Every year record numbers of students decide to take some time out to go travelling either before or after university. With the wealth of travel opportunities available to students and holiday makers this does not come as a big surprise. However what is surprising is that around 25% of students embarking on a travelling adventure do not take out travel insurance.

STA Travel, the student travel company say that they would recommend all travellers have adequate insurance to cover all their trips. Many student gap years involve backpacking across different countries, meeting new people and taking part in different activities. Some trips will even involve extreme sport activities like white water rafting and sky diving. Insurance products for these types of trips are available and specialise in meeting the needs of student gap years.

But despite the availability of these products, a quarter of the 230,000 people aged between 18 and 24 taking a gap year last year, did not take out adequate insurance. This could result in a huge financial strain being placed on the families of travelling students should anything to happen to them while they were uninsured. To avoid this industry experts warn that getting the right insurance policy is particularly important for gap year travel.