I’m a bin fan of shoulder season. I like going places when there are fewer people around, and when there are deals. I don’t want to go to European capitals in the summer when I’ll see more American teenagers than Europeans, who are all off on holiday themselves.

At the same time, peak season is often peak for a reason. Great weather matters. I’ve gone to the Maldives half a dozen times in February. I once pushed it to early May, and that’s the start of rainy season. It was still great company (we were celebrating a milestone birthday with friends). But boy that overwater villa rocked in the storms!

Park Hyatt Maldives In The Rain

Say that you want to do a once in a lifetime trip, which is expensive, and you’re taking a risk: what if you run into bad weather? Things may be great, but the whole trip might be ‘ruined’ or at least not what you expected. What if you wanted the option of a do-over?

It turns out that companies by insurance for weather. Crop yields change. Energy use changes. Wineries could lose a whole vintage! Hedging weather risk has been a major financial instrument for decades. But it’s also possible to hedge vacation weather risk.

I don’t spend a lot of time on travel insurance. I generally self-insure. I spend miles, and if a trip doesn’t work out, I’ll go again. Most of my out of pocket costs are quite small, so the only insurance I usually recommend is making sure your health insurance covers you (or buy a supplemental travel policy) and consider medical evacuation coverage.

So maybe I’m the last one to know about Weather Promise? They offer a “weather guarantee” refunding your vacation if it rains. They process refunds automatically based on the weather at your destination in 48 hours or less. And they offer coverage for “every location in the world.”

[T]o protect a $2,000 trip to Santa Monica, California from May 3-5 costs just $168 and would refund the entire cost of the trip if it rains just one hour between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m.

Or you can just take your chances! Avoid shoulder season, and pick someplace that isn’t likely to rain out. Here are WeatherPromise.com top picks for summer domestic travel to avoid rain:

I already live in Austin. A little bit of rain in the summer might not be so bad! (Also temperatures under 100.) But I found it interesting that you can buy weather coverage instantly online for travel, at the consumer level. As I say, maybe I’m the last one to know, but I always thought that hedging weather risk wasn’t really a consumer product. Not all of you will do this or should, but for those trips that you can’t just ‘self-insure’ and do over later if you get rained out? Something to think about.

If anyone has experience in this space, including what they’d consider good pricing for something like this, I’d love your comments.