Pikl’s Insurance-Enabled Solution for the Short-Term Rental Market Qorus-NTT DATA Innovation in Insurance Awards 2026

Concepts and Objectives:

• Pikl’s objective is to remove the single biggest growth blocker facing Short Term Rental (STR) operators - rigid, non-refundable cancellation policies - and replace it with a model that creates shared value across the entire marketplace for property management companies (PMCs), hosts, and guests alike.

• Pikl does this through its flagship flexible cancellation solution. The solution insures the property manager’s risk, so the PMC can offer guests a premium booking option, ensuring a simple, frictionless journey. PMCs control the entire value proposition, charge more for booking flexibility, convert more bookings, and resell cancelled bookings, driving higher income per booking which can turn lost revenue potential into profits.

• Pikl's cancellation solution simultaneously ensures a steady revenue stream for property hosts and provides guests with frictionless, hotel-like flexibility and confidence in the rental booking process. The insurance operates invisibly behind the scenes, so guests simply choose between a standard price and a premium flexible cancellation price. The PMC owns the entire value proposition, the customer relationship, and the revenue, while Pikl underwrites the risk to the PMC.

• Pikl has successfully created an entirely new category of insurance - insurance-enabled business models. Rather than embedding legacy insurance into customer journeys, Pikl has reimagined the insurance product itself to unlock new revenue models for PMCs and short-term rental operators that can turn lost revenue potential into profits.

• Reasons behind:

  • Pikl began as a niche insurer for Airbnb hosts whose home insurance didn’t cover short-term letting. Post-COVID, guests increasingly demanded flexibility and were willing to pay for it, as is customary with hotels and airlines, but PMCs – who are liable for host income – cannot rely on double-booking and are contractually obligated to pay property owners for cancellations. Until now, this has left property managers in a catch-22: offer rigid cancellation policies that drive potential guests away or risk significant revenue loss from cancelled stays, limiting their growth either way. As a result, PMCs are squeezed from both sides of the market, affecting the entire value chain; owners want certainty of income, better reviews, and fewer touchpoints with insurance, while guests want flexibility, confidence, and less friction when things don’t go to plan. Recognising this customer need, Pikl developed a re-imagined business model that enables PMCs to transform risk into revenue opportunities and provides guests the flexibility they desire via a frictionless process.

• State of competition

  • Unlike competitors who embed legacy insurance into customer journeys, Pikl innovates the insurance product itself, going beyond traditional risk prevention by sitting in the background, analysing risk and identifying growth opportunities for businesses. They are enabling PMCs to create frictionless, non-regulated experiences for consumers, creating shared value in a marketplace both guests and owners trust. Moving forward, Pikl will take its products globally, including to the USA, which is the largest vacation rental market worldwide.

  • No competitor in the market has built insurance-enabled business models of this kind. Pikl has grown from a niche insurer for Airbnb hosts to a global growth enabler for the short-term rental market, capturing approximately 20% market share in the UK to date.

• Sources of inspiration

  • Pikl was founded after CEO and Founder Louise Birritteri recognised a significant gap in how the sharing economy operated. When homeowners rented out their properties on platforms like Airbnb, they were unknowingly invalidating their home insurance, leaving them financially exposed. Pikl was founded to solve that problem for hosts. But when the vacation rental market collapsed and operators were losing money on forced cancellations during COVID, Pikl identified a systemic problem: professional hosts and PMCs couldn’t offer flexible cancellation, and as guest expectations shifted, this limitation was costing the industry. They responded by developing a new category of insurance-enabled business models that can turn lost profit opportunities into higher revenue, ensuring flexibility without risk and enabling business growth.

• Departments Involved:

  • Pikl is made up of industry veterans with decades of experience. This enables them to go beyond embedded insurance to innovate entire insurance products from the inside out. 

  • The product was a collaborative effort, developed by teams and individuals including: underwriting, pricing, technical contractual legal terms review, commercial finance, sales/broker, executive leadership, board advisor (ex-property manager business owner), and marketing.

• Main Results so Far

  • Pikl’s flagship flexible cancellation solution can turn lost revenue potential into profits at scale. It generated 2,024% gross written premium growth from PMCs from 2023 to 2025. The ability to transform flexible cancellation into a revenue optimisation strategy has fuelled Pikl's market expansion, enabling them to achieve 20% market share in the UK driven by the new category defining transformative business model for PMCs, as well as achieve 5x YoY growth in 2025.

  • Partner retention is high in year two, with 3+ year agreements in place that reflect Pikl’s value.

  • With 2M bookings already enabled across the STR market, Pikl has grown from a niche insurer for Airbnb hosts to a global category-defining growth enabler.

  • Pikl’s revenue flywheel makes its products a success for all involved parties. Flexible cancellation increases guest confidence and bookings, and more bookings generate revenue for PMCs to reinvest into owners; this funds guarantees, addressing owner pain points (property protection, income growth); greater owner confidence unlocks more supply; more supply creates booking options for guests - and the flywheel compounds. Pikl is shaping growth propositions within this flywheel with partners.

  • With 20%+ of UK listings already providing data, Pikl is on track to reach an Airbnb-scale dataset by the end of 2026.