Price comparison website, uSwitch claims that two thirds of the three million UK drivers, who head abroad with their cars each year, don’t know if they are properly insured or not.

This claim seems to be backed up by Moneysupermarket.com spokesman Peter Gerrard who says, “If you’re in France for a week, you don’t want to spend one day of the trip by the side of the road and the rest of your holiday without a car. Rather like comprehensive insurance, it’s an area where British drivers might think they have more cover than they have. Recovery costs can be very expensive, especially if you have a foreign car and they order parts for you or they have to contract a recovery company to drive miles to pick you up.”

Many British holidaymakers travel with the assumption that fully comprehensive insurance will automatically provide the same level of cover when they are on the continent, but EU law states that insurers are only obliged to offer the bare minimum such as third party cover.