<story><title>The Moment Of Truth For Airbnb As User’s Home Is Utterly Trashed</title><url>http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/27/the-moment-of-truth-for-airbnb-as-users-home-is-utterly-trashed/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jellicle</author><text>As was pointed out before, it&apos;s not possible to get insurance for this - homeowner&apos;s insurance specifically disclaims damage from renters, and it&apos;s generally not legal to rent your premises like this unless you comply with all the hotel rules, so AirBnb can&apos;t take out insurance either.  All they can do is self-insure, and if they start paying out, people will realize &quot;Hey, I can get a new TV if I let my friend come and trash my old one&quot;.&lt;p&gt;And yet your analysis of this particular case is spot-on.  They stand to get CRUSHED by this story.&lt;p&gt;Damned if they do, and damned if they don&apos;t.</text></item><item><author>tc</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;#62; I spoke to Airbnb about EJ’s situation. They won’t reimburse her for damages&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is bad news.&lt;p&gt;They&apos;re going to backtrack on this.  The sooner they do it, the better for them politically.&lt;p&gt;I understand the problems of setting a precedent.  And there really is no getting around the fact that the hosts do have the final responsibility for screening travelers (and travelers for screening hosts).&lt;p&gt;But rightly or wrongly, they&apos;re going to end up on the wrong side of this story unless they make things right for this gal and can tell Arrington and other journalists, &lt;i&gt;&quot;we&apos;ve made sure our customer is whole.&quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;After saying that, they can use this as a learning exercise for their community about how screening hosts and travelers yourself is important.&lt;p&gt;--&lt;p&gt;[Edit]: Is she in San Francisco?  It looks like she is.  She called SFPD.  This is an easy one.  Brian, Joe, or Nathan needs to be out there to provide a shoulder to cry on and an open checkbook to fix anything that money can fix.  Nothing in that apartment costs more than the value of the ammunition this is going to give to their enemies.&lt;p&gt;The earlier they do this, the more quietly they can do it, which serves their purposes as well.&lt;p&gt;[Edit #2]: Some form of insurance might be a worthwhile addition to their offering, but that&apos;s something they can debate and decide on after they put out this fire.  [added:] Also, insurance doesn&apos;t solve the safety issues involved here, so they&apos;re still going to need to emphasize the importance of screening travelers (and hosts) carefully.&lt;p&gt;[Edit #3]: EJ doesn&apos;t sound particularly litigious in her post, but consider what happens if she does decide to sue AirBnB and any part of it makes it to a jury.  I mean, &lt;i&gt;HackerNews&lt;/i&gt; is lining up against them.  Consider what 6-12 normal people might decide.  The wise move would be to make sure that she&apos;s fully satisfied with the way they treated her.&lt;p&gt;[Edit #4]: Arrington updated the article after speaking with Brian Chesky.  Brian, Joe, Nathan and company did the right thing here, as you would expect.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pdx</author><text>It should be possible.  I see this as the exact same situation as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.getaround.com/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.getaround.com/&lt;/a&gt;, who are, according to techcrunch, &quot;The Airbnb For Cars&quot;.  They have a policy with Berkshire Hathaway that covers any damage to the rented cars.&lt;p&gt;You can write insurance for anything, if you&apos;re willing to pay enough premium.  I can&apos;t imagine this premium would be that exorbitant for Airbnb to pay for it&apos;s users, just as Getaround does.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Moment Of Truth For Airbnb As User’s Home Is Utterly Trashed</title><url>http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/27/the-moment-of-truth-for-airbnb-as-users-home-is-utterly-trashed/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jellicle</author><text>As was pointed out before, it&apos;s not possible to get insurance for this - homeowner&apos;s insurance specifically disclaims damage from renters, and it&apos;s generally not legal to rent your premises like this unless you comply with all the hotel rules, so AirBnb can&apos;t take out insurance either.  All they can do is self-insure, and if they start paying out, people will realize &quot;Hey, I can get a new TV if I let my friend come and trash my old one&quot;.&lt;p&gt;And yet your analysis of this particular case is spot-on.  They stand to get CRUSHED by this story.&lt;p&gt;Damned if they do, and damned if they don&apos;t.</text></item><item><author>tc</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;#62; I spoke to Airbnb about EJ’s situation. They won’t reimburse her for damages&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is bad news.&lt;p&gt;They&apos;re going to backtrack on this.  The sooner they do it, the better for them politically.&lt;p&gt;I understand the problems of setting a precedent.  And there really is no getting around the fact that the hosts do have the final responsibility for screening travelers (and travelers for screening hosts).&lt;p&gt;But rightly or wrongly, they&apos;re going to end up on the wrong side of this story unless they make things right for this gal and can tell Arrington and other journalists, &lt;i&gt;&quot;we&apos;ve made sure our customer is whole.&quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;After saying that, they can use this as a learning exercise for their community about how screening hosts and travelers yourself is important.&lt;p&gt;--&lt;p&gt;[Edit]: Is she in San Francisco?  It looks like she is.  She called SFPD.  This is an easy one.  Brian, Joe, or Nathan needs to be out there to provide a shoulder to cry on and an open checkbook to fix anything that money can fix.  Nothing in that apartment costs more than the value of the ammunition this is going to give to their enemies.&lt;p&gt;The earlier they do this, the more quietly they can do it, which serves their purposes as well.&lt;p&gt;[Edit #2]: Some form of insurance might be a worthwhile addition to their offering, but that&apos;s something they can debate and decide on after they put out this fire.  [added:] Also, insurance doesn&apos;t solve the safety issues involved here, so they&apos;re still going to need to emphasize the importance of screening travelers (and hosts) carefully.&lt;p&gt;[Edit #3]: EJ doesn&apos;t sound particularly litigious in her post, but consider what happens if she does decide to sue AirBnB and any part of it makes it to a jury.  I mean, &lt;i&gt;HackerNews&lt;/i&gt; is lining up against them.  Consider what 6-12 normal people might decide.  The wise move would be to make sure that she&apos;s fully satisfied with the way they treated her.&lt;p&gt;[Edit #4]: Arrington updated the article after speaking with Brian Chesky.  Brian, Joe, Nathan and company did the right thing here, as you would expect.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Cushman</author><text>I don&apos;t see what they stand to lose if they take the same stance as homeowner insurers do— if you file a police report, they&apos;ll pretty much take your word for it.&lt;p&gt;In fact they have an even better guarantee, since they know (ideally...) exactly who the perpetrator was. They&apos;re not &lt;i&gt;giving&lt;/i&gt; you the money to replace your stuff, they&apos;re lending it to you until they can recover it from the criminal. If the person who you claim did the damage claims they didn&apos;t, that&apos;s a problem they have with &lt;i&gt;you&lt;/i&gt;, not with Airbnb.</text></comment>