Weather Insurance Comes To The Holiday Trade
While there is very little that you can do about bad weather, even if you choose some of the sunniest areas in the world, there may be light at the end of the tunnel for UK holiday makers. Ex-Google employee David Friedberg has created a new company by the name of WeatherBill which works with travel agents to offer weather insurance cover for their customers.
The company has just signed a deal with Priceline.com which will see Priceline customers refunded 100% of their airfare, hotel and car rental outlay if it rains more than 0.5 inches per day on half or more of their holiday. The move is interesting because the cost has not actually been passed on to the consumer, with Priceline hoping to make up the cost of weather insurance premiums through increased turnover.
In simple terms, for each holiday which Priceline supplies to customers they will be asked to pay a weather insurance premium to WeatherBill based upon the time of the year, area of the world, etc. If the above criteria are breached then the customer will be liable to a full refund, all funded by WeatherBill.
When you consider that the worst gripe for holiday makers is the weather, there are high hopes that WeatherBill may sign up more large clients over the weeks and months ahead.
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