Ryanair Travel Insurance Review: Is It Worth It for Irish Travellers?

Ryanair travel insurance is worth it for one profile only: a traveller under 65, in good health, on a short and inexpensive European trip. Outside that profile, the doubled excess from 65, the end of medical cover at 70 and the exclusion of known medical conditions weigh more than the convenience of a tick-box at checkout.

The policy sold at Ryanair's checkout is an airline add-on provided by Europ Assistance S.A. Irish Branch, which also runs the 24/7 emergency line. Its limits are printed in the policy schedule shown during the booking; Ryanair does not publish them on a page we could read, so check them there before paying. The product is built for a short European trip, not for a family fortnight or a trip to the United States.

We score it 3.4 out of 5. The one-click purchase and the 24/7 assistance line pull the score up. The end of medical cover at 70, the doubled excess from 65, the exclusion of known medical conditions and limits you can only read at checkout pull it down.

What Ryanair's policy does well

• ✓
  Bought in one click: It is added during the flight booking, so there is no second form to fill in.
• ✓
  24/7 emergency assistance: Europ Assistance runs an emergency line open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for advice and arrangements.
• ✓
  Cancellation still covered after 70: Travellers aged 70 and over keep the cancellation cover when a covered medical event stops the trip.
• ✓
  Proof of a disrupted flight on request: Ryanair can send an insurance letter confirming a delay of more than 3 hours or a cancellation, useful for a claim.

Where it falls short

• ✕
  Known medical conditions excluded: General exclusions such as known pre-existing conditions apply: read the wording before you buy.
• ✕
  Medical cover stops at 70: Medical expenses are not covered for travellers aged 70 or over at the time of treatment.
• ✕
  Older travellers pay twice the excess: From 65, the excess doubles on the cancellation, medical and trip abandonment sections.
• ✕
  Limits only shown at checkout: We could not read the current Irish schedule on a public Ryanair or insurer page, so you have to check each limit before paying.

Ryanair prices its travel insurance per booking and shows the premium only at checkout, so the comparable figure is ours: on 28 October 2026, a 7-day trip to Spain for a 30-year-old living in Ireland cost from €18.65 through HelloSafe (WorldSecure Basic), and €32.54 with cancellation cover for a €1,000 trip (Go Protect, which can refund up to €12,000 per person).

We priced 11 plans for that trip, all for an Irish resident and all in euro. The table sets each need against the plan we would choose for it on the same 7-day trip. Ryanair's own limit for each need is in the schedule shown at checkout: we do not quote figures we could not check on an official Ryanair or insurer document.

What only our quote data shows: for this one-week Spanish trip, the 11 plans we priced ranged from €18.65 to €198.88, and age moved the floor far less than readers expect. At 62, Go Protect and WorldSecure Platinum cost exactly what they cost at 30 (€29.61 and €29.66), while the cheapest plan of the younger quote (WorldSecure Basic) stops accepting travellers at 39.

Three things move the price. The destination: the same 30-year-old paid from €25.99 for a week in the United States against €18.65 for Spain. Cancellation: adding it on a €1,000 trip took Go Protect from €29.61 to €32.54. Group size: a family of two adults and two children paid from €74.58 for the week in Spain.

For most readers flying Ryanair from Ireland, the alternative we would take is Go Protect: you keep a medical and repatriation cover that pays the hospital directly, with no upper age limit before 99, and you can protect a trip worth up to €12,000 per person for any justified reason. For a young solo traveller on a short city break with nothing expensive in the bag, WorldSecure Basic does the job for less.

Recommended for youA. FruchardCo-Founder & Travel Insurance Expert

The alternative we would pick

If your trip cost more than a few hundred euro, or you are travelling with family, take Go Protect: the hospital is paid directly, your trip can be refunded for any justified reason, and it still accepts you at 70 or 80. If you are under 40, travelling light and only want the medical side, WorldSecure Basic is the cheapest of our shortlist. If you carry a laptop or a camera, WorldSecure Platinum covers baggage up to €2,000. The quote form at the top of this page gives today’s price for your own dates.

Ryanair Insurance Plus is the higher tier offered at checkout. Reviews describe its extras as cover for gadgets and for the failure of a scheduled airline; the amounts are in the schedule shown during the booking, and we could not read the current Irish version on an official public document, so we quote none here. The age rules do not change: medical cover stops at 70 and the excess doubles from 65.

That makes Plus worth a look for one reader: someone carrying an expensive phone or tablet on a short trip, once the gadget limit is checked in the schedule. It does not change the two rules most claims run into, the exclusion of known medical conditions and the end of medical cover at 70. If those are your worry, a higher tier of the same policy will not help; a separate plan will.

The Ryanair policy covers emergency medical costs abroad, cancellation, baggage, personal liability and travel disruption, up to limits set in the schedule of your booking. Here is what Ryanair's help centre confirms, section by section, and what to check in your own schedule.

Before any hospital admission, call the Emergency Assistance Team: Ryanair's help centre lists it on +34 91 514 0000, open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for advice and to make arrangements. Read your wording for what happens if you are admitted or flown home without calling first.

Ryanair's help centre warns that general exclusions, such as known pre-existing medical conditions, may apply, and sends buyers to the policy document for the full list. These are the exclusions to look for first in it.

• Known medical conditions: how far back the wording looks at treatment, tests or medication.
• Age: medical expenses stop at 70, and the excess doubles from 65 (Ryanair's help centre).
• Sports: whether your activity is on the list of covered sports.
• Cancellation reasons: which reasons are listed; a change of mind, work changing your dates or visa problems rarely are.
• Government advice: what happens to cancellation and disruption claims when official advice warns against travel.
• Alcohol and drugs: incidents linked to them are usually excluded.

Mostly no: when Ryanair cancels or seriously delays your flight, the airline owes you the refund, care and compensation, not the insurer. Under EU Regulation 261/2004, a cancellation or an arrival more than 3 hours late can be worth €250 for a flight of 1,500 km or less, €400 up to 3,500 km and €600 beyond, unless the cause was extraordinary (Your Europe, European Commission, checked 21 September 2026).

The same rules make the airline pay meals and, if needed, a hotel from 2 hours of delay on a short flight, and refund the ticket after a 5-hour delay. Travel insurance comes in for what the airline does not pay: a hotel you cannot use at destination, a missed connection on a separate booking, or the extra costs of a delay caused by extraordinary circumstances. Go Protect, for example, pays €90 per person after a 4-hour departure delay.

If your worry is a trip you might have to cancel yourself, the right cover is a cancellation policy, not the delay section: our travel cancellation insurance guide explains which reasons each plan accepts.

Both, depending on the booking. Ryanair's help centre names Europ Assistance S.A. Irish Branch as the provider of the travel insurance bought through Ryanair, and asks customers to quote the reference RYANAIR2017 in all correspondence. Since December 2021, Ryanair has also offered protection products through XCover, the platform of the insurtech Cover Genius, to customers at booking (Cover Genius press release, 14 December 2021).

The name on your confirmation email decides who handles your claim and which limits apply, because the two do not sell the same contract. Read the insurer's name and the schedule before paying: a reader who searched for XCover and a reader who bought the Europ Assistance policy are not covered by the same wording.

Ryanair also launched Prime on 24 March 2025, a 12-month membership that included travel insurance on every Ryanair flight, capped at 250,000 members (Ryanair press release, 24 March 2025).

You call Europ Assistance for any emergency abroad, before you are admitted to hospital, and you claim in writing for everything else once you are home, following the procedure in your policy document. The steps below are the ones that decide most claims.

1. Call the 24/7 Emergency Assistance Team before any hospital admission, repatriation or early return.
2. Keep every receipt, medical certificate and airline document; ask the airport for a Property Irregularity Report if a bag is lost or delayed.
3. Report a theft to the police as soon as possible and keep the report.
4. If your flight was delayed by more than 3 hours or cancelled, ask Ryanair for its insurance letter confirming it.
5. Send the claim with the documents as your policy document explains, stating that your insurance is provided by Europ Assistance S.A. Irish Branch and quoting RYANAIR2017.

If you already hold the Ryanair policy and want a higher cancellation limit, you cannot raise it inside the contract: a separate plan bought through HelloSafe can sit alongside it. Our page on group travel insurance covers trips with several travellers.

Travellers report that emergencies handled through Europ Assistance usually go well, and that the trouble starts at reimbursement: refused cancellations over pre-existing conditions, baggage claims short of receipts, and long requests for documents. Reviews are scattered between Ryanair, Europ Assistance and XCover, so no single score sums them up.

The contract explains most of those complaints: the exclusion of known medical conditions, the end of medical cover at 70 and limits that few buyers read before paying leave little room for a claim that is not a clear emergency. For comparison, our reviews of AIG travel insurance in Ireland, Aviva travel insurance in Ireland and MAPFRE travel insurance in Ireland look at the standalone policies Irish travellers also consider.

• Is Ryanair travel insurance worth it?

  For a short, cheap European trip by a healthy traveller under 65, it can be: it is bought in one click and comes with a 24/7 assistance line. For an expensive trip, a family, a long-haul destination, a known medical condition or a traveller aged 70 or over, who has no medical cover, a separate plan is the better buy.

• What does Ryanair Insurance Plus cover?

  Insurance Plus is the higher tier sold at Ryanair’s checkout. Reviews describe gadget cover and scheduled airline failure cover as its extras; the amounts are in the schedule shown during the booking, and we could not read the current Irish version on an official public document.

• Does Ryanair Insurance Plus cover cancellation?

  Yes, like the standard policy: for the reasons listed in the wording, with the limit and excess shown in your schedule. The excess doubles from 65, and travellers aged 70 and over stay covered for cancellation caused by a covered medical event.

• Is Ryanair holiday insurance the same as its flight insurance?

  Yes. Ryanair offers its travel insurance at checkout, whatever the name you search for. It covers the trip, not only the flight: medical costs, cancellation, baggage and liability.

• Should I buy XCover insurance for my Ryanair flight?

  Only after reading its schedule. XCover is the Cover Genius platform Ryanair uses on some bookings, with limits that differ from the Europ Assistance policy analysed here. Compare its cancellation limit, its medical ceiling and its age limit with a plan quoted on HelloSafe for the same dates.

• Can I add Ryanair's insurance after booking my flight?

  Ryanair offers it during the booking. If you missed it, a plan bought through HelloSafe can be taken at any time before departure; for cancellation, Go Protect asks you to buy within 48 hours of booking the trip, or up to 20 days before departure.

• Does Ryanair's policy cover pre-existing medical conditions?

  Known pre-existing conditions are among the general exclusions Ryanair’s help centre warns about. In our Irish comparison, Go Protect is the plan whose product data lists pre-existing conditions as covered; check its conditions for your case.

• Is Ryanair's policy a good choice for over-65s?

  The excess doubles from 65 on the cancellation, medical and trip abandonment sections, and medical expenses are not covered from 70. On our 7-day Spanish quote, Go Protect cost the same at 62 as at 30 and accepts travellers up to 99. Our senior travel insurance guide lists the plans by age limit.

• Does Ryanair's insurance pay if my flight is cancelled?

  Ryanair owes the refund or rerouting, and up to €600 of compensation under EU Regulation 261/2004 unless the cause was extraordinary. The insurance pays only the losses the airline does not cover.

• Is there a Ryanair multi-trip travel insurance?

  We found no annual policy in the Ryanair documents analysed for this review. For several trips a year, a multi trip travel insurance policy can replace the add-on bought on every booking; our travel insurance comparison shows both.

• I live in the UK. Is this review for me?

  This review is written for travellers living in Ireland, with prices in euro. Our Ryanair review for UK residents covers the British policy and prices in pounds.