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Pikl founder and CEO Louise Birritteri has grown a UK insurance business focused on the risks behind short-term rentals.In an eTurboNews executive interview, she explained how a conversation with an Airbnb host led her to develop specialist cover for UK properties. Pikl now also helps property management companies offer flexible cancellations and alternatives to guest security deposits. Birritteri said the company has about 80 employees in London and Norwich and works with partners handling several million bookings a year.
Pikl’s international reach has a clear qualification:its host property insurance is for eligible UK properties, while its cancellation and deposit products can support stays elsewhere when the property management company has a UK company or presence. For Birritteri, that growth began with a simple question: what happens when an ordinary home insurance policy meets a paying guest?.
The Opportunity for Pikl
The opportunity came from a gap between two familiar worlds. Home insurance was generally designed around the people who lived in a property. Short-term rentals brought paying guests, frequent changeovers and new questions about damage and liability. Pikl built specialist host cover that can work alongside a homeowner’s existing policy, while developing products for the businesses managing larger numbers of stays. Its website currently describes separate offerings for individual UK hosts and property managers.
Then the pandemic changed the company’s direction. Cancellations became a defining problem for travel businesses, and Birritteri saw another place where insurance could help: giving guests the freedom to change plans without leaving property managers and owners exposed to every last-minute loss.
The idea sounds simple, but the pricing is anything but. A canceled seaside stay during a popular holiday period may sell again quickly; a different property at a different time might remain empty. Pikl uses booking data to help operators judge where more generous cancellation terms make commercial sense. Depending on the arrangement and the terms offered to guests, its product can support the operator if an eligible canceled stay cannot be resold.
“We’ve got to balance giving the returns to your owners as well as driving customer flexibility,” Birritteri said. Pikl’s role, she explained, is to help managers make that decision for their particular properties, seasons and sales channels. The company says its flagship flexible cancellation product launched in 2024 and reported a 20% share of the UK short-term rental market in March 2026; those market-share and performance figures are Pikl’s own.
A UK Insurance base with an international reach
Pikl’s geographic scope depends on the product. Its host property insurance is for qualifying UK properties. Its cancellation and damage-deposit solutions can support bookings for properties elsewhere, including across Europe, when the property management company buying the product has a UK company or presence. Birritteri described Pikl as working behind the scenes with the operator; a guest booking a stay may never encounter the Pikl name.
That distinction matters for international readers. A homeowner outside the UK cannot assume Pikl will insure their property simply because a UK company manages a booking. Nor is flexible accommodation cancellation a replacement for a traveller’s own travel insurance. As Birritteri explained, a missed flight, lost luggage or a journey disrupted after a booking’s cancellation deadline presents a different question from whether an operator can offer a more flexible stay.
Pikl’s deposit-waiver work addresses another small but persistent source of friction. For a guest, paying a large security deposit can make an otherwise attractive booking less appealing. For a manager, collecting and returning deposits takes time and can lead to disputes. An insurance-backed alternative can change that experience, subject to the product’s terms.
The UK Short Term Accommodation Association
Birritteri also sits on the board of the UK Short Term Accommodation Association. She told eTurboNews that better data could help policymakers distinguish places where short-term rentals put pressure on housing from places where they sustain local tourism jobs and spending. She said she helped bring booking platforms together for data sharing with the UK’s Office for National Statistics.
Her argument is for decisions grounded in local evidence. A crowded urban neighbourhood and a rural community dependent on visitor accommodation may need different approaches. That same attention to the details of each market runs through Pikl’s business: the right insurance and cancellation terms depend on the property, the operator and the guests it serves.
There is a potential model here for other regions. As vacation rentals mature, operators elsewhere may also benefit from combining specialist risk cover, booking data and more flexible offers to guests. Replicating Pikl’s approach would require local insurance partners, regulatory approval and products designed for each market. For now, Birritteri’s company shows how a question first raised by one homeowner can grow into a service for an international short-term rental industry.
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