"Earlier this week, I wrote a blog post trying to explain the situation, but it didn’t reflect my true feelings."
I'm not sure how I feel about this line (I assume it's referring to his TC post). On one hand, it's nice that he's now 'fessing up with a this-is-how-I-feel post. On the other, it's a pretty clear admission that he's had no problems in the past sending out PR spin as a blog post under his own name - so what should make the reader think this (or any future posts) are actually him, and not more spin? It seems like it's muddling the authenticity of the message a bit.
"In working with the San Francisco Police Department, we are happy to say a suspect is now in custody."
Haven't they been saying this for a while, and each time they do, it turns out that when someone tries to verify it with SFPD, the suspect isn't in custody (because they've been extradited to another community)?
As for the potential for fraud, that doesn't concern me that much. If they're doing a blanket insurance policy like this, then they're contracting it out to a legit insurance company - who will presumably have adjusters and claims people who will investigate every claim, the same as other forms of consumer insurance (like you get on your rental car).
I'm also interested in the legalities of this insurance - particularly in places where short-term rentals to strangers are illegal/contrary to bylaw/in violation of the occupant's lease. You'd think that insurance companies would have a problem selling a policy to cover the side-effects of a prohibited activity; that all Airbnb hosts would have to sign a line that certifies under penalty of perjury that they're legally allowed to host a place on Airbnb, which most can't.
If I was a landlord who had a tenant who put their place on Airbnb, and which then got trashed, I'd make the tenant fix it up (which they'd pay for, presumably, from the insurance), and probably try and sue the tenant for violating the terms of their lease. Could I then sue the insurance company as well, for helping my tenant break the conditions of their lease?
It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points
out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds
could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who
is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and
sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes
up short again and again, because there is no effort
without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great
enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a
worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the
triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he
fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his
place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who
knew neither victory nor defeat.
-- Teddy Roosevelt
Great to know that the potential for fraud "doesn't concern you that much". You'll post your comment and they'll still be here with the responsibility of running the company, without the ability to airily handwave away the issue.
Great to know also that you're interested in the legalities of the insurance. I guess they should have included citations to case law in a blog post.
> it turns out that when someone tries to verify it with
SFPD, the suspect isn't in custody (because they've been
extradited to another community)?
And how exactly is that under their control?
Some people are never satisfied. You appear to be one of them.
The potential for fraud doesn't concern me because Airbnb will clearly get an insurance company to run this program white-label, and they have whole departments designed to find and fight fraud. Based on the profits in the sector, it seems like they do a pretty good job of it.
As for the veracity of their line about someone being in custody with the SFPD, I stand corrected - my mistake. The last stuff that came to the top of my head was based off EJ's post on 28 July. A few searches reveal that the day after that post went up, the SFPD announced they had arrested someone.
"Airbnb will clearly get an insurance company to run this program white-label" <-- its not known if they can get an insurance policy for such a disparate group of people at a price that allows them to run with a profit
Let it go. They did the right thing, maybe they were doing it all along, maybe they did it under pressure, it does not matter.
What matters is that EJ (and others) will be compensated and AirBNB will live to fight another day in a much stronger and more real-world grounded fashion. Maybe their margins won't be quite as high but that's what usually happens when you underestimate the cost of doing business.
Winners all around, future hosts and guests of AirBNB included.
Note that this does not take care of any emotional issues but it will certainly help with the practical part of it, and I don't think a party like AirBNB could help with those anyway beyond doing their very best to minimize the hurt from such an event.
> "What matters is that EJ will be compensated and AirBNB will live to fight another day"
That's what we're not sure about. EJ, a renter herself, likely didn't have the right to rent out her unit. The blog post says "We will extend this program to EJ...", not "We'll take care of EJ." She still has to qualify through whatever insurance company airbnb is working with. It's going to be an even worse PR disaster when the insurance company says "No."
I think it would be a fair bet that AirBNB will not risk that and will budget out-of-pocket.
Also, I don't see how an insurance company would ever agree to pay out on past cases so my guess is that they'll be paying for all of those out of pocket.
Going forward from Aug. 15th it looks like they'll have a deal in place and in the meantime things are 'murky'. The blog post leaves enough room for AirBNB to assume complete responsibility and/or work together with an insurer, but from the point of an AirBNB host that will likely make very little difference.
i emailed with brian and they are paying all of these out of pocket, even going forward. no insurance company involved. now that opens up a whole other can of worms...
> Could I then sue the insurance company as well, for helping my tenant break the conditions of their lease?
The decision to break the conditions of the lease was solely your tenant's decision. Any sane insurance company will either verify the tenant's ability to rent out their place, or will void the contract if they discover later that the tenant did not have the legal right to rent out their place. Most likely, if the insurance is an online-type thing, the tenant will be certifying when they buy the policy that they have the legal ability to rent out their place.
I agree - but isn't this then a huge out for Airbnb, in terms of reducing the number of people that will actually be covered under this? NY has its well-known laws that make most Airbnb listing contrary to State law, and in my lease (for example) it specifically says that I can't rent it out to people without the landlord's permission - which I think is similar to most boilerplate leases.
Given that, would all the damage to EJ's stuff even be covered by the policy?
It seems silly to the point of trollish to argue that the $50k guarantee Airbnb announced in a post about EJ's incident would have been designed to exclude EJ. Give it a rest.
You have really been shutting down discussion on this issue. I don't know you from Adam but I think you need to step back a little and let people discuss all angles, I honestly think you're creating a little bit of a straw man here. I think it's reasonable to debate that yes, maybe this insurance will exclude a lot of people, and if so what does that mean for AirBnB's business model?
Clearly it wasn't designed to exclude EJ, but it also likely wasn't designed with EJ in mind. airbnb is no doubt working with an insurance company, and if that company finds an "out", they're going to take advantage of it. Like most all renter contracts, it excludes subletting without consent, which is what EJ may have been doing.
After mentioning EJ specifically in this post and very specifically mentioning that they will take care of her not taking care of her would be 'suicide by media' at this point.
If you thought what happened so far was ugly I'd hate to see what would happen if that were the case. Can we move past this?
Sure it is all words but they are on the company blog this time, not in a forum and to me they come across as written by a man that has seen the Elephant in person.
Specifically: "We will extend this program to EJ and any other hosts who may have reported such property damage while renting on Airbnb in the past."
Let's definitely have a 19-comment argument speculating about the worst possible case scenario with the $50,000 guarantee Airbnb just announced, because that will definitely pump the oxygen back into the thread.
Why do you suppose this is an insurance policy and not a cash guarantee? They never use the word. It's a flat $50,000 everywhere, with terms and conditions to vary by area, and to apply retroactively— does that really sound like insurance?
I know you're gonna say fraud, but why do you think they've doubled the size of their customer support team in the last month? These guys aren't dumb, they knew this was coming. This is the thing they can do with all of their money that will keep them on top.
In fact... my money says the real reason for trying to get EJ to amend the original blog post was they were hoping to keep the story from breaking in mainstream press before they got this system launched.
Agreed. I don't see what the benefit of insurance would be. Insurance only makes sense in one case: when "the big one" will send you under water.
In this case, they're liable to get a few claims per year (or month, or whatever). If they wanted insurance, they'd have to pay all of that PLUS some, spread out into a monthly payment. Doesn't make any sense.
If they had an open-ended policy that covered emotional damages or somesuch, maybe they would need insurance.
Yeah, that phrase jumped out at me too. Both because it implies not telling the truth as well as still passing the buck (were they someone else's words?). And it's too bad because otherwise the post is good.
And I'd have to agree with commentary regarding the photo. It just doesn't strike the right tone of empathy and humbleness. I'm sure it's hard to be humble when you've created a rocket ship but it's a great attribute in these situations.
"Earlier this week, I wrote a blog post trying to explain the situation, but it didn’t reflect my true feelings."
I'm not sure how I feel about this line (I assume it's referring to his TC post). On one hand, it's nice that he's now 'fessing up with a this-is-how-I-feel post. On the other, it's a pretty clear admission that he's had no problems in the past sending out PR spin as a blog post under his own name - so what should make the reader think this (or any future posts) are actually him, and not more spin? It seems like it's muddling the authenticity of the message a bit.
"In working with the San Francisco Police Department, we are happy to say a suspect is now in custody."
Haven't they been saying this for a while, and each time they do, it turns out that when someone tries to verify it with SFPD, the suspect isn't in custody (because they've been extradited to another community)?
As for the potential for fraud, that doesn't concern me that much. If they're doing a blanket insurance policy like this, then they're contracting it out to a legit insurance company - who will presumably have adjusters and claims people who will investigate every claim, the same as other forms of consumer insurance (like you get on your rental car).
I'm also interested in the legalities of this insurance - particularly in places where short-term rentals to strangers are illegal/contrary to bylaw/in violation of the occupant's lease. You'd think that insurance companies would have a problem selling a policy to cover the side-effects of a prohibited activity; that all Airbnb hosts would have to sign a line that certifies under penalty of perjury that they're legally allowed to host a place on Airbnb, which most can't.
If I was a landlord who had a tenant who put their place on Airbnb, and which then got trashed, I'd make the tenant fix it up (which they'd pay for, presumably, from the insurance), and probably try and sue the tenant for violating the terms of their lease. Could I then sue the insurance company as well, for helping my tenant break the conditions of their lease?