The warning from Gocompare.com Travel Insurance comes as new research reveals that a significant proportion of travellers aged 18 to 34 admit to falsely claiming on their travel insurance.

The research of over 1,800 adults found that 5% of people have either exaggerated or made-up a travel insurance claim, with the average fraudlent cliam coming in at £298.

People aged 18-24 were most likely to commit travel insurance fraud with 17% saying that they had either exaggerated or made-up a claim.

This age group also tried to claim the most – trying to get an extra £370 from insurers on average.

Men (7%) are more than twice as likely (3%) to commit travel insurance fraud than women.  On average, men also make higher value false claims than women (£338 for men, £224 for women)

Some 2% of people surveyed said that they had completely invented a travel insurance claim, while 2% said they had slightly inflated the value of a genuine claim.

Commenting on the research, Caroline Lloyd from Gocompare.com Travel Insurance, said: “Many fraudulent travel insurance claims are opportunistic – people add a bit extra on to a claim to ‘make it worth their while’ without stopping to consider they are actually committing a crime.

“Falsely claiming on your travel insurance – whether that’s exaggerating a genuine claim or completely making-up a claim – is a criminal offence and dishonest holidaymakers face serious consequences if they are caught.  Every year, insurance fraud costs the industry and honest policyholders millions of pounds so insurers take the issue seriously. Insurers work hard to root out the problem by employing specialists to investigate suspicious claims and sharing data to help spot trends and serious fraudsters.

“Anyone caught defrauding or trying to defraud their insurer faces far reaching consequences.”

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