Airbnb Host Safety Tips
We were telling some friends that we host spare rooms in our house on Airbnb. They were surprised we feel safe having strangers come into our house. They asked “Are Airbnb hosts safe?”’
This post provides you with some Airbnb host safety tips. We talk about things Airbnb does or we have done to help us feel safe as Airbnb hosts.
Airbnb Insurance
Insurance is one of the things that help us feel safe as Airbnb hosts. It includes Airbnb‘s host protection insurance, the Airbnb host guarantee, and private insurance. Private insurance covers damages that Airbnb‘s insurance may not cover.
Airbnb‘s host protection insurance provides up to $1 million USD protection. It covers bodily injury to guests or others, damage to the property of guests or others and damage to the common areas caused by a guest or others. It covers you from the time a guest checks in until they check out.
Airbnb’s host guarantee provides up to $1 million USD of property damage protection. It protects against damage to your place and your belongings caused by your guests or by guests’ assistance animals. It covers you from the time a guest checks in until they check out.
Check out Airbnb insurance companies who provide gap insurance to cover anything Airbnb might not cover. One reason for this is that Airbnb wants you to report the damage quite quickly. But in some jurisdictions, people can claim injury up to two years after the fact. This is one reason to have some insurance of your own.
Airbnb Reviews
Airbnb reviews also help us feel comfortable as Airbnb hosts. Airbnb reviews have several parts including the rating system, the public review and private feedback.
- The Airbnb rating system allows guests and hosts to rate each other from one-star to five-stars, about a stay.
- Airbnb public reviews allow guests and hosts to give written feedback to each other on a stay. Comments are public so other guests and hosts can see them.
- Airbnb private feedback is written comments that are only seen by the guest or host being reviewed.
Ratings and public reviews of previous hosts are the most useful parts of the review system for host safety. They help us feel more comfortable inviting potential guests to our home.
Hosts can see the ratings and public reviews that other hosts have given a potential guest. This helps in two ways.
- It gives you the opportunity to check the reviews of an upcoming guest.
- If the guest has a low rating, the public review from the previous host will give you an idea of what the problem was.
This allows you to decide whether it’s something you can deal with or not. If it’s too serious and you just don’t feel safe with this person you can decline or cancel.
You can also question the potential guest through Airbnb messages. If you’re not satisfied with their answer or if they are skirting the question you can decline or cancel.
And other times, you may accept the reasons the guest provides. There are good and bad guests and there are good bad hosts. If It looks like the guest was not at fault or if the issue is minor enough, you can allow the guest to stay.
Another benefit of the Airbnb review system is that if you have a really bad guest you can report them. If it’s a bad enough situation Airbnb will cancel their membership. This means that the really bad guests aren’t around to damage other hosts’ properties. This means that the worst guests never get a chance to stay again and that helps us, and you, feel safe.
Airbnb Welcome Message
You might not think it would but the Airbnb welcome message is another thing that helps us feel confident and safe welcoming guests into our home.
The Airbnb welcome message allows hosts to have a message delivered to guests when they book. It’s particularly useful because you can allow guests to instant book and still feel safe.
If you allow guests to instant book it means they don’t have to message you back-and-forth to arrange a booking. If you allow this, you get way more guests than you would otherwise. But you might be concerned because you don’t know who’s coming to your place.
Airbnb says that instant-book guests must answer any questions in your welcome message. If they don’t answer your questions to your satisfaction, you can cancel the reservation. Such cancellations won’t cause any penalty from Airbnb. This can preserve your Superhost status.
It helps us feel safe because we ask questions that, when answered, help us feel comfortable. We ask questions like what brings you to our city; who, if anyone, is coming with you; and what time do you think you’ll arrive. This gives us a fair amount of information about why the person is coming to stay with us.
If they’re open about their plans it helps us to be more confident. More importantly, if they’re not, it makes us worry. We have learned from experience that people who skirt the questions (or try to avoid answering them) have turned out to be problem guests.
We always check the answers to the questions to make sure that they’ve given us enough to help us feel confident.
If they haven’t given us enough, we ask more questions until we are confident enough. If not, we contact Airbnb to cancel the reservation.
Only guests who have given us enough information to feel safe can come and stay with us.
Airbnb Government ID
Another Airbnb feature to make yourself safe is to require guests to provide Government ID. You can choose this option when you allow instant booking.
As a host, you never see the guest’s ID. Instead, Airbnb checks the ID and flags the guest profile to show they provided ID. This saves you the trouble. My understanding is that they use facial-recognition software to make sure that the person on the ID is the same person that provided it.
As we mentioned when we talked about the Airbnb review system, the worst guests are not allowed to book again on Airbnb. If Airbnb has blocked someone, they can set up another profile using a different email address. Requiring government ID closes this loophole.
Requiring government ID also makes sure that Airbnb can find a guest if they damage your place. This applies to small things, like stains on towels and sheets but it’s even more important for bigger things.
Guests who have provided government ID are aware that Airbnb knows who they are. It makes them less likely to do damage or cause trouble. This supports our belief that Airbnb guests, in general, are of higher quality than you find at a hotel.
As you can see, requiring that guests provide government ID helps you, as the host, feel safe when inviting strangers into your house. We highly recommend that you require this of guests, especially if you allow them to instant book.
Airbnb Positive Host Review
If you still need more to feel safe as a host, another Airbnb option lets you require positive host reviews when you allow instant booking. If you choose it, guests can only instant book if they have positive reviews from previous hosts.
This can help you feel safer, but it also prevents people from booking your place if they haven’t stayed at an Airbnb before.
Because we want to allow first-time guests, we don’t choose this option. We have enough other things to help us feel safe that we don’t think it’s necessary. Depending on how confident you are, you might want to choose this option.
Red Flags
There are two red-flag situations that you should know about as new hosts. The first is guests who live in your city and the second is guests who book at the last minute.
If potential guests who live in your city want to book with you, you might ask “What are they going to do here that they wouldn’t do at home?” That said, there are good reasons to stay with you instead. They might be having the flooring finished in their home, having it painted, want to get away from their kids for the night, etc.
When we get a new booking we always check the city on their profile so we know if they live locally. If they do, we use the Airbnb messaging system to ask questions to clarify. If they have a good reason, we are happy to have them stay with us. Often, if they don’t have a good reason, they will cancel when you ask. If they don’t give a good answer you can cancel through Airbnb. Airbnb allows cancellations whenever a host is uncomfortable having a guest in their home
Last-minute bookings are not always a problem. One of the options you can select when you allow instant booking is to allow it except on the day of arrival. We choose this option. Because we do, last-minute guests can’t instant book. They have to request a booking with us. This gives us a chance to ask questions about why they’re booking at the last minute.
As you can see, Airbnb has many features to help hosts feel safe.
Questions
Our goal is to help you succeed at Airbnbing your spare room. We would love hear from you with other question you have for us to answer. Please contact us or comment below with your questions.