Insurance fintech Setoo has teamed up with campsite booking service, Campings.com to provide a “rainy day” insurance policy against bad weather for travellers.
The insurance will allow campers to cancel their trip and be compensated 72 hours in advance if rain is forecast.
The service is currently only available to European holidaymakers wanting to book camping trips to France, Italy and Spain.
Based on weather data from Meteomatics, a specialist weather data provider, Setoo will issue relevant campers with an automatic notification of forecasted rain, with the option to cancel their bookings.
RELATED: Irish startup, Campsited.com, is raising €300,000 in seed funding
If a customer then decides to cancel the holiday, they will receive immediate compensation with no need for a claims process.
Jerome Mercier, CEO at Campings.com commented that “the weather is an especially important consideration for campers, who are more exposed to the elements than other holidaymakers.
“Because of this, we have been searching for a weather protection product for some years before finding exactly what we needed in Setoo's rainy day protection.”
The pricing model for the rainy day protection will vary depending on dates the trips are booked for and typical weather in each campsite location. It is also determined in real time and calculated using machine learning techniques.
Generally though, The Independent reports that a policy will cost between 3-8% of the underlying booking price, with the average cost being €15 (£13) per week.
RELATED: Scientists predict hailstorms with facial recognition technology
Noam Shapira, co-founder and co-CEO at Setoo, said that Campings.com can expect “higher conversion rates, increased revenues and happier campers” with this integrated insurance policy. This suggests that customers will be more convinced to go ahead with their booking with the option of rain insurance.
Setoo, which has offices in Israel, the UK and France, is also reported to be discussing similar types of insurance with other holiday providers – for example, compensating customers who have booked a skiing holiday to somewhere which hasn’t gotten enough snow at that time.