Travel Insurance for Gap Years
Many students who take a gap year choose to spend it either travelling the world or going abroad on some type of placement. This trend shows no sign of slowing down and is therefore becoming an important area in travel insurance. Unfortunately, many students do not take out travel insurance, either because they do not know enough about the type of insurance they need or because they assume they will not need it. However, this is naïve at best and completely foolish at worst.
In the majority of cases, a dedicated gap year or backpacker insurance policy will be required, because a standard holiday insurance policy will not provide sufficient cover. These policies usually offer cover from six months to a calendar year. Without such a policy, a student and possibly his or her immediate family are risking being made bankrupt if something goes awry. This is particularly true if the traveller requires urgent medical care whilst abroad.
Of course, much is dependent on what the student will be doing during their gap year and a student who is sightseeing will clearly need less cover than one who travels to countries where security is a problem or participates in adventure sports. Students using their gap year to work abroad need to check the terms and conditions of their policy closely to see if it covers injury caused by physical labour; not all policies will.
The key thing is for gap year students to do extra homework to find suitable insurance; otherwise they could be leaving themselves open to unnecessary financial risk.