What does travel insurance cover? Every guarantee explained for Irish travellers
A. FruchardCo-Founder & Travel Insurance ExpertLast updated: 28 August 2026What does travel insurance cover?
Travel insurance covers the big costs a trip can throw at you: emergency medical treatment and repatriation, cancelling or cutting short your holiday, lost, stolen or delayed luggage, missed departures and personal liability. On the plans sold to Irish residents, cover starts from €28.82 for eight days in Spain.
The catch is that what is covered by travel insurance depends entirely on the plan. Across the nine policies an Irish traveller aged 40 can buy through HelloSafe, emergency medical cover runs from €250,000 to €500,000, baggage from €250 to €2,000, and cancellation is either included, a priced option or missing altogether. Cover is written per person and per trip, most sections carry an excess you pay on each claim, and the real limits sit in the policy wording rather than in the marketing.
It matters more than most people assume. In the CCPC's January 2026 travel research, Irish holidaymakers spent an average of €2,473 on flights and accommodation, one in six ran into a problem, and one in three travelled with no insurance at all, rising to almost half of under-35s. This guide goes through every guarantee, with the actual euro limits, excesses and conditions of the plans available in Ireland, so you buy on cover rather than on a headline price.
Every year, our experts audit each plan against its binding policy wording: coverage, limits and exclusions, cross-checked with real customer feedback and live market prices. The analysis is fully independent, with zero paid placements and no insurer able to pay to influence a rating. HelloSafe is an ORIAS-registered insurance broker (n° 21008038), supervised by the ACPR. We compare travel insurance across every country and currency, using the plans, prices and cover actually offered in your country, not a single guide translated.
Learn moreWhat does each travel insurance plan cover in Ireland?
Nine travel insurance plans are open to an Irish resident aged 40 on our comparison, and what each one covers is set out below, guarantee by guarantee, with the real limits in euro. A green badge means the guarantee is included, red means it is not, orange means it is optional or conditional. "Actual cost" means the benefit is uncapped, and "Return ticket" means the insurer pays your fare home rather than a cash sum.
The biggest fork in travel insurance cover is cancellation. Four plans can pay you back for a trip you have to call off; five are medical-first plans that will get you treated and brought home but pay nothing if you never leave. The two tables share the same rows, so you can read straight across.
Guarantee | Go Protect (€28.82) | WorldSecure Platinum (€28.88) | World Travel (€59.40) | SafeTrip Tourism (€88.00) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Emergency medical abroad Treatment and hospital, on top of EHIC public care | €300,000 in Europe, €500,000 worldwide | €300,000 | €300,000 | €500,000 |
Repatriation Medical transport home, arranged by the assistance line | Actual cost | Actual cost | Actual cost | Actual cost |
No upfront medical costs The insurer settles the hospital directly | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Treatment back in Ireland Follow-up care after the trip | No | No | No | No |
Search and rescue Mountain and sea rescue costs | €10,000 | €5,000 | €5,000 | €4,000 |
Trip cancellation Named or any justified reasons, with an excess | Up to €12,000, priced on your trip cost | Optional, up to €9,000 | €1,500 included | Optional, up to €6,000 |
Curtailment Unused days if you must come home early | €2,500 + return ticket | Return ticket | Return ticket | €6,000 + return ticket |
Travel and baggage delay Fixed sums after a set number of hours | €90 after 4 h, €150 for bags after 12 h | €150 | €300 after 4 h | €150 after 6 h, €150 for bags after 24 h |
Baggage and possessions Per-person limit; valuables capped lower | €1,500 (€25 excess) | €2,000 (€30 excess) | €1,000 | €1,500 |
Electronics Phones and laptops | No | Phones excluded | No | No |
Emergency cash advance If your cards or cash are stolen | €2,300 | €700 | No | €500 |
Personal liability If you injure someone or damage property | €4,500,000 | €4,500,000 | €2,000,000 | €4,500,000 |
Permanent disability Lump sum after a serious accident | No | €50,000 | No | €80,000 |
Extreme sports Off-piste, diving and similar | Optional extension | Included | No | Included |
Emergency dental Pain relief abroad | €300 | €300 | €200 | €250 |
Who can buy it Age limit and maximum trip length | 0 to 99, 90 days | 0 to 65, 365 days | 0 to 84, 365 days | 0 to 98, 60 days |
Guarantee | Safe Start (€44.00) | Safe Care (€44.00) | Go Explore (€53.90) | Go Explore + (€71.50) | Safe Extreme (€264.00) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Emergency medical abroad Treatment and hospital, on top of EHIC public care | €500,000 | €500,000 | €250,000 | €500,000 | €300,000 |
Repatriation Medical transport home, arranged by the assistance line | Actual cost | Actual cost | Actual cost | Actual cost | Actual cost |
No upfront medical costs The insurer settles the hospital directly | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Treatment back in Ireland Follow-up care after the trip | No | No | €20,000 | €20,000 | €1,000,000 |
Search and rescue Mountain and sea rescue costs | €5,000 | €4,000 | €5,000 | €6,000 | €5,000 |
Trip cancellation Named or any justified reasons, with an excess | Optional Cancel For Any Reason add-on | No | No | No | No |
Curtailment Unused days if you must come home early | €12,000 | Return ticket | Return ticket | Return ticket | €500 + return ticket |
Travel and baggage delay Fixed sums after a set number of hours | €150 | No | No | No | No |
Baggage and possessions Per-person limit; valuables capped lower | €2,000 (€50 excess) | No | €250 (€25 excess) | €500 (€25 excess) | €2,000 (€15 excess) |
Electronics Phones and laptops | No | No | €100 | €100 | No |
Emergency cash advance If your cards or cash are stolen | €1,500 | €500 | €1,000 | €1,000 | €500 |
Personal liability If you injure someone or damage property | €4,500,000 | €4,500,000 | €1,500,000 (€500,000 in the US and Canada) | €1,500,000 (€500,000 in the US and Canada) | €4,500,000 |
Permanent disability Lump sum after a serious accident | €10,000 | No | €50,000 | €50,000 | €40,000 |
Extreme sports Off-piste, diving and similar | No | No | No | No | Included |
Emergency dental Pain relief abroad | €300 | €250 | €300 (€600 after an accident) | €300 (€600 after an accident) | €300 |
Who can buy it Age limit and maximum trip length | 0 to 69, 184 days | 0 to 64, 60 days | 0 to 80, 365 days | 0 to 80, 365 days | 0 to 49, 365 days |
Repatriation and any major hospital treatment must be approved in advance by the insurer’s 24/7 assistance team. Safe Care spells it out: hospital costs drop to 90% of the real bill if you did not call before admission, and Go Protect’s wording excludes any expense incurred without the insurer’s consent, however high your medical limit is.
Cancellation pays only from the policy start date and never for something that happened between booking and buying, so buy at booking. Baggage claims need a police report (within 48 hours on Go Protect, immediately on WorldSecure Platinum) plus original receipts, and anything left unattended is excluded, as is a mobile phone on WorldSecure Platinum.
Two more plans appear only when every traveller is under 40: WorldSecure Basic (medical €300,000, baggage €1,150, from €42.90 for a month in Spain) and Safe Nomad (medical at actual cost, laptops and phones covered up to €1,500). And if you tick cancellation and book at least ten days ahead, Cap Explorer joins the list with any-justified-reason cancellation up to €10,000, but only €75,000 of medical cover.
What medical cover does travel insurance include?
Medical cover is the part of travel insurance that pays for emergency treatment, hospital stays, emergency dental care and, if needed, bringing you home. On the plans sold in Ireland it runs from €250,000 (Go Explore) to €500,000 (Safe Start, Safe Care, Go Explore + and SafeTrip Tourism), and repatriation is paid at actual cost on every one of them.
Three details decide what you actually get. First, the excess: €30 per medical claim on Go Protect and Safe Start, €50 on World Travel, none on WorldSecure Platinum, Safe Care or SafeTrip Tourism when you are hospitalised. Second, who is in charge: it is the insurer's assistance team, not you, that authorises treatment and decides when to fly you home, and WorldSecure Platinum requires a medical certificate before it agrees to pay a hospital directly for a stay of more than 24 hours. Third, the small sub-limits: emergency dental is capped at €200 to €300 (€600 after an accident on Go Explore and Go Explore +), and follow-up treatment once you are back in Ireland is only covered by Go Explore and Go Explore + (€20,000) and Safe Extreme (€1,000,000).
Is €500,000 enough? Insurance Ireland, quoted by the Department of Foreign Affairs, recommends at least €1,000,000 of medical cover, and no plan on our Irish comparison reaches that figure for a traveller aged 40 (only Safe Nomad, for under-40s, pays medical costs without a cap). What the plans do offer is repatriation without a ceiling on top of the medical limit, direct billing on all nine, and search and rescue of €4,000 to €10,000. For a European trip, where your EHIC already covers public care, that is comfortable; for the United States, where the Irish Times put the bill for a mild heart attack at around €250,000 in January 2026, pick a €500,000 plan and nothing lower.
- Emergency treatment and hospital care abroad : €250,000 to €500,000 depending on the plan, with an excess of €0 to €50 per claim.
- Repatriation and medical transport home : paid at actual cost on all nine plans, arranged and authorised by the 24/7 assistance line.
- No upfront payment : the assistance company settles the hospital directly, so you do not advance thousands of euro and claim them back.
- Emergency dental and teleconsultation : €200 to €300 for dental pain relief; free medical teleconsultation on Safe Start, World Travel, Go Explore and Go Explore +.
Does travel insurance cover cancellation and curtailment?
Not always. On the plans available in Ireland, travel insurance covers cancellation on four of nine plans, and on two of those only as a priced option: World Travel includes €1,500, Go Protect pays up to €12,000 per person for any justified reason, and WorldSecure Platinum (up to €9,000) and SafeTrip Tourism (up to €6,000) add it on for a fee.
What counts as a covered reason is written into each policy. Go Protect's wording lists three tiers: medical reasons with no excess (illness, accident or death of you, your partner or a relative up to the second degree), specific reasons with a €30 excess (pregnancy complications up to the 28th week, serious damage to your home above €2,500, serious damage to your car within 48 hours of departure, redundancy, a new job, a jury summons, an employer moving your leave, a refused tourist visa), and "any justified reason" with an excess of 10% of the cancellation costs, minimum €100 per person. WorldSecure Platinum's list is similar, with a €30 excess and border closures explicitly excluded.
Timing is where cancellation cover is won or lost. Neither Go Protect nor WorldSecure Platinum pays for an event that happened between the day you booked and the day you bought the insurance (a rule that is standard across the market), and Go Protect adds two rules of its own: buy within 48 hours of booking (or at least 20 days before departure), and expect a five-day waiting period if you buy more than 30 days before you leave. On real Irish quotes for a €2,500 booking in Spain, adding cancellation cost €79.20 on Go Protect and €110.00 on Cap Explorer, while the WorldSecure Platinum add-on came back at €325.88, which only makes sense on a much more expensive trip. For scale, the Irish Times reported in January 2026 that a last-minute cancellation for a bereavement leaves an uninsured family around €3,000 out of pocket, and the CCPC found one in ten Irish holidaymakers bought their insurance only after buying the holiday.
Curtailment is the sister guarantee: if you have to come home early for a covered reason, it refunds the unused, prepaid part of the trip. Safe Start pays up to €12,000, SafeTrip Tourism €6,000 and Go Protect €2,500 (€30 excess) on top of the return ticket; on WorldSecure Platinum, World Travel, Safe Care, Go Explore and Go Explore + you get the fare home but no refund of the days you lost.
- Change of mind is never a covered reason : even any-justified-reason cover needs a sudden, provable event outside your control; only Safe Start's optional Cancel For Any Reason add-on goes further.
- Medical-first plans exclude cancellation : Safe Care, Go Explore, Go Explore + and Safe Extreme pay nothing if you never leave, and Safe Start only with its add-on.
- An excess applies to most claims : €30 per person on WorldSecure Platinum and on Go Protect's specific reasons, 10% (minimum €100) on Go Protect's any-reason tier, 20% (minimum €150) on SafeTrip Tourism's any-reason variant.
- Cover starts only when you buy : nothing that happens between booking and buying is covered, and Go Protect applies a five-day waiting period when bought more than 30 days out.
Does travel insurance cover lost, stolen or delayed luggage?
Yes, on seven of the nine plans: travel insurance covers baggage from €250 on Go Explore to €2,000 on WorldSecure Platinum, Safe Start and Safe Extreme, with an excess of €15 to €50 per claim and a valuables sub-limit that caps a single expensive item at half the total or less. Safe Care carries no baggage cover at all.
The headline limit is only half the story. Go Protect caps valuables at €750 of its €1,500 and charges a €25 excess per suitcase; Go Explore squeezes valuables, sports gear and phones or laptops into €100 sub-limits under a €250 total; SafeTrip Tourism allows €750 for valuables and €4,000 per event; Safe Extreme allows €1,000 for valuables. WorldSecure Platinum's product sheet goes further and excludes mobile phones, cash, credit cards and fragile objects from luggage cover altogether, and it depreciates what it does pay: full purchase value in the first year, 75% in the second, then 10% less each year. Delayed bags are a separate, smaller benefit: €150 after 12 hours on Go Protect and after 24 hours on SafeTrip Tourism.
Claiming has its own rules. Theft must be reported to the police within 48 hours on Go Protect and immediately on WorldSecure Platinum, loss or damage in transit needs the airline's property irregularity report, and you must send original receipts within five working days on Go Protect. Luggage left unattended in a public place, valuables that were neither on you nor in a safe, theft from an unlocked or open vehicle, and bags entrusted to a hotel or custodian are excluded across the plans we read. Keep the receipts for anything worth more than a few hundred euro before you leave.
What else does travel insurance cover?
Beyond medical, cancellation and baggage, travel insurance covers personal liability of €1,500,000 to €4,500,000, a permanent-disability lump sum of €10,000 to €80,000 on six plans, travel delay of €90 to €300, legal costs abroad of €3,000 to €8,000 and an emergency cash advance of €500 to €2,300.
Personal liability protects you if you injure someone or damage their property. It is €4,500,000 on Go Protect, WorldSecure Platinum, Safe Start, Safe Care, SafeTrip Tourism and Safe Extreme, €2,000,000 on World Travel and €1,500,000 on Go Explore and Go Explore +, where it drops to €500,000 for a trip that includes the United States or Canada. Most plans apply an excess of €80 to €150 per liability claim, usually only to property damage (€500 on World Travel, and none at all on bodily injury on Safe Start and World Travel). The disability lump sum is paid only above a threshold: 30% invalidity on SafeTrip Tourism and Safe Extreme, 10% on Safe Start.
The smaller benefits are the ones people are glad of at 2 a.m. in a foreign hospital: a relative flown out and put up (Go Protect pays a return ticket plus €80 a night for up to 10 nights), a longer hotel stay if you are told to wait or quarantine (Go Protect €80 a night for up to 14 nights, World Travel €100 a night up to €1,000), lawyer's fees abroad (Go Protect €8,000, World Travel €5,000, Safe Start €3,100), and a bail advance of up to €30,000 on Go Protect. Activities are where cover is won or lost: risky sports are included on WorldSecure Platinum, SafeTrip Tourism and Safe Extreme, sold as a named-list extension on Go Protect (trekking, scuba diving to 80 metres, off-piste skiing and snowboarding, surfing, paragliding, canyoning, horse riding), and excluded on the rest, and Safe Care even leaves off-piste ski rescue out of its search-and-rescue benefit.
What is not covered by travel insurance?
Every travel insurance policy carries general exclusions, and most refused claims trip over one of them: recent pre-existing conditions, alcohol or drug-related incidents, extreme sports outside an option, travel against official advice, unattended belongings and known events are excluded on the plans sold in Ireland. The CCPC's rule of thumb is blunt: if something is not specified, it is not covered.
- Pre-existing conditions : Go Protect excludes any condition treated in hospital in the 3 months before departure, Go Explore and Go Explore + any condition diagnosed, treated or hospitalised in the previous 6 months, and WorldSecure Platinum excludes pre-existing and chronic illnesses outright.
- Alcohol and drugs : incidents linked to drunkenness or non-prescribed drugs are excluded on every plan, and the DFA warns of the same.
- Extreme and high-risk sports : excluded unless the plan includes them (WorldSecure Platinum, SafeTrip Tourism, Safe Extreme) or you buy Go Protect's extension.
- Travel against official advice : trips to a country the insurer's foreign-office list excludes, or against the Department of Foreign Affairs' advice, are not covered.
- Unattended or unreported belongings : luggage left unattended, valuables not on you or in a safe, and theft not reported to the police in time are excluded.
- Known events : anything that started between booking and buying, an epidemic unless the plan names it, border closures on WorldSecure Platinum's cancellation option.
- Long stays and living abroad : these are trip policies capped at 60 to 365 days, not health insurance for expats, and none covers routine pregnancy or maternity.
Two waiting periods hide in the fine print. WorldSecure Platinum applies an eight-day waiting period if you buy after you have already left, and Go Protect a five-day one on cancellation when bought more than 30 days before departure. Go Protect must also be bought at least one day before you travel, and Cap Explorer ten days before. Nothing here is unusual for the market; the point is that a plan chosen for its €500,000 medical limit can still refuse a claim on any of these lines, so read the exclusions before the limits.
How does travel insurance cover work when you claim?
Travel insurance cover works in two ways: the assistance line organises and pays for emergencies directly (a hospital admission, a repatriation flight), while everything else is reimbursed after you send a claim with proof, within five working days of the event on Go Protect, minus the excess. Here is the sequence the policies we read actually require.
- Call the 24/7 assistance number on your certificate first, before any hospital admission, transfer or transport home. On Safe Care an unannounced admission is reimbursed at 90%, and on WorldSecure Platinum a medical certificate is needed before direct payment for a stay over 24 hours.
- Get the paperwork at the scene: a police report for theft (within 48 hours on Go Protect, immediately on WorldSecure Platinum), the airline's property irregularity report for lost or delayed bags, medical reports and receipts for treatment.
- Declare the claim inside the deadline: five working days on Go Protect; on WorldSecure Platinum claims under €500 go online and larger ones by post with the claim form.
- Send the originals: purchase receipts, the airline's or hotel's cancellation invoice showing what was not refunded, medical certificates, and your booking confirmation for a cancellation claim.
- Receive the payment minus the excess: €25 to €50 on a baggage claim, €30 on a Go Protect or Safe Start medical claim, none on WorldSecure Platinum medical or Safe Care medical, and the cancellation excesses listed above.
Which travel insurance plans cover Irish travellers best?
For most Irish travellers, the plans that cover the widest set of guarantees for the least money are Go Protect (€28.82 for eight days in Spain) and WorldSecure Platinum (€28.88). The live comparison below shows the nine plans with today's prices and guarantees, so you can weigh travel insurance cover against cost for your own trip and get a quote in the same place.
Antoine's pick
You want a hospital abroad to be paid without you advancing a cent, your holiday money back if you have to cancel, and a stolen bag not to be a write-off. Go Protect does all three for €28.82 on our eight-day Spain trip: €300,000 of medical cover in Europe with direct billing, cancellation for any justified reason up to €12,000 once you declare your trip cost, €1,500 of baggage and €4,500,000 of liability, and it accepts travellers up to 99. If you want extreme sports and a €50,000 disability lump sum included, WorldSecure Platinum at €28.88 adds both with €2,000 of baggage, but it excludes phones from luggage cover and its cancellation add-on is far dearer. If the medical limit is your priority, Safe Start at €44.00 gives you €500,000 plus €12,000 of curtailment.
Antoine Fruchard, Co-Founder & Travel Insurance Expert at HelloSafe.
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Prices in euro for 1 traveller aged 40, 8 days in Spain (15 to 22 October 2026), departing Ireland. Real HelloSafe quotes captured on 17 August 2026. These plans are priced in euro, so no currency conversion applies. Your own price depends on your age, the destination, the length of the trip and the number of travellers. Go Protect and WorldSecure Platinum are shown without a declared trip cost: the price rises when you add cancellation cover for a booked trip.
How much does travel insurance cover cost in Ireland?
Travel insurance cover for an Irish resident starts at €28.82 for eight days in Spain (Go Protect), €41.78 for a family of four on the same trip and €43.12 for two weeks in the United States, on real HelloSafe quotes captured in August 2026; the median of the nine plans for the Spain trip is €53.90. What you pay depends on your age, the destination, the length of the trip, how many people you insure and whether you add cancellation.
Trip | Cheapest plan | Runner-up | Plans available |
|---|---|---|---|
Spain, 8 days 1 adult aged 40 | €28.82 (Go Protect) | €28.88 (WorldSecure Platinum) | 9 |
Spain, 8 days Couple aged 32 and 30 | €28.82 (Go Protect) | €36.30 (WorldSecure Basic) | 11 |
Spain, 8 days 2 adults and 2 children | €41.78 (Go Protect) | €72.60 (WorldSecure Basic) | 11 |
Spain, 8 days 1 adult aged 70 | €28.82 (Go Protect) | €59.40 (World Travel) | 5 |
Spain, 1 month 1 adult aged 25 | €42.90 (WorldSecure Basic) | €48.62 (Go Protect) | 11 |
Thailand, Mexico and Australia, 1 month 1 adult aged 25 | €42.90 (WorldSecure Basic) | €53.24 (Go Protect) | 11 |
United States, 2 weeks 1 adult aged 40 | €43.12 (Go Protect) | €65.34 (WorldSecure Platinum) | 9 |
Spain, 8 days, aged 40 With cancellation on a €2,500 booking | €79.20 (Go Protect) | €110.00 (Cap Explorer) | 3 |
Two things stand out. Age narrows the choice more than it raises the price: at 70, only five plans remain and the median jumps to €80.30, even though Go Protect still quotes €28.82. Destination is the other lever: the United States costs 50% to 75% more than Spain for the same traveller, depending on the plan. If you take more than two trips a year, an annual multi-trip travel insurance policy usually works out cheaper than buying single-trip cover each time; the Irish Times priced annual family policies at roughly €70 to €150 in January 2026, with cancellation cover ranging from €1,000 to €6,000, which is exactly the kind of gap this guide is about.
Do I still need travel insurance cover with an EHIC or private health insurance?
Yes. The European Health Insurance Card gives Irish residents public healthcare in the EU, EEA and Switzerland on the same terms as locals, but it does not cover private treatment, the cost of flying you back to Ireland, cancellation or luggage, and it is no use outside Europe, so travel insurance cover is still needed even on a Spanish beach holiday.
Citizens Information puts it plainly: the EHIC covers free or reduced-cost public healthcare for a temporary stay of up to three months, and does not cover private healthcare, the cost to fly you back to Ireland, or ongoing care; it is not accepted in Andorra or Monaco, and outside the EU you need private insurance. Irish citizens visiting the UK are covered under the Common Travel Area instead. The Department of Foreign Affairs adds the part people forget: it cannot pay for emergency medical repatriation, repatriation of remains, or the expenses of a personal emergency abroad. That is what the uncapped repatriation benefit on every plan above is for, and the Irish Times put the price of an air ambulance from within the EU at around €20,000 in January 2026.
Private health insurance and card cover have the same shape of gap. An Irish health plan may contribute to emergency treatment abroad, but it will not refund a cancelled package, replace a stolen bag or organise a flight home, which is why the Irish Times reminded readers in January 2026 that neither private health insurance nor the EHIC removes the need for travel insurance. Card-included cover, where it exists, tends to be tied to paying for the trip with that card and to carry its own low limits and short reason lists. Treat all three as a top-up, then buy a standalone policy for the trip and check what it actually covers against the tables above.
What travel insurance cover do you need for your trip?
The travel insurance cover you need depends on four things: where you are going, for how long, who is travelling and how much you have prepaid. A €2,473 family package in Spain needs cancellation cover far more than a €300 city break does, and a trip to the United States needs the €500,000 medical tier and nothing lower.
- Short break in the EU : your EHIC covers public care, so a medical-first plan such as Safe Care or Safe Start (€44.00) fills the gaps: repatriation, private treatment, direct billing, liability.
- Family package holiday in Spain : cancellation and curtailment matter most; Go Protect quoted €41.78 for two adults and two children, and its any-justified-reason cancellation scales to the price you declare.
- United States or Canada : take a €500,000 medical plan with direct billing (Go Protect worldwide, Safe Start, SafeTrip Tourism), and note that Go Explore and Go Explore + cut liability to €500,000 there.
- Over 65 : Safe Start stops at 69, WorldSecure Platinum at 65 and Safe Care at 64, while Go Protect (to 99), SafeTrip Tourism (to 98) and World Travel (to 84) stay open; at 70 five plans quoted, from €28.82.
- Long or multi-country trips : under-40s can use WorldSecure Basic (from €42.90 for a month) or Safe Nomad; Go Protect caps trips at 90 days, Safe Care and SafeTrip Tourism at 60.
- Skiing, diving and adventure sports : choose a plan that names them (WorldSecure Platinum, SafeTrip Tourism, Safe Extreme) or add Go Protect's extension; a claim from an uncovered activity is refused whatever the medical limit.
- Several trips a year : an annual multi-trip policy usually beats single-trip cover after the second trip; you can also compare travel insurance in Ireland plan by plan, or start from our travel insurance hub.
What else do Irish travellers ask about what travel insurance covers?
Yes. Emergency medical care is the core of every travel policy: treatment, hospital stays and repatriation. On the plans sold in Ireland, medical limits run from €250,000 to €500,000, repatriation is paid at actual cost, and all nine settle the hospital directly. Call the assistance line before any major treatment so it is authorised.
Only if the plan includes it. World Travel includes €1,500, Go Protect pays up to €12,000 per person for any justified reason once you declare your trip cost, WorldSecure Platinum and SafeTrip Tourism sell it as an add-on, and Safe Care, Go Explore, Go Explore + and Safe Extreme have no cancellation cover at all. Nothing that happens between booking and buying is ever covered.
Yes on seven of nine plans, from €250 (Go Explore) to €2,000 (WorldSecure Platinum, Safe Start, Safe Extreme), with an excess of €15 to €50 and a valuables sub-limit. Theft must be reported to the police within 48 hours on Go Protect, and WorldSecure Platinum excludes mobile phones from luggage cover.
Yes. Every plan on our Irish comparison pays repatriation at actual cost, with no fixed cap, and the insurer’s assistance team arranges and authorises the transport home. The Department of Foreign Affairs cannot pay for it, and the EHIC does not cover it.
Rarely in full. Go Protect excludes conditions treated in hospital in the 3 months before departure, Go Explore and Go Explore + those diagnosed, treated or hospitalised in the previous 6 months, and WorldSecure Platinum excludes pre-existing and chronic conditions altogether. Declare everything before you buy: an undeclared condition is the most common reason a claim is refused.
Only where the plan names it. Go Protect includes an epidemic package in its cancellation cover, Safe Start’s optional Cancel For Any Reason add-on includes Covid and it covers a quarantine abroad, and Go Protect pays hotel costs of €80 a night for up to 14 nights if you are quarantined. Check each wording before relying on it: Go Protect’s terms exclude epidemics except where a cover names them.
Travel delay pays a fixed sum after a set wait: €90 after 4 hours on Go Protect, €300 after 4 hours on World Travel, €150 on WorldSecure Platinum and Safe Start, €150 after 6 hours on SafeTrip Tourism. Missed departures caused by something outside your control are covered on the plans that include delay; leaving too little time between connections is not.
Common exclusions are undeclared or recent pre-existing conditions, incidents under alcohol or drugs, extreme sports outside an option, travel against Department of Foreign Affairs advice, belongings left unattended or theft not reported to the police, known events, and long stays or living abroad. Each plan’s policy wording lists its own.
The day you book. Medical cover only has to be in place before you travel, but cancellation cover protects your deposit only from the policy start date, and Go Protect asks you to buy within 48 hours of booking or at least 20 days before departure. The CCPC found one in ten Irish holidaymakers bought their insurance after buying the holiday.
No. The EHIC gives you public healthcare in the EU, EEA and Switzerland on local terms for up to three months, but it does not cover private treatment, the flight home to Ireland, cancellation or luggage, and it does not work outside Europe. Keep it in your wallet and buy a policy on top.
Insurance Ireland recommends at least €1,000,000; the plans on our Irish comparison offer €250,000 to €500,000 plus uncapped repatriation. For Europe, where your EHIC covers public care, €300,000 with direct billing is comfortable; for the United States, Canada and other high-cost destinations, take a €500,000 plan and make sure repatriation is at actual cost.
Rarely well. WorldSecure Platinum excludes mobile phones from luggage cover, Go Explore and Go Explore + cap phones and laptops at €100, Safe Nomad (under-40s) is the exception at €1,500, and on the other plans a phone counts as a valuable, capped at half the baggage limit or less and only covered when it was on you or in a safe.
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