When something goes wrong abroad
Everything on this list has happened to someone competent, organised and paying attention.
The variable that decides whether it becomes a bad afternoon or a ruined trip is almost never how bad the incident was. It is whether you have the paperwork.
Read this once. The order of operations is the part worth remembering.
Lost or stolen passport
First: report it to the local police and get the report reference. That number is what your consulate and your insurer both need, and neither process starts without it. Ask for a written copy or photograph the document before you leave the station.
Then contact your own country’s nearest embassy or consulate. If your country has no representation in that state, EU citizens can apply through the embassy or consulate of any other EU member state.
What you will be issued is an emergency travel document. Since 9 December 2025 the EU version has a uniform format across member states. It is valid for the time needed to complete the journey plus a two-day grace period, and normally will not exceed 15 days.
Here is the detail that catches people mid-itinerary: an emergency travel document is a single-journey document, valid for travel to your country of nationality or permanent residence, and only exceptionally to another destination. If you are four days into a three-country trip, it may not carry you onward. Plan on going home, and ask the consulate explicitly about onward travel rather than assuming.
Allow extra time at check-in and at the border. Staff handle these rarely.
Stolen phone
The order matters more than the speed.
Lock the device remotely first. Then suspend the SIM with your operator. Then freeze the cards. Then report it to the police for the insurance claim.
The reason lock comes before everything: a phone with an active session is a route into your email, and your email is a route into everything that has a password reset. The handset is the cheapest thing being stolen. Do this from a companion’s phone, the hotel’s computer, anything with a browser — which is the practical argument for knowing your account password without the phone in your hand.
The prevention that matters most is dull. A passcode, and a screen-lock timeout of a minute or less. The most common European phone theft is of an unlocked phone taken mid-use, on a terrace table or out of a back pocket, and a locked handset with no active session is worth almost nothing to the person taking it.
Lost or stolen cards
Freeze it in the app before you call anyone. It takes four seconds, it stops transactions immediately, and it is reversible — if the card turns up in the other coat, you unfreeze it.
That reversibility is the whole point. Freezing early costs nothing, so hesitating while you search the room is the only real mistake available here.
If you are certain it is gone, then call the issuer for a replacement and have it sent to your home address rather than a hotel you will have left.
Carry a second card from a different issuer, stored somewhere other than your wallet — a different bag, the accommodation safe, a jacket pocket. Different issuer, not just a different card, because a fraud block can suspend a whole account and two cards from the same bank fail together. Keep a small amount of cash in a third place.
Medical emergency
112, from any phone, anywhere in the EU.
The EHIC — or the GHIC for UK residents — is free and proves your entitlement to state healthcare on the same terms as a local. That may mean free, or it may mean the reduced charge a local would pay. It does not cover private treatment, repatriation, cancellation or baggage, and it is not a substitute for travel insurance. You want both.
The distinction that decides the bill is public versus private. In a genuine emergency the ambulance takes you to the public hospital and the EHIC applies. The problem arises with the non-emergency: the walk-in clinic near the resort, the doctor the hotel recommends, the English-speaking practice signposted in the tourist quarter. Those are frequently private, the EHIC does nothing there, and the bill is commercial.
So: unless it is an emergency, call your insurer’s 24-hour line before agreeing to treatment. They can direct you to a facility they have a relationship with and pre-authorise, which converts a bill you pay and reclaim into one they settle directly. That single call is often the difference between a €90 excess and a €2,000 receipt you spend three months arguing about.
Keep every receipt, the discharge note and any prescription.
Missed connection or cancelled service
Get rebooked before you leave the building. At the desk, or in the app while you are still airside. The carrier’s obligation to reroute you is easiest to enforce while you are standing in their terminal.
Photograph the departure board showing the cancellation or delay. Keep the boarding pass, the ticket, and receipts for food and accommodation.
What you are owed, and when, is a separate subject with real numbers in it — the passenger rights guide covers it. The immediate action is always the same: rebooking first, claim afterwards.
A crash in a hire car
Do not move the vehicle until it is photographed. Position on the road, both vehicles, both number plates, the damage from several angles, and the wider scene. Once the cars are moved, that evidence no longer exists.
Get the other party’s name, address, phone number, insurer and policy number, and photograph their documents rather than copying them out.
Complete a European Accident Statement if one is available — the constat amiable in France, with an equivalent in every European country and usually one in the hire car’s document wallet. Two copies with identical content, both signed. Signing is not an admission of fault; you are recording an agreed set of facts and liability is the insurers’ decision. Do not sign a version you cannot read.
Call the hire company’s emergency number the same day. Failing to report promptly can void your cover, and that clause — not the collision — is what turns a scraped wing into a five-figure problem.
Get a police report if anyone is injured, if the other party disputes the facts, or if they will not give you their details. In several countries the police will not attend a minor collision with no injuries; the accident statement is what stands in for them.
Arrest or serious trouble
Ask for your consulate immediately, and keep asking.
Be realistic about what it can do. A consulate cannot get you released, overturn a local law, pay a fine or a lawyer, or intervene in a court process. It can notify your family, provide a list of local lawyers and interpreters, and check on your welfare and the conditions of your detention.
That is narrower than most people expect and still worth invoking on day one, because the lawyer list is the part that actually moves things.
Do not sign a statement in a language you do not read.
A group member who disappears on a night out
Most of these resolve within the hour, and the cause is usually a dead phone battery.
The prevention is structural and takes thirty seconds before you go out: a meeting point, a check-in time, and everyone carrying the accommodation address written down rather than only in a phone.
If it goes past an hour, call the accommodation first — people go back. Then the venue. Then the local police, who will not tell you to wait 24 hours. There is no 24-hour rule in European policing; that is a screenwriting convention.
Fifteen minutes before you leave
This is the actual payload of the guide. Do these six things and everything above becomes an inconvenience.
- Photograph the passport page of every traveller. Store it in the cloud and offline on the phone, because the cloud needs a login you may not have.
- Save the insurance policy number and the 24-hour emergency line as a phone contact, with the country code.
- Save your embassy or consulate for the destination — address, phone, and the out-of-hours number, which is a different number.
- Put a second payment card somewhere other than your wallet.
- Check the EHIC or GHIC is in the wallet and in date.
- Give one person at home the itinerary and the accommodation addresses.
For a group, one shared document with all of it beats six people each having their own version, and it takes one person an evening to build.
What actually turns an incident into a catastrophe
Almost nothing on this list is a disaster if you have the police report reference and the paperwork.
A stolen passport with a report reference is two days and a consular appointment. Without one it is an argument you cannot win. A hospital bill with the discharge note and the insurer’s pre-authorisation is a form. Without them it is money.
The incident is almost never the problem. The missing documentation is.
How we make money on this
The honest position here is that the paperwork matters far more than which policy you bought, and the fifteen-minute list above will save you more money than any insurer we could send you to.