One of the hardest things to swallow is the number that you come up with when you price up replacing the contents of your archery bag. By the time you’ve invested in a reasonable riser, some decent limbs (or a mid-range compound), a sight that doesn’t shake itself to bits, stabiliser set and some good arrows, most archers advancing beyond their beginners kit will have a set worth £1000+ and some will be heading towards the £3000+ mark if there’s any carbon in there. While you’re normally covered under your house and car insurance for the trips to your club and back, many don’t realise that these policies often see your entire kit bag as a single item and will likely have maximum item values (or punitive excesses) for your equipment.

So piece of advice number one – read the policies that you’re relying on to cover your kit and make sure that it’s actually covered. If you’re good, no need to read any further!

However, once you’ve got good kit, many archers will start to travel for competitions to fields that aren’t your own and possibly with hotel stays or involving trains, planes or ferries if you’re more adventurous. Regardless of how far you’re travelling, the competitive nature of your journey can often take you outside of the bounds of house or car insurances meaning that your kit might not be covered. For your regular possessions you’d normally look at a single trip or annual travel insurance policy, but again, many of these are limited in their coverage of your sporting equipment and have loose definitions that mean you are unlikely to get full recompense for loss or theft.

Thankfully there are some specialist alternatives that don’t cost the earth – and are well worth the peace of mind particularly if you’re heading to the airport. Our favourite of these is Ripe Insurance, who have a specialist policy for archery equipment that means you don’t need to worry. And as an introductory offer from RAW Archery, you can get 45% off your first year’s cover via this link: Ripe Insurance