ABTA believes there is no evidence that agents are mis-selling travel insurance and the trade will not be regulated out of the sector following the recent Treasury review.

However, the association expects the trade’s exclusion from regulation by the Financial Services Authority to end. The FSA oversees almost all other sales of travel insurance.

ABTA head of financial services Mike Monk said: “We think the exclusion will go, but agents and operators will not be subject to the same FSA regulation as insurance brokers and financial services companies.”

The Treasury reported three complaints of mis-selling and the FSA received five.