No one likes insurance but all travellers should have it

“Nobody wants it. But everybody needs it.” Harold Lawrence, founder of travel insurer Go Walkabout, succinctly sums up his product.

- SIMON CALDER

Every traveller planning a trip focuses on what can go right, not wrong. Who wants to spend money on something they hope never to use? That's travel insurance for you: the ultimate pain purchase, a necessary evil.

Yet for a time, many backpackers could not get the cover they needed. Harold, 83, who has just retired after an astonishing 62 years in the insurance industry, made it his business to ensure they can. He gave up a steady job and borrowed money against his house to start a company.

“It was a bit of a gamble – giving up pension rights and everything else. I was married with three children. I remember members of the family thinking I needed my head tested.”

After a time running a brokerage in Bexhill-on-Sea in East Sussex, he spotted a large and alarming gap in the market: “At the time a lot of travel insurance was sold by travel agents. There was no advice given. There were plenty of exclusions in the small print, if people cared to read the policy and understood it. But how many people do?

“When I looked at what the opposition were offering, I realised the actual insurance cover was very poor. There were youngsters going around the world, not properly covered.

“We do our utmost to make sure travellers know what they've got. When they get their policies they're also issued with a letter, spelling it out in layman’s terms what they’ve got – and what they’ve got to be careful not to do.”

To drum up business, the Go Walkabout founder took a stand at backpacker travel shows in London.