Working Holiday Travel

The nature of voluntary work varies a great deal, but the key thing is that you are performing a job or occupation in a working environment – even if you aren’t getting paid to do it- and the respective risks and responsibilities are still present. If your voluntary role purely involves office, cafe, retail or bar work, then this can be covered under our standard Walkabout or Walkabout Plus policies. If, however, you are doing anything beyond the scope of this, then you will need to look at our Working Holiday policy for valid cover. The Work Pack that you will need to apply when getting a quote depends on what you plan to do, and when deciding, please consider all the things that you will be doing, if it is a varied role, and pick the highest Work Pack that is relevant. You can take a look at the Work Packs above.

Yes. Whilst it’s great that your employer or the charity that you will be volunteering for, are organising medical cover whilst you’re away, this isn’t a replacement for Working Holiday policy cover. From our point of view, our policy underwriters require us to cover the full risk that a traveller represents, after taking all of their plans into account (this includes their work plans). An example of why this is the case:

• A traveller is working as a teacher at a school, and falls down a flight of stairs. He receives medical treatment for his injuries, which is paid for by his employer. He recovers, then leaves this job and heads off travelling. A few weeks later, he starts to suffer pain from his injuries and tries to claim on his travel insurance. If he was working in a role that he wasn’t covered for, then he wouldn’t be able to claim for further medical expenses from his travel insurer – as they weren’t covering him to work as a teacher. His employer’s medical cover won’t pick up the tab, as he no longer works for them – so he has no valid cover and has to pay for treatment himself.

Another key thing to consider, is that one of the key benefits of travel insurance is cover for repatriation back to the UK (which can be very costly) if you are seriously injured, for treatment to continue back here. It is very unlikely that an employer’s medical cover will extend to cover this, and again, you may be forced to pick up the tab for this yourself, if suitable cover hasn’t been taken out.

Personal liability is one of the benefits offered by all of our policies, and offers cover if you unfortunately damage or cause loss to somebody, in relation to an incident caused by you, and the person or organisation affected tries to recover the loss via the legal process. This is always in place in your leisure time, as long as none of the exclusions listed in your policy wording document, apply. This benefit is effectively “turned off” whilst you’re at work, as it is a benefit that is typically supplied by either an employer or a voluntary organisation/charity – but it is best to check directly with yours, just to confirm that this is the case. Personal liability would not be in place under any of our policies, whilst doing any form of work.

Depending on what you are studying, this may involve being in potentially risky settings, such as a laboratory – or it may involve placements where you are effectively carrying out some form of job role. If your study is purely classroom or office based, then you wouldn’t need a Working Holiday policy – but if it involves being in a laboratory environment, working with animals, there are any kind of musical or theatrical performances, or you are performing a job role in another environment, then you would need to select the Working Holiday policy (choosing the most appropriate Work Pack to match your plans).

There is an expectation that you select the full duration that you intend to be away from the UK at the outset, for a policy to be valid if a claim arises. To corroborate this, our Underwriter’s Claims team would expect you to have one of these acceptable forms of proof of your intention to return to the UK by your selected end date. As an example, if you have a 1 year Working Holiday visa, but only set your policy up to last for 6 months, this could cause a problem, unless you had a return flight booked to reflect the fact that you would be back in the UK by the policy end-date.

If you do decide to stay away for longer than originally planned, get in touch, and we will ask you to complete an extension enquiry form to let us know all of the relevant information that we need to know before we decide if we can offer the extension, and send you a link to pay the additional amount quoted. It’s important that you get in touch as soon as you make this decision, as you risk invalidating your policy, if you don’t update the details to reflect your revised plans. If your policy has already expired, please contact us as we may still be able to extend your cover.

Whilst you don’t need to necessarily have a return flight booked to take out a valid policy, you will need to set the policy up for the entire duration that you plan to be away, and also make sure that you have one of these approved forms of proving when you plan to be back in the UK. If you subsequently book a flight for a later date than that which is recorded on your policy, please get in touch to update us with this change, and we will consider extending your policy accordingly (subject to completion of an extension enquiry form). Another factor to bear in mind, is that the Underwriter’s Claims team will have an ever-growing expectation that you will have bought a return flight, as you approach the end of your policy.

Yes, Work Packs can be upgraded whilst you’re away, as long as you contact us (and pay any additional quoted premium) before you start doing the new job that falls in a higher Work Pack. We can’t however, downgrade a Work Pack, if you start doing a job in a lower one, but cover is in place in lower Work Packs, as well as your chosen one. If you have taken out a Backpacker, Longstay, Traveller, Traveller Plus, Walkabout or Walkabout Plus policy, but will now be doing a form of work not covered by one of these, we may be able to upgrade your policy to a Working Holiday policy, with the appropriate Work Pack applied – but this can result in a relatively high premium being charged for this change (as the upgrade is applied to the entire duration that you are away).

Not necessarily! Although there are lots of occupations listed, and there is a great variety, it isn’t possible to list every potential job that travellers could potentially do, so it could well be that we could cover your job – but you need to check with us first, by either giving us a ring on 01424 223964 or getting in touch to request a quote. Unfortunately, the risky or unpredictable nature of some jobs, means that we can’t offer cover, but we may be able to point you in the direction of an insurer who might be able to do that.

If you’re struggling to find your job listed in the Work Packs, try looking for an alternative title for the same role e.g. cleaner/janitor and make sure that you check all of the Work Packs to see what is the most appropriate Work Pack e.g. Doctor (not surgeon/anaesthetist and not Armed Forces) is listed in Work Pack 2, and Doctor (surgeon, anaesthetist and nor Armed Forces) is categorised as Work Pack 4.