Comment: ‘Travel Dispute cover’ is a real threat

Over the past few years, we've seen a massive upturn in adverts in the media pushing the services of lawyers willing to fight the battles of anyone who's ever tripped over a paving stone or picked up a paper cut at work.

Imagine if the next raft of such ads casts the net towards disgruntled holidaymakers.

InsureandGo's new Travel Dispute policy is threatening to do just that. If the uptake is good, every kind of travel company could be at risk of having more actions brought against it.

ABTA, however, thinks there's not much to worry about; there's nothing new about small-claims courts after all. There have always been customers willing to take recourse through the courts when they feel their holidays have failed to live up to their billing.

But most will have been unwilling to put in the time and money to take things further than an angry letter. Would a new £4 policy change their minds?

A rise in the number of cases brought against travel firms would not result in an equivalent number of results in the claimants' favour. But fighting such claims would be keenly felt by those least well-equipped to soak it up.

I hope ABTA is right in feeling this is just a publicity stunt. But if the UK continues to develop a litigious society in the mould of the US, the last thing we can afford to be is complacent.