Sainsbury's Issues Travel Insurance Warning

Taking out travel insurance is equally important for holidays in the UK as those taken abroad, it has been suggested.

Sainsbury's Finance issued the advice today in conjunction with new research, which shows that 15 per cent of British adults have never taken an overseas trip. It is thought that much of this group who take breaks elsewhere in the country are not taking out travel insurance, despite the risk of facing many potentially claims-triggering incidents being no less with domestic holidays than with overseas trips.

These risks include being unable to go on holiday at all due to a loved one falling ill, or having a valuable item stolen while on the trip: both events would be covered for by many travel insurance policies, and would leave the traveller out of pocket if no cover had been taken out.

Neil Laird at Sainsbury's said: "British people often holiday in the UK, whether it be their main get-away or a short break or long weekend. It can be easy to overlook travel insurance if you are not going on a foreign break but many of the problems that you can encounter abroad can also happen here in the UK on holiday, so it is important to ensure that you have adequate cover."

The scale of the UK holidays industry was also highlighted by the Sainsbury's study: Britons were found to take 50 million "home from home" holidays each year, spending a collective total of £10.9 billion.