Which type of travel insurance you actually need

For some trips it is a legal condition of entry — a Schengen visa will be refused without it, and several countries ask for proof at the border or with an e-visa. For every other trip it is optional, and the case for it is simply that an emergency hospital stay or a medical flight home can cost more than the holiday by an order of magnitude. Check your corridor first: that tells you whether this is a requirement or a judgement call.

"Travel medical insurance" is the health part on its own: emergency treatment, hospital, evacuation and repatriation. "Travel insurance" usually means a bundle that adds cancellation, delay and baggage cover on top. Entry rules only ever ask about the medical part — a policy heavy on baggage cover and light on medical limits can still fail a visa requirement.

Often partially, and almost never enough on its own. Card cover is real but conditional — it typically requires you to have paid for the trip with that card, carries low medical sub-limits, and issues a certificate that does not state the cover amount and area of validity a consulate wants to see. It is worth knowing exactly what yours does before you buy anything else, which is what the credit-card page is for.

Not automatically. A cheap policy is usually cheap because it has a high excess, a low medical limit, or a narrow list of covered activities — all of which are fine if they match your trip. It becomes a false economy when the medical limit is below what your destination requires, or when the thing you are actually doing is on the excluded list. Read those three numbers before the price.

No. We are not an insurer or a broker, we take no commission, and there are no affiliate links anywhere in this section. The insurer links on the Schengen page are plain and uncommissioned. This section exists because the site already tells people they need cover, and it would be poor form to say so and then leave them to work the rest out alone.