Meth smoked in my AirBnB

[Jessica West-Walker]

Hi,

I've posted a similar question in the Short Term Rental forum, but I'm hoping I can get some insurance advice about paying to remediate my STR/Home that was damaged by a guest smoking meth.

I built an STR apartment in the basement of my family home. The unit shares HVAC with the rest of the house where we live. There are several areas in the main home that require professional cleaning, and potentially replacing parts of the HVAC system.

My question is, does anyone have experience processing this sort of claim with AirBnB or their Home Owners / Umbrella insurance?

AirBnB have been a bit cagey / slow to respond and have offered no advice on how to manage this process. I am working through their resolution center, but I am concerned they are not going to pay when they see the whole bill. So far they have said they will pay for extra cleaning and direct losses, but no indirect losses. Like the testing, that cost $2,500.

The cleaning is looking to cost around $10k alone - and this doesn't include replacing soft furnishings, or the HVAC system - as we have flexible ducting and Colorado meth regulations don't allow the cleaning of flexible ducting.

I have home owners insurance, umbrella insurance and AirBnB Host Cover - but there seem to be exclusions concerning drug use.  I have read elsewhere that there are successful arguments made that the damage is 'vandalism' to receive cover?

Anyway, any help or advice would be much appreciated!