When weather insurance isn’t enough

This news article explains the plight of an organisation who held a fund raiser recently. The weather turned bad and it rained throughout the day meaning that they only had around 200 spectators instead of the 3,000 they expected. They are estimating a loss of $10,000.

They should have got weather insurance cover I hear you say.

They did. Despite having weather insurance they haven’t felt any benefit as it didn’t rain enough to recoup the costs.

Stories like this are becoming more common as weather insurance gets more popular and easier to access by small organisations such as this. What’s the point though if the weather cover isn’t actually providing a payout at times when it should?

I don’t know the details of the cover they purchased but it obviously wasn’t structured in such a way that it would pay out under weather such as they experienced. It does make me wonder whether insurance needs to think more broadly than just on how much rain there is, perhaps footfall through the gates could have been used as a secondary trigger? It seems like there could be a great opportunity for insurers who are willing to create flexible, affordable weather cover for events such as this.