As people get set for summer holidays experts are continuing to urge travellers to play a more active role in ensuring the validity of their travel insurance.

Latest to add its voice to this is the Association of British Insurance (ABI), which called on holidaymakers to provide as much detail as they could think of when taking out travel insurance or making claims this summer.

This advice comes against the backdrop of recent reports suggesting that providing an insurer with plenty of detail about a missing item could indicate the possibility of fraud.

Commenting on the issue, ABI’s Malcolm Tarling argued that insurers don’t automatically conclude that a carefully detailed claim form could mean the claim has any possibility of fraud in it.

But the expert added that insurers have a duty to investigate any claims they think could be suspicious, even as he said holidaymakers should not be deterred by this.

“This should not dissuade people from supplying the insurer with as much information as they have because, providing the claim is genuine, it will ensure that the claim is handled as quickly as possible,” he advised.

In another development, a new travel survey has rated British holidaymakers as the world’s most badly behaved tourists, for being “rude, messy and loud”.

They were, however, voted second only to Italians in the style stakes and the “most likely to sample local cuisine”.

The study, conducted by travel company Expedia, found Japanese to be the world’s best tourists, drawing praises from hoteliers due to their tidy and polite ways.