Most sailors buy travel insurance the way they buy a fire extinguisher: in a hurry, on price, and without reading what it actually does. Then they go cruising in France, which is not a beach holiday with a hire car, and discover that the policy they bought for a fortnight in the Algarve quietly excludes the very thing they are doing. I have spent more evenings than I care to admit reading insurance small print on a phone in a marina, and the lesson is always the same: ordinary travel insurance and a sailor's policy are different animals.
Why a normal travel policy is not enough
The catch is almost always the same word: offshore. A standard travel policy treats you as a tourist, and many quietly stop covering you the moment you sail more than a fixed distance from shore, often 12 nautical miles, the edge of territorial waters. Sail outside that line, which you will the first time you round a major headland or cross to an island group, and the medical cover you thought you had may simply not apply. Sailor-specific policies are written the other way round: yachting within territorial waters is covered as standard, and yachting beyond it needs hazardous activities cover added, but at least the option exists.
So the first question for any policy is not the price. It is: does this cover me sailing offshore, beyond 12 miles, and to the distance I actually plan to go? If the answer is vague, the policy is not for you.
The numbers that matter
Insurance for cruising is sold on headline benefits, and two of them are the ones that count when it goes wrong.
The first is emergency medical expenses. Good sailing travel policies offer emergency medical cover into the millions; one well-known yachtsman's policy advertises up to 15 million pounds. The recommended floor that the industry quotes for medical cover is around 100,000 dollars, but for offshore work you want far more headroom than that, because a serious injury treated abroad, with a hospital stay and a flight home, runs into eye-watering territory fast.
The second, and the one sailors underinsure most, is medical evacuation and repatriation. The recommended minimum the industry quotes for medical evacuation is around 500,000 dollars, and that figure is not plucked from the air: getting an injured crew member off a boat and home from a foreign country, sometimes by air ambulance, is genuinely that expensive. This is the cost that the GHIC card will never touch, because the GHIC explicitly excludes repatriation. The card and the insurance are a partnership: the GHIC covers the routine French treatment cheaply, the insurance covers the catastrophe.
The GHIC gap, in plain terms
It is worth saying this clearly because so many British sailors get it wrong. The GHIC is not insurance. Every official source repeats that a GHIC is not a substitute for travel insurance, that it may not cover all costs, and that it never covers repatriation. What the GHIC does is reduce your routine medical bills in France to what a French resident pays, which is genuinely useful for the chest infection or the broken finger. What it does nothing for is the day you need flying home, which is the day insurance earns its keep. Carry both, and understand which one does which job.
There is a second reason the two belong together. The GHIC only works in the public system, on the regulated rates, and only while you are physically in an EU country. The moment you need a private clinic, the moment you cross out of EU waters on a longer passage, or the moment the problem is getting home rather than getting treated, the GHIC falls silent and the insurance takes over. Many good policies will even ask whether you hold a GHIC, because using it reduces their exposure on the routine claims, which can keep your premium down. So the card is not just your safety net, it is part of the insurer's calculation too.
Reading the small print before you need it
A medical policy is a contract, and the exclusions are where it lives or dies. Before you trust one, check these specifically.
- Offshore distance limit: how far from shore are you covered, and does it match your cruise? Beyond 12 miles almost always needs to be declared.
- Single-handed sailing: many policies exclude or restrict it, so if you sail alone, check explicitly.
- Pre-existing conditions: declare everything honestly, because an undeclared condition is the classic reason a big claim is refused.
- The 24-hour assistance line: a good policy gives you a number to call from anywhere, and that line, not the local hospital, is who you ring first when it happens.
- Repatriation and the cost of bringing the boat home or to a safe berth if you cannot.
The right time to read all this is at the kitchen table before the season, not at the chart table during the crisis. A policy you understand is worth more than a cheaper one you have never opened.
Travel medical cover is not the same as boat insurance
Sailors muddle two different policies, and the muddle can leave a real gap. Your hull and machinery insurance covers the boat: damage, theft, sinking, third-party liability. It does not cover you, the human being, when you fall ill or get hurt. Travel and medical insurance covers the person: treatment, evacuation, repatriation, sometimes trip cancellation. You need both, and they rarely come from the same provider. A common and expensive mistake is assuming the boat policy looks after the crew's medical bills. It does not. Read both schedules and make sure that between them, every realistic disaster, to the boat and to the people aboard, has a home.
Crew arrangements deserve a thought too. If you sail with friends or paying crew rather than family, who insures them? A guest who hurts themselves aboard may assume your policy covers them, when in fact they need their own travel medical cover. Make this clear before anyone steps aboard for an offshore leg. The friendship survives a frank conversation about insurance far better than it survives a five-figure air ambulance bill that nobody arranged to pay.
Match the cover to the cruise
Coastal pottering within sight of land is one risk. A passage like a seasickness-testing Biscay crossing, several days offshore and far from rescue, is another entirely, and the cover you need scales with the exposure. Be honest with the insurer about where you are going. A policy bought for harbour-hopping in Brittany will not stretch to a multi-day offshore leg, and the moment you most need it is the moment they will check.
If a real emergency does break out at sea, the rescue itself comes regardless of your cover, through the system I describe in who to call in a medical emergency at sea in France. Insurance does not change whether the lifeboat launches. It changes whether the bill that follows, the hospital, the air ambulance, the flight home, lands on the rescue services or on your own bank account.
The honest recommendation
Buy a sailing-specific travel policy, not a generic one. Declare your real cruising plans and any health conditions. Insist on offshore cover to the distance you actually sail, emergency medical cover well into seven figures, and repatriation cover that reflects the half-million-dollar reality of getting someone home. Keep the assistance number where the whole crew can find it. And carry your GHIC alongside it, not instead of it. Done properly, none of this is exciting, and that is exactly the point. The best insurance policy is the one you pay for every year and never, ever have to use.
