According to a report by Gocompare.com, 7% of younger travellers inflate their claim to make their insurer pay out more.

More than half of 18-34 year olds surveyed felt that travel insurers hardly ever paid out for claims but less than 7% had actually had travel insurance claims turned down themselves.

Nearly 60% of 18-34 year olds felt that travel insurance was too expensive.

Caroline Lloyd, travel insurance spokesperson at Gocompare.com, said: “Whatever way you look at it, faking a travel insurance claim or bumping up the amount of a genuine claim to make it more worthwhile is fraud and if you’re caught out you might end up with a criminal record and also find it much harder to get other kinds of insurance in the future.

“This could have serious implications when it comes to getting life insurance for a mortgage or insuring a car. For the sake of a few hundred pounds it’s really not worth the risk.

The main reasons customers have their travel insurance claims turned down are either because they didn’t have the appropriate cover in the first place or because they failed to follow their insurer’s guidelines at the time of the event.

Lloyd added: “Both of these scenarios can be avoided if you read the policy documents and take a copy away with you.

“That way you can refer to the insurer’s instructions while you are abroad rather than coming home and finding that you missed doing something important which would have helped your claim go through.”