A range of options on long-term travel cover is available for backpackers embarking on a round-the-world trip or an extended working holiday, writes Laura Slattery

New graduates are almost as likely to apply for a working holiday visa to Australia as they are to tout their finely honed CVs around town. As a result the backpacker travel market has exploded over the last decade.

Popular opinion among gap year and career break enthusiasts is that years spent travelling, no matter how cockroach-infested your accommodation, are too spiritually enriching to miss out.

Those elusive pensionable jobs are something to worry about much, much later.

A few moments spent considering your travel insurance options before hitting the airport will mean financial compensation will be available to ease your travel woes if you get mugged in Chile, break a leg crossing a glacier in New Zealand or lose your passport in Cambodia.

Standard annual travel insurance policies won't do the trick - they have clauses stating that any one trip can't exceed a set number of days, usually about 31 or 45. So for anyone who wants cover, a more expensive extended stay policy should be on their pre-journey shopping lists.

"The Irish have always had a love of travel and adventure and, with the SSIAs coming to fruition this year, no doubt more people than ever will take extended trips to the far flung corners of the world," says Kevin Johnson, head of insurance at EBS Building Society, which has just launched a new insurance policy underwritten by ACE Travel Insurance for backpacker trips.

The table below shows some of the other specialist extended stay travel policies on sale in the Republic and the premiums they offer for a six-month trip anywhere in the world and a 12-month trip in Australia and New Zealand.

The EBS policy covers trips of up to 13 months, whereas the other providers shown only offer cover on trips lasting up to a year.

The premiums shown include cover for personal baggage and hazardous activities.

EBS and Getcover.com have special rates for Australia and New Zealand.

Toptravelinsurance.com offers a "worldwide excluding USA and Canada" rate, allowing it to keep its premiums down in this category, and the Insurancebookers.ie and Justcover.ie premiums are based on its worldwide policy rates.

The premiums charged only tell one part of the story, as the level and type of cover offered under travel insurance policies vary considerably.

For example, all insurance providers have different lists of the hazardous activities that they will or won't cover.

Some insurers divide hazardous activities into three categories: those it covers automatically, those it will cover for an additional premium and those it will not cover at all.

Insurancebookers.ie automatically covers the cost of injuries sustained in activities such as banana boating, hot-air ballooning and kite surfing. But customers will need to pay an additional premium if they want to be covered for bungee jumping, whitewater rafting or zorbing, which involves being strapped inside an enormous plastic, air-cushioned ball and bounced down a hill.

In no circumstance will Insurancebookers.ie cover potholing, harness racing, big game hunting, luging, micro-liting or heli-skiing, which involves skiing in remote mountain ranges only accessible by helicopter.

EBS's policy, on the other hand, will cover heli-skiing and it also allows up to two bungee jumps and whitewater rafting.

Toptravelinsurance.com's premiums emerge as the cheapest, but its list of automatically covered activities is short compared to some of the others: policyholders need to contact the provider, KMT Travel Insurance, if they intend to participate in any non-listed activity.

At all insurers, hazardous activities must be incidental to the trip and not its main purpose.

One thing all extended stay policies have in common is an age cut-off point. While over 65s often end up paying nearly double for standard travel cover, on extended stay policies the age limits are even lower.

According to the insurance industry, if you are aged 45 or over, you can't be a backpacker.

KMT Travel Insurance says the age limits help keep the price of the cover down.

"After all, the over forties don't subsidise your motor insurance so why should you subsidise their travel cover," it explains.

But backpacker insurance isn't that cheap compared to the normal cost of standard annual multitrip policies.

Worldwide annual multitrip policies start at €34.50 (from Simply Mortgages) for people who have private health insurance.

Getcover.com's Gold multi-trip policy allows people to extend their single trip limit to 90 days for a small additional cost, taking the premium to around €55, making it a good option for someone taking a three-month trip.

Some travellers may also feel that the cover they have under their private health insurance policy is enough and they don't need a travel policy to give them additional cover.

The hospital plans sold by VHI, Bupa and Vivas Health cover overseas medical expenses up to limits of €55,000-€100,000.

This is sufficient to cover most eventualities in many countries, but barely enough to cover a few nights in a US or Canadian hospital.

Irish people on working holiday visas in Australia have limited cover for medical costs under Medicare, the Australian government agency that subsidises healthcare expenses.

There is a reciprocal agreement between the Republic of Ireland and Australia that entitles Irish visitors, with the exception of those on student visas, to free emergency treatment in public hospitals and access to subsidised medicines. However, unlike British passport holders, Irish visitors to Australia are not entitled to Medicare benefits for non-hospital medical care such as trips to private doctors' surgeries or community health centres.

Most travel insurance policies will have excesses, or a set portion of the cost that the policyholder must pay themselves before they can make a claim, so it isn't always possible to claim for a visit to a doctor anyway.

But travel insurance policies cover more than just medical expenses. Compensation for cancellation or curtailment of the trip up to limits of €1,000-€2,000 depending on the insurer, lump sums of up to €20,000 for the loss of sight or a limb in an accident, personal liability cover and legal expenses cover should all be part of the policy.

Some backpacker policies will also specify medical cover for injuries sustained during light manual labour such as fruit-picking and waitressing.

As an optional extra, some policies offer a benefit of about €1,200-€1,300 to travellers who have to return home from or delay their voyage of self-discovery to resit an exam - as long as the policy was issued before the original exam was taken.