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Have y’all seen this? Don’t know how I missed the memo. I stumbled on this doing some “market research”. This is amazing!!
NO MORE EXCUSES! Guests have a chance to insurance while booking. YES! 
Sorry for the bad screenshots; price varies based on cost of the stay, best I can tell. This was. $1.1k stay.
Yes. I took a screenshot of mine yesterday:
However there’s no way I’d insure a trip at 25% of the booking price.
Maybe $25 is the minimum? @aelilya 's example was a much lower percentage, 6% or so.
That makes me think that hosts charging the least won’t have m(any) guests buy the insurance. And so those making the least will be hassled the most often for refunds. But that’s assuming that any guests will buy it. Why bother when Airbnb is known for refunding anyway?
Is there anyone here that thinks they would buy the travel insurance? I’m curious. I know I won’t.
I shopped for travel insurance for one of my trips last year. It was cancel for any reason and you just picked an amount of coverage. So I chose $2000 as the part of the trip that wouldn’t be refundable or usable at another time. That fee would have been $200 so I skipped it.
Hosts kept saying guests should buy insurance, Airbnb should offer it and now they do. Mission accomplished, right?
Yes - accomplished in my book.
If a guest doesn’t care for the cost of the insurance then shopping around is an option.
I just don’t want to be an “option”.
I think it at least puts the idea of travel insurance in a guest’s mind, which I’m sure many guests never consider. It would have been better for hosts if the wording had included something making it clear that otherwise they very well may not qualify for a refund. Something like, “When you book an Airbnb, you are bound by the cancellation policy of the listing and the host has no obligation to refund you outside of that policy if you need to cancel. Please consider purchasing our travel insurance to cover yourself for unforeseen events.”
$25 may be the minimum amount. It would be interesting to know, beyond that, what the percentage is based on. The per night price of a listing, or the total for the number of nights booked? In other words, would an $800/night place have a higher insurance percentage attached to it than a $200/night place, because the insurance company assumes the more expensive listing attracts guests who have more money to spend?
I’m glad to see it is finally available. I’ve posted a couple of times on this forum that Airbnb was working on it for USA, Canada, & parts of Europe.
Yippee-finally something good.
I’ve always been a little troubled by folks posting guests should have travel insurance when it was not part of the booking process. So many of my guests are not seasoned travelers so probably unfamiliar with how to get CFAR insurance.
I get that. And though I don’t think I’ll ever buy travel insurance, I wouldn’t dream of asking for a refund when I cancel something.
We had to bail on a trip last December, the week of Christmas. I canceled and messaged my apologies to the host.
She messaged back and said, “I’m so sorry but you won’t get any money back, it’s too late”. I replied, “I know. Happy holidays ,)”.
I canceled a trip in June that was non refundable and I waited until pretty much the last minute, i.e., the day before check in. One part was in case the dog booking that I had that precluded me from going got canceled. The other was not wanting to help the host get a double payment. I had no reason to think they would refund me if they got a replacement booking. In fact the host didn’t communicate with me at all until I told her I wouldn’t be coming. I only canceled that far in advance because I noticed I could get $12 back.
From a couple of examples I have seen today, one high ($4k+) booking and one just $800, it appears the insurance charge is about 6%-7%. If so this is a huge step, and definitely immediately gets Airbnb and hosts an out on most cancellations confrontational battles since the 1st question that can now be asked the guest is: “Why didn’t you buy insurance?”
Hmm, you delayed cancelling to make sure the host wouldn’t have time to get a new booking, and therefore couldn’t get any revenue from a rebooking?
Assuming the nonrefundable bit was clearly stated, did they do something else to piss you off?
It took me a minute to understand what she meant, too. But she wasn’t expecting to get refunded at all, didn’t ask for such a thing, and I assume, doesn’t approve of, or want to encourage double-dipping. I can relate to that, myself. I wouldn’t feel right about not refunding a guest if I was able to rebook the dates, though I realize other hosts feel the opposite, and that’s their prerogative.
Also, she said this host did not have to courtesy to communicate at all with her when she booked, so I wouldn’t feel too kindly towards a host like that.
Pissed is too strong a word but hosts who don’t even acknowledge a booking for weeks is weird.
She got paid so I don’t feel she has been wronged in any way.
Right. I have no problem with not getting refunded as I understood that when I booked. She seems like a nice person and deserving of a couple of paid nights off. Getting the equivalent of overtime? Lol. Meh.
It would be interesting to know if a host who does this always conducts their business like this, or whether it was just some momentary glitch- like some crisis happened in their life just when your booking came in, and they totally gapped on sending a thanks for booking message. I guess in that case, though, when she did message you when you cancelled, she would say something about that- So sorry, I just realized I never acknowledged your booking- my sister was in a car accident and I was quite distracted.
She has great reviews including communication so I’ve no idea why there was nothing until my notice of non occupancy. Also when I booked I sent my usual informative message.
Airbnb sends multiple messges about upcoming bookings so she doesn’t really have an excuse. And being summer in Phoenix she probably was keen to get a double dip in the cool pool of a replacement booking, which is why I then got multiple messages in two days.
Medical then Baggage are the most expensive elements of Travel Insurance.
Relating the cost to the booking fee is illogical.
