Starting in January I will be travelling round the world.  I will
start in Kuala Lumpur, then onto Australia and New Zealand where I
will spend maybe 6 months to 1 year, then I will head back to the UK
via a load of other countries (maybe either through South East Asia or
through South America, Central America, North America and Canada.

I will be partly working as I travel, particularly in Australia and
New Zealand, so I will be taking a laptop with digital editing
software with me to work.  The laptop price is around £1900 (UK), the
software authorisation key with it is worth around £900 (UK) and if it is
lost or damaged the authorisations have to be purchased again.

My question is, when I am considering travel insurance, am I better
off getting seperate insurance from a company that will insure the
laptop and software/hardware, then I could buy travel insurance that
doesn't need to cover this valuable equipment.  Or is it a better bet
to get travel insurance where the personal belongings account for
this, and I list them as items?

To help you with this, I should let you know that the travel insurance
I need to purchase must cover me for all the major extreme sports
(skiing, snowboarding, surfing, bungee jumping, helicopter rides, sky
diving, etc).

Perhaps you could suggest some
insurance companies companies for the recommended opntions, and what sort of
policy I would need for that.

Thanks for your help!

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Clarification of Question by whatsyourbeef-ga on 28 Nov 2006 12:57 PST

In case this is of use.  When I began looking at travel insurance I
have been using www.gapyear.com/travelinsurance

For whatever it's worth, since I have no idea how to answer the insurance question:

(1) I can't even imagine backpacking (meaning either staying in
budget/youth hostels or even actual outdoor backpacking) with an
attached laptop.  When doing any kind of backpacking, you can never
pack too lightly, and you shouldn't take anything that you're not
willing to lose.  Australia and NZ probably have some internet cafes
with very high powered systems. Are you sure you can't take what you
need on a USB key or a smaller attachable hard drive? (The ability to
find "good" computers does not necessarily hold true in SE Asia and
other places.)

(2) I have no idea what kind of software you're referring to, but any
software company that charges around US$1700 for a product and won't
offer at least one free replacement (even for a crashed hard drive!)
is a company I wouldn't want to deal with. Are you sure you can't
negotiate with them? Or find another product from a nicer company?