Pikl Pioneers a New Category of Insurance-Enabled Business Models, Earning it 20% UK Short-Term Rental Market Share

Pikl, the company pioneering insurance-enabled business models that drive revenue whilst protecting against downside risk, today announced that it has achieved 20% market share in the UK short-term rental market – the first industry in which its insurance-enabled growth solutions have been delivered. The achievement comes just two years after Pikl launched its flagship flexible cancellation solution in 2024, which allows property management companies (PMCs) to offer guests the flexible booking options they desire whilst protecting and growing revenue for PMCs and hosts.

Post-COVID, guests are willing to pay 24% more for more flexibility, as is customary with hotels and airlines, but PMCs – who feel responsible for host income – cannot rely on double-booking. 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 that can leave owners’ occupancy expectations unmet, 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. 

In response, Pikl established a new category of insurance-enabled business models, which reimagines the role of insurance in digital marketplaces, transforming it into a growth engine. In the short-term rental (STR) market, with insurance operating invisibly behind the scenes, Pikl’s flexible cancellation solution enables guests to secure bookings with ‘hotel-like’ flexibility and PMCs to charge more for booking flexibility, convert more prospective customers, and resell cancelled bookings. This frictionless experience for guests drives higher income per booking window whilst also protecting and growing host revenue. 

The introduction of Pikl’s flexible cancellation solution has driven a significant pivot in the company’s business focus, with this commercial service becoming the dominant growth route. Since launch, Pikl’s flexible cancellation solution has led to 2.1x revenue growth for launch partners which has in turn accelerated market demand and rollout.

“At Pikl, we have successfully converted insurance into a growth infrastructure that adds value for property managers, hosts, and guests simultaneously. With data expected across eight million bookings by the year’s end, we’re already generating unique insight into cancellation behaviour and booking window economics that simply didn’t exist before. This insight will only deepen as our dataset scales to Airbnb-level proportions by the end of 2026,” said Louise Birritteri, CEO and Founder of Pikl. “We haven’t just embedded an existing insurance product into a booking journey, we have reimagined what insurance can do for all participants, creating an entirely new category of insurance-enabled business models and driving unparalleled business intelligence that is set to revolutionise the short-term rental market.”

Embedded insurance promised to transform distribution and unlock new revenue streams, but in practice, it merely integrated legacy products into digital journeys, leaving most of the process largely untouched. While the experience of acquiring a policy improved, the experience of using it did not. Pikl has gone a step further than embedded insurance, using insurance as an infrastructure for growth, unlocking entirely new business models that could not be enabled without risk protection rather than simply mitigating risks, and changing the economics and experience of the STR market for PMCs, hosts, and guests alike. 

Alongside its flagship flexible cancellation offering, Pikl’s additional insurance-enabled solutions create further value for all participants in the short-term rental ecosystem – guests, PMCs, and hosts. With Pikl’s Damage Deposit Waiver, guests and owners can avoid conflicts over security deposits. Pikl’s Host Insurance cover options, provided by a panel of reputable UK insurance providers, offers property owners insurance for theft and accidental or malicious damage by paying guests.

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