Do you need travel insurance for Egypt (Hurghada) and is it actually checked?

Some travelers see the insurance as a pointless formality and say many tourists have stopped buying it altogether.

If you do want insurance, it's better to buy it in advance through a well-known tour operator (e.g. "Sputnik") rather than from a local guide on-site — it's more reliable that way.

According to locals, on-the-spot insurance policies often don't end up in any real verification database — so there's effectively no actual enforcement yet.