A large proportion of insurers do not offer digital contents insurance - despite the fact that increasing numbers of youngsters spend considerable time and money buying downloads, an expert has said.

Graham Trudgill, technical services manager at the British Insurance Broker's Association, says that, although some insurers do offer digital contents cover, many do not - because the area is a "new exposure".

A recent report from Computing Which? revealed that out of 46 insurance providers studied, fewer than half provided cover for loss or damage to downloaded music and other media.

"More and more people, young people in particular, are buying downloads and other things and it's not something that insurance, over it's many hundreds of years, had had to think about," Mr Trudgill commented.

"Some insurance companies have accommodated this but many of the others are looking at it and thinking: 'How can they measure a loss?" he continued.

"It's quite likely that a lot of the standard insurance policies out there don't offer it because it's just too new."