It is the time of the year when pensioners are contemplating a holiday and are forced to endure the travel insurance merry-go-round and for those over 75 to be treated like social outcasts to extract unjustified extortionate surcharges.

One of the first questions asked is a traveller’s age, which apparently does not breach age discrimination laws.

Travel insurance companies need to start asking relevant questions like “how many cigarettes do you smoke a day, what is your weekly consumption of alcohol, do you eat a healthy diet and keep physically fit, instead their prime concern is age”.

I am 76 and train six days per week, eat a healthy diet, do not smoke, only drink socially, am not overweight and physically very fit.

Why I am a greater insurance risk than a morbidly obese individual who survives on fry ups and takeaways, while sitting in a pub swilling eight pints of beer seven days a week?

Dennis Swaysland
Beauchamps Drive
Wickford