How to File an AirCover Claim: The 14-Day Clock, and If Airbnb Says No

Filing an AirCover request is a sequence with a hard deadline in the middle of it. Airbnb’s published process requires the reimbursement request within 14 days of the responsible guest’s checkout, gives that guest 24 hours to respond, and only then routes the request to Airbnb Support for review. Most hosts who come away frustrated did not lose on the merits — they missed a step or the window. This guide walks the process in order, then covers the part almost nobody plans for: what to do when the answer is no.

Step 1: Work Out Which Program You Are Filing Under

Before anything else, decide what kind of loss this is, because AirCover contains two different mechanisms with different processes.

If a guest damaged the home, furnishings, belongings, or a parked vehicle, or left the place needing cleaning well beyond a normal turnover, it is a Host damage protection matter — a reimbursement request, handled by Airbnb.

If someone was hurt, or someone else’s property was damaged and you may be legally responsible, it is a Host liability insurance matter — actual insurance, underwritten by third party insurers, on a different track entirely. Do not file it as a damage request; see Step 7.

And if the loss came from fire, a storm, a burst pipe, or ordinary deterioration, it is neither. Airbnb’s published exclusions for Host damage protection include normal wear and tear and loss due to acts of nature such as earthquakes and hurricanes, and the program addresses guest-caused damage only. That loss belongs to your own policy, and the sooner you route it there the better.

Step 2: Document in the First Hours, Not the First Days

Airbnb’s guidance is to document the issue with photos or videos, repair or cleaning estimates, and receipts. Do that immediately, before anything is moved, cleaned, or repaired.

What separates a request that resolves from one that stalls is usually the timeline the images establish. Photograph the damage in place and in context — a wide shot that identifies the room, then the detail. Keep the originals with their timestamps rather than screenshots. If you have turnover photos from before the stay, pull them now; a clean before-image is the most persuasive single item in a request.

Get a third-party estimate rather than writing down a number. A cleaner’s invoice, a contractor’s quote, or a replacement listing for the specific item does more work than a round figure a host assigned. This is also the documentation your own carrier would want if the loss ends up going that way, so nothing here is wasted effort.

Step 3: Raise It With the Guest, Inside Airbnb

The process runs through the guest first, so the conversation has to happen on the platform where Airbnb can see it.

Message the guest through Airbnb, describe what you found factually, and attach the documentation. Keep it dry. A message that reads as an accusation tends to produce a defensive guest and a messier record; a message that reads as a description of a problem and a number produces a decision.

Everything you send here becomes part of the record Airbnb reviews later. Side conversations by text or personal email do not, which is the most common self-inflicted wound in this process — a host negotiates privately for two weeks, reaches nothing, and arrives at the platform with a spent clock and no visible history.

Step 4: File the Reimbursement Request Within 14 Days of Checkout

This is the deadline that decides most outcomes. Airbnb’s published process requires the reimbursement request to be filed in the Resolution Center within 14 days of the responsible guest’s checkout, and if you want Airbnb Support involved you need to submit the supporting documentation within 14 days of the damage or loss.

Read that as running from checkout, not from discovery. A host who finds damage three weeks later during a deep clean has a problem no amount of documentation solves. That is a practical argument for inspecting after every stay rather than at the start of the next one — the inspection is what makes the clock survivable.

If you are close to the deadline and still negotiating with the guest, file anyway. Filing does not end the conversation; missing the window ends the option.

Step 5: The Guest’s 24 Hours, and the Three Outcomes

Once the request is submitted, the guest has 24 hours to respond, and there are three ways it goes.

The guest pays. The matter closes there and the program never comes into it.

The guest pays part. The balance is what carries forward into the Host damage protection request.

The guest declines or does not respond. You can then submit the reimbursement request under Host damage protection, and Airbnb Support steps in to review. Airbnb notes that for accommodations in Washington state, its insurer reviews the request instead of Airbnb Support.

None of these is a negotiation you can skip. The guest step is the gate, and requests that try to route around it come back.

Step 6: Escalate With the Documentation Already Assembled

When the request moves to Airbnb Support, the review is a documentation exercise. Everything useful was gathered in Step 2, which is the whole reason Step 2 comes first.

Submit the estimate, the receipts, the before-and-after images, and the message history. Answer follow-up questions promptly and narrowly — respond to what was asked rather than restating the whole account. Keep the requested amount tied to the documentation; a figure that exceeds the estimate invites scrutiny of the entire request.

For the broader version of this process — including the VRBO path and the coordination between platform and carrier — our guide on how to handle a guest damage claim covers the full journey. This one stays inside the AirCover lane.

Step 7: If It Is an Injury, Not Damage

A guest injury is not a reimbursement request and should never be filed as one.

Host liability insurance responds when a host is found legally responsible for bodily injury or property damage to a guest or others during an Airbnb stay, at a stated $1 million per stay, and Airbnb’s program summary notes that it includes claim investigation costs and the cost of defending a formal complaint such as a lawsuit.

Three things to do immediately, in this order. Report the incident to Airbnb. Notify your own general liability carrier — prompt notice is a policy condition, and late notice is one of the few things that can genuinely damage an otherwise good claim. And say nothing, in writing or otherwise, that concedes fault. Sympathy is fine; admissions are not, and a message sent to be kind can be read later as an assessment of liability.

Scenario: Two Weeks of Texting, One Day Past the Window

We recently spoke with a host who found significant damage after a long weekend booking — a ruined sofa, a scorched countertop, and a floor that needed refinishing. They had good photos and a real estimate. What they did next was reasonable and cost them the program: they took the conversation to text message, because the guest had been friendly and it seemed more likely to get resolved that way.

The guest was cooperative for a week, then evasive, then quiet. By the time the host gave up and opened a request, they were outside the 14-day window from checkout and the message history that would have shown a good-faith effort had happened somewhere Airbnb could not see. The request went nowhere, and correctly so — the process was not applied.

The loss itself was not catastrophic, but it was entirely avoidable, and it is the version of this we see most. The fix is procedural rather than financial: inspect after every checkout, file inside the platform on day one or two, and let the negotiation continue in parallel rather than instead.

Step 8: When Airbnb Says No

A denial is not one thing, and the right response depends on which one you got.

Denied on timing. This is usually final. There is little to appeal when the window has closed, and the useful move is forward: evaluate whether the loss is worth presenting to your own carrier, and change the inspection routine so the next one is filed on time.

Denied on documentation. This one is sometimes recoverable. If the request was declined because the damage could not be substantiated or the amount could not be tied to an estimate, supplying what was missing is a legitimate response. Be precise about what changed rather than resubmitting the same package with a different tone.

Denied on scope. This is the most common and the most misread. Normal wear and tear, cleaning that belongs to a normal check-out, damage from an excluded cause, or damage no guest caused — these are not adverse decisions, they are the program’s boundary. Airbnb publishes that boundary, and a denial on scope means the loss was never inside it.

That third category is where hosts waste the most energy. Arguing the boundary does not move it. The productive question is whether the loss belongs to a property policy, a liability claim, or loss of rents — and whether the coverage that would have paid for it is actually in force. If the honest answer to that is no, the denial has told you something more valuable than the reimbursement would have been.

Step 9: Deciding Between the Program and Your Policy

Both paths exist for a reason, and the choice is usually clear once framed.

Host damage protection is the right first call for guest-caused damage that sits comfortably inside its terms. It can reimburse with no deductible, and it does not put a claim on your own record — which matters more than hosts expect at renewal.

Your own policy is the right call when the cause is a covered peril rather than a guest, when the amount is large enough that a deductible is irrelevant, when the loss involves the structure, or when income stopped because the property came offline. For the full picture of what your own program should be carrying and why, our verdict on whether AirCover is worth it and the national STR insurance cost guide cover it from both ends.

What you should not do is treat the two as sequential by default — waiting out a program decision while a policy notice requirement runs is how a recoverable loss becomes an uncovered one.