QA)

The process of verifying a turnover meets standard before the next guest arrives, typically a post-clean inspection covering cleanliness, restocking, presentation, and condition. The last checkpoint before a guest sees the property.See also: How to scale vacation rental quality control

Par level

The multiple of linen and towel sets a property keeps on hand, 2x, 3x, and so on, so a clean set is always ready while another is in the wash. A 3x par level means three full sets per bed and bath. Relevant to turnover speed and to spotting linen damage, since you can pull a stained set without leaving the property short.See also: How many linen sets per vacation rental?

Damage waiver attach rate

The share of bookings that carry a damage waiver or protection fee, versus those left with only a deposit or no protection at all. A higher attach rate smooths recovery but doesn't remove the need to document; the waiver still pays only against proof of damage.

Frequently asked questions