Europe beckons but are you covered?
'The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.' — Saint Augustine
For Indian travellers, few chapters are as captivating as Europe. The continent continues to be a dream destination for many Indians. This year alone, Indian travel to Schengen countries surged 18.95% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2025.
Rising healthcare costs, frequent flight disruptions and an uptick in trip cancellations are prompting Indian travellers to rethink how they insure journeys. Increasingly, high-cover travel insurance has become an essential tool for safeguarding one's European experience. With 62% of travellers now opting for $2,50,000 or more in coverage and seniors choosing $5,00,000+ protection, this shift marks a growing awareness of the need for comprehensive financial protection while exploring Europe.
Huge medical costs
A common misconception is Europe's renowned healthcare systems are free for everyone. They aren't. While residents benefit from state-supported healthcare, tourists do not. Without insurance, a hospital visit can quickly turn into a financial nightmare. Serious medical cases can result in six-figure hospital bills. For example, a traveller hospitalised in London with a brain infection faced a staggering $6 lakh bill fully covered only because he had robust travel insurance. Given the rising costs of healthcare, Indian travellers are choosing higher cover offering better medical and emergency cover. This is especially true of senior citizens who may need extensive medical care during travel.
Schengen visa
It is mandatory to have travel cover for Schengen visa. The basic norm is €30,000 of medical cover but this is far from adequate for real-world risks. A majority of Indian travellers going to Europe are picking $2,50,000+ cover and seniors $5,00,000+. This shift highlights the growing awareness around the true costs of medical emergencies, trip disruptions, and unforeseen events abroad.
A high-cover travel policy ensures in the event of a medical emergency, you are covered not just for treatment but also for emergency evacuation and medical repatriation to India if required. It safeguards your finances through trip cancellation or interruption cover, reimbursing pre-paid expenditure if unforeseen circumstances force you to cut trip short. It also compensates for lost or delayed baggage. Also, it covers flight delays and missed connections. Personal liability protection is another critical component, offering coverage if you inadvertently cause damage to property or injury to another person.
Visa rejections/ smarter add-ons
The growing rate of Schengen visa rejections has also fuelled demand for smart insurance add-ons. In 2023, Indian applicants faced a 15.70% rejection rate, with significant financial losses due to non-refundable visa fee. To manage this risk, about 20% of travellers now opt for a Visa Fee Refund rider in policies.
Buy early
Buying travel insurance in advance is key. Data show 76% of Indian travellers now buying policies 45–50 days before departure. This ensures travelers can include trip cancellation and visa fee refund benefits.
Don't cut corners
Some travellers opt for basic/ minimal coverage. But this can be devastating. Comprehensive, high-cover offers peace of mind that outweighs small additional cost. In the context of a costly Europe trip, the difference between a basic and a high-cover policy is often a few thousand rupees, but can save you lakhs in a crisis.
(The writer is head, travel insurance, Policybazaar.com)
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
&w=3840&q=100)
First Post
an hour ago
- First Post
Air India plane crash: Is flying risky business?
Catastrophic events such as the Air India crash affect us deeply. The thought of going down in an aircraft may feel more frightening than dying in other ways. All this taps into the emotions of fear, vulnerability and helplessness, and leads to an overemphasis on the risks. However, air travel is still arguably the safest method of transport read more Members of Indian Army's engineering arm prepare to remove the wreckage of an Air India aircraft, bound for London's Gatwick Airport, which crashed during take-off from an airport in Ahmedabad, India. Reuters On Thursday afternoon, an Air India passenger plane bound for London crashed shortly after takeoff from the Indian city of Ahmedabad. There were reportedly 242 people onboard, including two pilots and 10 cabin crew. The most up-to-date reports indicate the death toll , including people on the ground. Miraculously, one passenger – British national Vishwashkumar Ramesh – survived the crash. Thankfully, catastrophic plane crashes such as this are very rare. But seeing news of such a horrific event is traumatic, particularly for people who may have a fear of flying or are due to travel on a plane soon. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD If you're feeling anxious following this distressing news, it's understandable. But here are some things worth considering when you're thinking about the risk of plane travel. Dangers of flying One of the ways to make sense of risks, especially really small ones, is to put them into context. Although there are various ways to do this, we can first look to figures that tell us the risk of dying in a plane crash per passenger who boards a plane. Arnold Barnett, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, calculated that in 2018–22, this figure was one in 13.7 million. By any reckoning, this is an incredibly small risk. And there's a clear trend of air travel getting safer every decade. Barnett's calculations suggest that between 2007 and 2017, the risk was one per 7.9 million. We can also compare the risks of dying in a plane crash with those of dying in a car accident. Although estimates of motor vehicle fatalities vary depending on how you do the calculations and where you are in the world, flying has been estimated to be more than 100 times safer than driving. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The tail of the Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane that crashed is seen stuck on a building after the incident in Ahmedabad. Reuters Evolution has skewed our perception of risks The risk of being involved in a plane crash is extremely small. But for a variety of reasons, we often perceive it to be greater than it is. First, there are well-known limitations in how we intuitively estimate risk. Our responses to risk (and many other things) are often shaped far more by emotion and instinct than by logic. As psychologist Daniel Kahneman explains in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, much of our thinking about risk is driven by intuitive, automatic processes rather than careful reasoning. Notably, our brains evolved to pay attention to threats that are striking or memorable. The risks we faced in primitive times were large, immediate and tangible threats to life. Conversely, the risks we face in the modern world are generally much smaller, less obvious, and play out over the longer term. The brain that served us well in prehistoric times has essentially remained the same, but the world has completely changed. Therefore, our brains are susceptible to errors in thinking and mental shortcuts called cognitive biases that skew our perception of modern risks. This can lead us to overestimate very small risks, such as plane crashes, while underestimating far more probable dangers, such as chronic diseases. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Why we overestimate the risks of flying There are several drivers of our misperception of risks when it comes to flying specifically. The fact events such as the Air India plane crash are so rare makes them all the more psychologically powerful when they do occur. And in today's digital media landscape, the proliferation of dramatic footage of the crash itself, along with images of the aftermath, amplifies its emotional and visual impact. The effect these vivid images have on our thinking around the risks of flying is called the availability heuristic. The more unusual and dramatic an event is, the more it stands out in our minds, and the more it skews our perception of its likelihood. Another influence on the way we perceive risks relevant to flying is called dread risk, which is a psychological response we have to certain types of threats. We fear certain risks that feel more catastrophic or unfamiliar. It's the same reason we may disproportionately fear terrorist attacks, when in reality they're very uncommon. Plane crashes usually involve a large number of deaths that occur at one time. And the thought of going down in a plane may feel more frightening than dying in other ways. All this taps into the emotions of fear, vulnerability and helplessness, and leads to an overweighting of the risks. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Another factor that contributes to our overestimation of flying risks is our lack of control when flying. When we're passengers on a plane, we are in many ways completely dependent on others. Even though we know pilots are highly trained and commercial aviation is very safe, the lack of control we have as passengers triggers a deep sense of vulnerability. This absence of control makes the situation feel riskier than it actually is, and often riskier than activities where the threat is far greater but there is an (often false) sense of control, such as driving a car. Passengers gather in front of the ticket counter of Air India airlines. File image/Reuters In a nutshell We have an evolutionary bias toward reacting more strongly to particular threats, especially when these events are dramatic, evoke dread and when we feel an absence of control. Although events such as Air India crash affect us deeply, air travel is still arguably the safest method of transport. Understandably, this can get lost in the emotional aftermath of tragic plane crashes. Hassan Vally, Associate Professor, Epidemiology, Deakin University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
NDTV
an hour ago
- NDTV
Can You Go To Cyprus With A Schengen Visa As An Indian Passport Holder?
On June 14, 2025, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Cyprus as part of his journey to the G7 Summit in Canada. His visit aims to strengthen ties and position the island nation as a strategic link between India and Europe through a new trade corridor. Modi met the Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides on Sunday, and held formal talks on Monday. His visit turned attention to Cyprus-not just as a diplomatic hotspot but as a stunning Mediterranean destination for travellers, including many Indians. President Nikos Christodoulides and I held wide-ranging talks, covering the full range of India-Cyprus relations. It's widely known that bilateral ties between our nations are time-tested. Today, we talked about cooperation in areas like defence, security, trade, technology,… — Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) June 16, 2025 Where Is Cyprus? Cyprus, a member of the European Union, is an island in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, a stone's throw from Turkey and Syria. It is geographically located in Asia, although its political affiliation is with the European Union. With its scenic landscapes and vibrant culture, Cyprus is becoming increasingly attractive for Indian tourists. Cyprus, while a part of the European Union, is not a part of the Schengen area. So, if you're already dreading the Schengen visa process (in 2024, the Schengen visa rejection rate for Indian applicants was around 15%), here's the good news: you don't need one to visit Cyprus. Why You Don't Need A Schengen Visa Although Cyprus has been a member of the European Union since 2004, it is not yet part of the Schengen Zone. The Schengen Area/Zone is a group of 29 European countries-25 of them EU members and 4 non-EU-which have removed internal borders for the free movement of people. This shared visa policy allows travellers to move across member countries on a single visa. However, since Cyprus is still outside the Schengen Zone, the rules work differently: A Schengen visa does not automatically allow entry into Cyprus. Likewise, you don't need a Schengen visa to enter Cyprus. This distinction largely stems from the island's history. In 1974, Turkey occupied the northern part of Cyprus following a military intervention prompted by a coup. While the EU recognises the entire island as EU territory, EU laws-including visa regulations-are only applicable in the Greek Cypriot-controlled Republic of Cyprus. This dual ownership of the island, has often put Cyprus, under security and technical evaluations by the EU. However, Cyprus is working towards full Schengen membership and expects to join by 2026. The European Commission notes on their official site that Cyprus is already participating in Schengen cooperation, but internal border controls have not yet been abolished. So, until then, you can enjoy this Mediterranean gem with a far simpler visa process. What Indian Passport Holders Need To Enter Cyprus 1. Without a Schengen visa You can apply directly for a Cyprus short-stay visa (Category C) via sites like VFS Global. This visa allows you to stay in Cyprus for up to 90 days within a 180-day period. It is valid only for Cyprus and cannot be used to enter any Schengen country. 2. With a valid multiple-entry Schengen visa If you already have a valid double- or multiple-entry Schengen visa, you don't need a separate visa for Cyprus. You can enter Cyprus using that visa, provided it remains valid for the entire duration of your trip. What To Do And See In Cyprus: A 7-Day Itinerary Day 1: Arrival in Larnaca and local exploration Land at Larnaca International Airport Check into a beachside hotel Visit Finikoudes Beach, Church of Saint Lazarus and walk along the promenade Relax after your flight Day 2: Day trip to Nicosia Travel to Nicosia (1 hour) Explore Ledra Street, Cyprus Museum and Laiki Geitonia Day 3: Ancient ruins and Limassol Transfer to Limassol (1.5 hours) Visit Kourion Ruins, Kolossi Castle Stroll around Limassol Marina and try Cypriot meze Day 4: Paphos and Aphrodite's Rock Drive to Paphos (1.5 hours) Stop at Petra tou Romiou (Aphrodite's Rock) Explore Paphos Archaeological Park, Tombs of the Kings, and the harbour Day 5: Troodos Mountains day trip Visit Omodos Village and Kykkos Monastery Enjoy mountain air, sweets and local wine Optional overnight stay in a village inn Day 6: Akamas Peninsula and Blue Lagoon Boat trip from Latchi Harbour Swim and snorkel in the Blue Lagoon Visit the Baths of Aphrodite and unwind at Coral Bay Day 7: Return to Larnaca and fly back to India Drive back to Larnaca (2 hours) Brunch and some last-minute shopping Leave for India How And When To Go To Cyprus From India Bollywood has also made its way to Cyprus. Several Indian productions, including Teri Meri Kahani, Bachna Ae Haseeno, and Race 2, have filmed scenes in Cyprus. So, if you also want to live the Bollywood dream, here's how to visit Cyprus. Flights: Unfortunately, there are no direct flights to Cyprus. To reach Cyprus from Bombay, you can take a nine-hour flight to Larnaca with just one stop in Dubai. From Delhi, you can take a flight with a stop in Abu Dhabi Best time to visit: The best time to visit Cyprus is during the shoulder seasons, May-June and September-October, when the weather is warm and sunny but not oppressively hot, and the crowds are smaller than in the peak summer months. Bottomline Cyprus is not only a strategic European partner for India but also a dreamy travel destination-scenic, culturally rich and relatively accessible for Indian tourists. Now, if you want to get European vibes without dealing with the troubles that come with a Schengen visa, Cyprus must be the perfect spot for you.
India Today
3 hours ago
- India Today
Bali, Thailand, Vietnam, now Philippines: Is Southeast Asia India's new backyard?
There is a brand-new stamp for Indian travellers to chase! The Philippines has just announced a 14-day visa-free entry for Indian tourists. Yes, you read that right. This latest move is part of the country's plan to boost tourism.'The visa-free arrangement is aimed at boosting tourism arrivals from India, which rose 12 per cent in 2024 to nearly 80,000,' Reuters means there's yet another travel diary waiting to be written, just minus the paperwork hustle. In 2025, bucket lists are getting longer and travel budgets are expanding. Travellers are now more open to taking frequent trips, not just across India but globally. International travel is starting to feel as accessible, and sometimes as affordable, as a domestic let's be real, travel isn't just about the fun and the pretty views. The first step? Planning and booking (yawn): flights, hotels, itineraries, visa applications. Now imagine international trips, minus the visa stress. Bingo!Dil Chahta Hai less visa stress!We all know visa work is time-consuming, expensive and stressful. That's why countries that offer visa-free entry or visa on arrival (VOA) are becoming big wins for Indian travellers. According to the Thomas Cook India Holiday Report 2025, 44 per cent of Indian travellers are more likely to visit countries with a hassle-free visa process. Survey suggests that 44 per cent travellers look for hassle free travel (Photo: Pexels) advertisementPopular destinations offering VOA for Indian passport holders are: Maldives, Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Jordan amongst countries are even more chill - no visa needed, but only for a limited number of days. Think Mauritius, Nepal, Hong Kong, Fiji, the Philippines (now proudly on that list), and and visa-free stays are often time-limited and purpose-specific. Requirements can change, and you don't want a surprise at the airport - so double-check!The rise of Southeast Asian travelLet's agree that Southeast Asia is clearly having a moment. There has been a substantial rise in the tourism sector. Experts believe this is just the has been a travel staple for Indians. However, in the first quarter of 2025, Malaysia stole the spotlight as the most visited country. As per Malaysia Tourism data presented in VN Express report, over 10.1 million foreign travellers visited Malaysia. Thailand came in second with 9.55 million tourist arrivals, followed by Vietnam with 6 million and Singapore with 4.31 what exactly is driving the buzz around this region?"Southeast Asia fits the bill perfectly. Countries like Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and now the Philippines offer strong value for money, visa-friendly policies, and a wide variety of experiences. As air connectivity improves and more travellers seek short-haul destinations, this region is seeing consistent growth," Karan Agarwal, director, Cox and Kings tells India Today. Da Nang, Vietnam (Photo: Pexels) Hari Ganapathy, co-founder of Pickyourtrail, also highlights the role of rising disposable incomes and how the Philippines is now emerging as a traveller's favourite."Bali, Thailand, and Vietnam - these destinations have consistently been favourites, but we are seeing a growing interest in places like the Philippines, which was not as prominent a few years ago. According to recent data, Bali continues to lead, with nearly 23.43 per cent of Indian travellers opting for it. Thailand and Vietnam are also experiencing a rise in both flight bookings and package bookings due to their combination of beaches, culture, and adventure offerings," he has been a rise in demand for places like Da Nang and Phu Quoc in Vietnam, Luang Prabang in Laos, and now, several regions within the Philippines, such as Cebu and El Nido. "We've seen a shift in booking patterns. Travellers are asking for more personalised itineraries in these regions, including offbeat locations, culture retreats, and culinary tours," he the proximity, culture, adventure, budget and luxury travel experiences make these Southeast Asian countries a one-stop shop for every kind of choose Philippines for your next vacationThe Philippines has suddenly found a place on the search engines, Instagram reels, and Pinterest travel mood boards. Soon after the announcement of visa relaxation, there has been a rapid increase in the search for the island country."In just a week, our searches from India rose by around 25 per cent, with the Philippines climbing from the eighth to the third most searched destination in Southeast Asia, just behind Thailand and Indonesia. What stands out is the pace and consistency of this interest. Our projections indicate that this momentum will continue, with travel demand expected to grow by another 15-25 per cent in the coming months," Rikant Pittie, CEO and co-founder, EaseMyTrip tells India the increase in search demands, Ganapathy also explains that the rise in interest is not just due to visa relaxation, but also due to the region's growing reputation for offering adventure and luxury experiences in tandem. With stunning islands, affordable luxury resorts, and water-based activities, it offers the perfect blend of relaxation and adventure for both couples and there yetAmidst the last-minute booking rush (hello, summer vacations!), one aspect might still pose a hurdle: direct connectivity. Air India is set to commence direct flights between Delhi and Manila, but that only begins in October 2025."Currently, limited flight options can act as a deterrent. Introducing more direct routes from major Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities to key destinations in the Philippines will play a crucial role in unlocking the country's full tourism potential for Indian travellers," Agarwal calling!Are you already planning your island escapades itinerary? From waterfalls to postcard-perfect beaches, here are some of the popular tourist This is where you'll find that serene turquoise water and powdery white sand. Not emotions, but yes—sunsets worth framing, and hammock naps that feel like a This is like a tropical blockbuster- adventure and relaxation, all in one. One may explore the lagoons in El Nido and shipwreck dives in Coron. Or kayak through the limestone cliffs and soak in the sound of rippling water and birds. Chocolate Hills in Philippines (Pexels) advertisementBohol: A haven for nature lovers, this island is famous for its iconic Chocolate Hills (no, not edible). These hills are popular owing to the unique geological composition of limestone. It is also home to the tiniest primates, called tarsiers. This place offers a tropical experience where you can cruise down the rivers, enjoy heritage churches and bask in the sun, of course!Siargao: It is called the 'Surf Capital of the Philippines'. Reef breaks, marine life, and secluded beaches are crowd pullers. You can simply hire a scooter and explore the scenic roads of the Rice Terraces: It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site with lush rice paddies that stretch as far as your eyes can take you. These terraces were made by manual labour thousands of years ago. Waterfalls in Philippines (Photo: Unsplash) Cebu: Are you a water baby? Cebu is where you can chase waterfalls at Kaswan. You can snorkel your way through reefs and have an experience swimming alongside the gentle giants - whale sharks!There are several other islands that offer skydiving, natural waterfalls, cliff jumping domestic travel getting more expensive every day, for Indians, travelling to these Southeast Asian countries seems like a viable and lucrative option, and there's no debating Reel
