The tickets are booked, the accommodation is rented and the suitcases are almost packed. Everything seems ready for the departure on vacation which should not be long. However, there are still a few details that still need to be clarified before the big day.
Indeed, when you go on a trip, whether in France or abroad, the thorny question of insurance is often complicated to elucidate. And if a theft did occur, would you be covered? In what conditions ?
For Marion Plasse, Content Manager at the comparator Lesfurets, it depends above all on the object that was stolen. If it’s a mobile device like a phone, laptop, or camera, it may be covered by your home insurance. However, this is not always the case and it is necessary to check the conditions in the contract.
“To cover your personal effects in the event of theft, you can take out specific insurance to guarantee your mobile devices, your watches and jewelry, your eyeglasses, or any other valuable item,” she says.
It is also important to check with your bank, which can offer special insurance in the event of theft of your means of payment. “They reimburse you, for example, for your stolen cash, but also the repair of your keys and your identity papers”, explains the expert.
With regard to luggage on trains or planes, the situation is different. According to her, “on the train, your luggage is your responsibility. On the plane, your luggage is the airline’s responsibility as soon as it is checked in. But you have to keep in mind that the compensation offered by the airlines in cases of lost baggage are capped at less than €1,500 and may therefore not cover your entire loss.”
Even if you are well and truly insured, Marion Plasse reminds “that at the beach as in transport, you must watch your personal items, and that a theft in these circumstances can be likened to negligence. Certain insurance contracts insurance only cover, for example, theft with violence or burglary, but not the others.
On vacation, it is also common to rent accommodation, but what do insurers plan to cover you in this case?
When renting accommodation on Airbnb or on another platform, it is often difficult to know what insurances we really benefit from. Marion plasse explains that “even outside your accommodation, the civil liability guarantee included in your home insurance covers material or physical damage that you may cause to a third party, so it also works for the holiday accommodation you have rented. “
Thanks to this, you are in principle covered against all the damage that you, your children, your spouse, your animals or your employees (babysitter for example), could cause.
As for coverage of your personal effects, in the event of theft or destruction in the rental, you may require resort coverage. “This guarantee is generally automatically included in multi-risk home insurance contracts, specifies the expert. If this is not the case, you can take it out as an extension of insurance before leaving.”
When you go abroad, insurance does not necessarily apply in the same way.
First of all, it is important to know that Health Insurance can cover you even abroad in the event of hospitalization, under certain conditions. Indeed, if you stay within the European Union, the European Economic Area or Switzerland, and you go to a public medical establishment, you can benefit from coverage. It should also be noted that having your European Health Insurance card on you will allow you not to advance the costs, recalls Marion Plasse.
“On the other hand, outside the EU and EEA, only urgent and unforeseen care is covered… and not always fully. Knowing that in some countries (in the United States for example, in China, in Latin American countries , etc.) medical care and in particular hospital care are very expensive, it may be interesting to take out a specific insurance or assistance contract”, she adds.
