Gapyear travellers under-insured

by Gill Montia

Story link: Gapyear travellers under-insured

Gapyear.com, the website dedicated to young people who want to travel before completing a university course, has raised the alarm about the level of insurance taken out by a large number of gapyear travellers.

According to Tom Griffiths, the founder of gapyear.com, over 25% of those embarking on a gap year abroad have inadequate insurance or no insurance cover whatsoever.

He believes that young people are often not aware of the importance of travel insurance and view it as “boring” or “irrelevant”.

Some travellers only believe that travel insurance is important if they will be participating in extreme sports but statistically, a claim is more likely to be made for an injury sustained during a mundane activity.

Mr Griffiths points out that parents will be the ones to foot the bill if their under-insured children are involved in an accident abroad.

He warns that “It’s very easy to rack up a bill of £50,000 and at some point, with the travel and backpacker market growing and more people travelling without insurance, someone will lose their home, or they’ll have to remortgage and lose their life savings”

According to figures from the NatWest, 24% (93,813) of university students took a gap year for 2006, deferring their finals until to 2007.