About HostProof

HostProof is a claim operating system for Airbnb hosts — a mobile evidence vault built to survive disputes, rejections, and AirCover’s bureaucratic failure modes. We are a small independent software team covering the AirCover and short-term-rental claims beat from Austria.

Why HostProof exists

Airbnb’s own damage-protection program (AirCover) denies a significant share of claims — community audits and analysis of host forums put the denial rate near the often-cited 43% mark. The top reason across those denials is not fraud or bad luck. It is documentation that does not hold up: blurry after-photos, missing before-state, compressed metadata from messaging apps, vague timelines, no repair quote.

Real examples hosts have shared publicly:

• A Superhost submitted over $20,000 in damage proof. AirCover offered $959.50 and closed the file.
• A host with photos, videos, and receipts for $6,000 in damage was reduced without cited reasoning.
• Pet-damage claims are reduced in the majority of cases, usually because of missing pre-stay condition photos.

These are preventable outcomes. The documentation exists or could exist — it just is not captured in a way AirCover’s reviewers can accept. That gap is what HostProof closes.

What HostProof does differently

We built HostProof around the top five denial reasons, turning each one into a non-negotiable part of the workflow:

1. Before/after photos with verifiable timestamps — automatic EXIF preservation plus SHA256 hashing on capture, so file integrity is provable.
2. Deadline tracking — 14-day claim window, 24-hour guest response, 72-hour escalation, hard 30-day cap.
3. EXIF preservation — photos never pass through messaging-app compression that strips metadata.
4. Repair estimates attached at the issue level, not the claim level, so AirCover sees proportionate, documented asks.
5. Chain of evidence — an immutable audit trail with claim events, repeat-damage detection, and exclusion warnings.

Plus two scores that matter more than the raw evidence count:

• Evidence Completeness — do you have the documentation you need for this specific damage type?
• Denial Risk — how likely is rejection given wear-and-tear signals, timeline gaps, or unclear causation?

How we research what we publish

The field notes on this site are written to help hosts navigate AirCover in practice. Our approach:

• Primary sources first. Airbnb’s own Help Center, AirCover policy documents, and Resolution Center changelog are the authoritative references we cite.
• Community reporting. Host-forum posts on Reddit (r/AirBnB, r/AirBnBHosts), BiggerPockets, and Facebook-based host groups are aggregated to understand how policy plays out in real cases. Where we cite percentages or patterns, they reflect community-reported experience rather than Airbnb-published data, unless noted.
• Conservative framing. When data is anecdotal or from community self-reports rather than official statistics, we say so. We would rather be directionally correct than artificially precise.
• Updated when policy changes. AirCover’s rules shift — we revisit articles when we see meaningful changes in Airbnb’s published policies or in community reports of handling patterns.

If you spot something out of date or contradicted by your own experience, email us. We update articles with corrections rather than silently letting them drift.

Who is behind HostProof

HostProof is built and maintained by a solo founder-developer based in Austria. The team is one person today; the brand is kept company-first rather than personality-first so the focus stays on the work. The app is in active development — you can join the waitlist for early access and founder pricing.

For media or partnership requests, the email below is the right channel.

Contact

• Email: hello@hostproof.app
• Blog: Field notes for hosts
• Company: HostProof · Bad Sauerbrunn, Austria (full details on the Impressum)