Europ Assistance refused to help when I lost my car keys in France which meant abandoning the car there. Their excuse? Because I had some ideas about where the keys might have been lost they didn't count as 'lost'. Very confident about my forthcoming court claim against them but what a way to run an emergency cover service.

Posted by John Adam on the 14th June 2010

I did not renew my travel insurance with Europ Assistance after they refused to cover my cancelled flights because of the Ash Cloud.

Posted by Kerry Eldon on the 7th June 2010

Many Internet travel insurance providers use Europ Assistance as the underwriters, Staysure and Insure and Go are two. I purchased a Fully Comprehensive Annual travel policy with 100 days per journey cover for 513.80 pounds from Staysure, which was underwritten by EA. Unfortunately, I have been delayed in America due to the Iceland Volcanic ash closure of UK airports. I have been advised by Europ Assistance, that Due to this being an 'Act of God', my 100 day cover ended at day 90, when I was due to return to the UK, despite the fact I was unable to. Plus, this contrary to assurances from the Staysure salesman who sold me the expensive policy, and further, today 19th April 2010, from Lyn Smith and Nicol Harold of Staysure that the cover would be valid for for the 100 days, bought and paid for. They did add that Any claims made, of course, are at the discretion of the Underwriter (Europ Assistance), and of course since they have already advised me - Tough titty - Act of God, there will no change there then. My advice: MAKE SURE WHO UNDERWRITES THE POLICY YOU ARE BUYING for it is obvious that Europ Assistance have the ethics of a despotic African dictator.

Posted by DAVID ROBSON on the 20th April 2010

Even in a sector not known for it's customer service, Europassist stand out as the worst travel insurance provider I have ever dealt with. Inefficient and unpleasant to deal with, they first challenged my claim on spurious grounds and then took a completely unreasonable amount of time to deal with it once they had accepted liability. Claims staff are rude and unsympathetic and seem to think it's completely unreasonable of their customers to contact them! I will avoid products from this company and providers who use them in the future and would recommend to anyone to do the same.

Posted by Jack on the 13th April 2010

My family and I were left stranded in France when Europ Assistance refused to help us on our breakdown insurance and accident insurance. They were perfectly happy to take the money when we took out the policies, but when we made a claim we were met by confusion, misinformation, broken promises of returned phone calls and a host of communication inconsistencies that added a new dimension to our nightmare. The delays and confusion we experienced when we tried to contact Europ Assistance caused additional stress and huge expenses in finding additional accommodation which they also refused to cover. Their complaints procedure was a total mess, culminating once again in one person passing on the complaint to another, then another, then another, each time causing me to go through the information over and over again, only to receive a standard letter after weeks of communications. They're too big, they don't have ANY attention to detail, they're callous, dismissive, callous and unpleasant to deal with and they don't care about customer service - if they did, they'd return phone calls for a start! Do yourself a favour - either read the 12 paqes of small print very, very carefully or use someone else.

Posted by David William on the 14th February 2009

If you take insuring yor personal belongings seriously, then i would strongly advise you not to use Europ Assistance.
After several items been stolen from my suitcase in eary July 2008 the company are still sat on their hands doing nothing to resolve this claim.
The company are difficult to contact, obstructive, and completely uncompassionate about their paying customers been victims of theft.
Europ assistance' complaints procedure is at best a joke. Despite sending an email ( after several phone calls) to complain, i eventually received acknowledgement almost 3 weeks later, with an attatchment stating claims will be acknowledged within 5 working days!
Better still, despite paying them for the insurance they still want proof i was actually insured with them. They also requested that i provide a written statement from the police at Manchester airport, something they have not done for several years- i was not aware of this, but would certainly expect a professional insurance company to be aware of.
After my experience i would advise anyone to look elsewhere for travel insurance

Posted by stephen whitehead on the 2nd January 2009

I used Europ Assistance a couple of years ago when I went to Turkey with a group of girls from school.

Two days before we were due to be going home we came back to the villa after a night out. All the lights were off and we knew we had left some on, so we tripped the fuse box. We think this must have spooked the burglars because they hadn’t been into the en-suite which had a big jewellery box in it.

They had locked the front door from the inside so we couldn’t get in. We kind of broke into our own villa and there were muddy footprints everywhere. The place was a mess.

We checked everything and found that loads of stuff was missing. Most of us had our passports stolen, mobile phones, an Ipod Mini and a little bit of cash.

We had to go to the embassy in the nearest city to give statements to the police and had to get emergency passports, which cost about £70 each. It took a whole day. I got all my money back though. Europ Assistance dealt really well with my claim.

We even went back to nearly exactly the same place the following year!

Posted by Deborah Levy on the 9th June 2008