“Nobody wants it. But everybody needs it.” Harold Lawrence, founder of travel insurer Go Walkabout, succinctly sums up his product.
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.
“This is when we started doing one-way cover – because there wasn’t any. Everybody was coming up to me at these shows and saying they couldn’t get insurance for travelling home.”
Typically Australians and New Zealanders who had been working in the UK were returning uninsured on long and tricky routes, with plenty of risky pursuits along the way – such as whitewater rafting in southern Africa or high-altitude trekking in the Himalayas.
Existing policies applied only to people making trips that began and ended in the UK, which didn’t work for backpackers on one-way journeys. Harold regarded this failure of the insurance market as a “disgrace”.
He developed appropriate policies to avoid backpackers (or their parents) being driven to bankruptcy by high medical bills – and also because he believed health services in developing countries should not be expected to shoulder the burden of treating uninsured travellers.
“There was a certain amount of morality involved in it. People need to be covered.”
The company specialises in policies that go beyond the mainstream offering, such as long-duration cover for backpackers. Planning a year and a half on the road? Go Walkabout can oblige for anyone up to age 74, and offers shorter policies for travellers younger than 100. That will prove useful to Harold, who has more time to, well, go walkabout.
“I thought that after 62 years it might be a good idea to pass on the baton,” he says.
Given the shocks the travel industry has sustained so far this century, having a baton to pass on at all is an achievement.
The terrorist attacks of 9/11 triggered a sharp fall in travel. The financial crash of 2008 made matters worse. Covid was potentially fatal for any insurer dependent on people travelling abroad: at the start of 2021 the UK government banned all overseas holidays for 19 weeks, and ministers then made going abroad a quarantine lottery with a chaotic “traffic light” system.
“The nearest we came to crashing out of sight was during the Covid period,” says Harold. “I’d built up a reasonable business at that point and had enough reserves to keep going for 12 months. But it was a close-run thing.”
Covid coincided with Brexit: a “double whammy” for Go Walkabout. Travel insurers do not take on the potentially huge claims for medical emergencies themselves. They negotiate cover with underwriters, who assess risks spread across thousands of policyholders.
At the time Go Walkabout was working with German underwriters – an arrangement that could not endure with the UK outside the European Union.
“So there we were, a pub without beer,” Harold recalls.
Many British underwriters, clobbered by Covid losses, did not want any more travel business. But Harold’s reputation secured a deal that ensured survival.
The company is staying in the family: his son-in-law, Mark Brunger, has taken over as managing director – bringing some fresh thinking.
“More people are finding us online now, but no thanks to me, I can assure you,” says Harold.
“People do business with people. I believe in the old-fashioned way of selling insurance: you’ve got to make it easy for people to speak to you.
“If they’re getting a good deal, and they like the person they’re dealing with, you’ll get your share.”
Travel insurance is more competitive than ever. Happily for travellers planning out-of-the-ordinary trips, many insurers now offer excellent policies. But for Harold’s loyal Go Walkabout customers, Bexhill-on-Sea remains an essential gateway to adventure.
