Travel Insurance in Lagos: What to Sort Before Your Appointment

Lagos is where most Nigerian international journeys begin, and where a great many visa applications are lodged. If you live in Lagos, or you are travelling into Lagos for an appointment from somewhere else in the southwest, the insurance part of your trip is the easiest piece to deal with and the one most often left until last.

This guide is about the practical order of things in Lagos: when to buy, what to have with you, and how insurance fits around an appointment. You can price your trip before you read any further.

Why the Lagos sequence is different

Lagos concentrates two things: diplomatic missions and visa application centres, and the country's busiest international airport. That produces a specific pattern.

Many applicants travel into Lagos from Ibadan, Abeokuta, Akure and further afield for a single appointment, then travel back the same day. If your insurance certificate is wrong when you arrive at that appointment, you do not have an afternoon to fix it. You have a return journey.

That is the real argument for buying online, in advance, from wherever you are. There is no office to visit and no queue to join. The certificate reaches your email, and you check it at home rather than in a car park. Start before you set out.

Before a Lagos appointment

• Confirm what your mission actually asks for. Requirements differ by country and change over time. The embassy, consulate or visa application centre handling your file is the only authority on this.
• Buy early enough that the certificate is in your bundle, not arriving by email while you are in the queue.
• Check names against your passport, character for character, including every given name.
• Check dates against your application form. Cover should start on or before departure and end on or after return.
• Print it. Assume you cannot rely on a phone screen or on being able to print anything near the centre.

For a Schengen application the medical figure must be at least EUR 30,000, and our Schengen zone is set to exactly that. The full checklist of what a certificate must show is in our cover detail.

Which zone, for where Lagos flies

Lagos has direct and one-stop connections to most of the destinations Nigerians travel to. The zone follows the destination, not the departure city:

If your route connects through a non-Schengen country on the way to a Schengen one, the worldwide zone is the safer match for the whole journey, and the quote page prices both.

Departure day at Murtala Muhammed

Lagos departures run heavy in the evening, and the airport is busy. A few things are worth settling before you leave the house:

• Save the 24/7 assistance number somewhere you can reach without your luggage and without data.
• Leave a copy of the certificate with someone at home, along with your policy number.
• Know your limits. Baggage delay pays EUR 400 at EUR 50 per four hours on worldwide. Trip delay pays up to EUR 500. You cannot claim what you do not know you have, so read the schedule before you fly.
• Keep airline documentation for any delay or missed connection. A delay claim is only as strong as its evidence.

Domestic connections into Lagos are worth building time around. If a late inbound flight causes you to miss an international departure, missed departure or connection cover is EUR 500 on the worldwide zone with a six hour excess, and the airline paperwork is what proves it. Delay limits are published with every quote.

Common questions