“A basic bank card holder may think he is covered, but he is not,” warns the president of Europ Assistance France

Europ Assistance is number two in personal assistance on the European continent in terms of activity. Its field concerns assistance to travelers, but also to people in the fields of health, home, automobile, and concierge services.

Europ Assistance is a French company created in 1963. Its president in France, Nicolas Sinz, publishes, Tuesday May 28, its annual vacation barometer, produced by the Ipsos institute in 21 countries including France. With just over a month to go before the start of the summer holidays, he reminds the French that it is important to know their level of insurance and assistance coverage before leaving.

franceinfo: At the end of the school year, what are the major trends that you are observing?

Nicolas Sinz: We are seeing several trends. In France, specifically, the French are more than ever very happy to be able to go on vacation and are looking forward to the summer period to come. They will leave, and at levels that are high compared to previous years. On the other hand, their main concern concerns the budget, which is 2,100 euros for an average of 2.2 weeks of vacation. This is below the European average.

And so they will leave for less time than the rest of Europe, and they will leave closer to home. Are they the champions of local tourism?

Yes, budgetary constraints and pressure on purchasing power certainly play a role in this choice. We can also be proud of the cultural, heritage and geographical riches of our country. There are many things to do in France, so the French express this choice in local tourism much more strongly than among our European colleagues.

They go to seasonal rentals, such as Airbnb, more than other Europeans, who tend to choose hotels a little more. What does this change in your core business?

Our challenge is to ensure that the French have a better awareness of their insurance or assistance coverage, and that they can adapt their coverage to their project. There is no single answer. You can sometimes be covered, sometimes not, depending on your situation and your project.

Sometimes we don’t ask for coverage even though we are covered?

Yes, indeed, and that’s why we try to do a lot of explanations and education on the different covers. The French may not know it, but it is a source of French pride: the assistance profession was invented in 1963. A date linked to the beginnings of tourism and travel. So we are at the origin of this profession. And on the travel business, there are two main coverages. There is travel insurance: that is before departure with cancellation guarantee for reasons of illness or unforeseen accidents. And then there are guarantees of assistance during the trip: their role is to cover medical costs and repatriation if necessary.

Now that we are fairly independent, with mobile phones and Internet access, have you noticed that people covered by Europ Assistance do not necessarily have the reflex to use this assistance?

In fact, many customers are covered by Europ Assistance.

“One in two bank card holders in France is covered by Europ Assistance.”

Nicolas Sinz

at franceinfo

This is one of the French specificities that French banks offer as part of their bank card: insurance or assistance guarantees, with variable coverage depending on the type of bank card the customer holds.

What is the risk that we take as a customer, not knowing the coverage to which we have access?

I will take two concrete examples. A basic entry-level bank card holder may think they are covered in terms of travel insurance, but they are not. On a premium card, it will be covered in insurance and assistance, which will work in the vast majority of situations. But if his travel plan is to go to the United States, for example, the ceiling, the guarantee of medical expenses may be insufficient compared to the health costs in the United States. So you need to find out what the trip is, the destination and the people who are going with you.

Today, you have developed a pretty impressive range of services. Is this a request from your customers or is it for economic reasons that you have diversified your range of services?

Indeed, for around twenty years, we have seen growing concerns, growing needs of the French to be supported at home, on issues of health, personal services, support for the elderly. So it’s these new needs that we’re trying to capture.

There is also digital identity protection. Here too, does this meet customer needs?

Yes, for the protection of digital identity, it is the cyber risk applied to individual customers. We export know-how, which we developed in the United States, where awareness of this risk is very present, to France where this awareness is emerging. And we think we can respond in a very concrete way to the concerns of the French about the protection of their digital identity.

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