Oh the weather outside is frightful
…but the hedge is so delightful…and since we’ve no place (else) to go…
WeatherBill, WeatherBill, WeatherBill
WeatherBill, the world’s only online weather risk management service, announced today the company has entered into an agreement with itravel2000.com, Canada’s largest online travel retailer, to provide coverage for Canada’s biggest travel promotion, “Let it Snow”. Under the terms of the agreement, WeatherBill will provide up to $100 million CDN in snow coverage, slated to be refunded to itravel2000 customers if it snows 5 inches or more at Calgary, Halifax, Montreal or Toronto airports on New Year’s Day , January 1, 2008.
“This partnership is a milestone in both travel and weather promotions,” says David Friedberg, CEO of WeatherBill. “Our significant risk capacity and simple, automated service for managing weather risk and promotions is the perfect solution for the large scale of ‘Let it Snow’. WeatherBill eliminates the time, expense and hassle of typical promotions - there’s no unnecessary paperwork, redemption process or waiting for payment. itravel2000 simply purchases coverage in increments to perfectly mirror customer sales, and there are no upfront set-up costs, administrative fees, minimums or maximums.”
Jonathan Carroll, President of itravel2000, said, “We’ve been looking for a partner to help us deliver ground breaking weather promotions for some time. We’re delighted with WeatherBill’s innovative solution and expect big results. The universal appeal of weather promotions and the excitement created by weather make ‘Let it Snow’ ideal. Best of all, itravel2000 is able to offer a generous ‘full refund’ to customers without typical rebate redemption burden. We can’t think of a better way to spread the word about our diverse, comprehensive and low-cost offerings, while thanking customers for their patronage.”
I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see more firms offering promotions linked to weather conditions. Travel, sporting events, gardening, outdoor events, etc. are obvious candidates for this type of marketing initiative. Watch this space.
And as an added bonus, it is great to hear that the Great White North is now covered with the launch of the new Canadian WeatherBill site.
June 14th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
I’m glad to see this happening. It surprised me that it has taken this long! Maybe before long we’ll see construction contracts with weather indemnities built in. There’s been buzz about this for a while, looks like Weather Bill might be the ones to make it happen. Kudos.
June 26th, 2007 at 2:16 am
The biggest factor slowing the adoption of modern risk management tools is ill adapted and out of date regulatory paradigms (which all too often are supported and perpetuated by industry incumbents who are all too happy to see barriers to entry and innovation enforced.) As I’ve pointed out before, there are some small green shoots of reform but they can’t come too soon. The problem is that the end users who would benefit most from a more intelligent legal and regulatory regime, typically are too diffuse in their interests to have half a chance of counterbalancing the vigorous lobbying of the rent-seeking incumbents.