Host cancels rental. Will your insurance reimburse you?

This is where you have to read the fine print of your policy carefully. I will never forget the situation Horsewoofie had with a fraudulent travel agent who took her payment for a tour but did not forward the money to the tour company. She did not get to go on the tour and her travel insurance did not pay her back because it was not a covered event. One painful outcome after another.

Each policy is different. It is up to you to know what is covered and under what circumstances,

In addition to that good advice, note that insurance payments are typically restricted to something like "actual cash losses." That means you need proof of something that did not happen. I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm just ... sayin' ... ...

If you had paid with a credit card, would you not be able to claim it back through the credit card company, as you did not receive the “goods” or service you paid for?

What's interesting in this case where the host canceled is that VRBO keeps telling the customer to file an insurance claim. So the host keeps the money with VRBO's blessing, but the company tells the customer to file a claim.

The situation described though gets complicated. There was a bit of game play at work. Flooding made the property inaccessible, however if the renter cancels, they forfeit what ever was in the agreement (No refund policy maybe?), if the owner just holds, they know the renter will be a no show, if the owner cancels, they lose...so why not just let the chips fall. Edit: in this case, the owner did eventually cancel, but after the start of the rental, they can probably cancel after some period of time with a "no show".

The situation is really much like what happened during the pandemic. Just because you couldn't get into the country, does not change the refund policy. Trip insurance may or may not cover in the case above, it would depend on the fine print and if they do not cover in case of flood or other natural disaster, same with pandemics.

Added...You cannot dispute a charge on a credit card if the transaction met the terms of the purchase, which this one seems to have.

It didn’t meet the terms of the purchase: it was inaccessible. She might have a case with the credit card company.

I know where I’m not booking.