Schengen Campus review: the student plan that is the same contract as the tourist one

This Schengen Campus review is built on the plan’s own binding wording. It pays emergency medical and hospital costs to €30,000, covers personal liability to €50,000, and costs €508.50 for a 268-day academic year in France. It is sold under policy No. 4.089.008, and so is AVA’s tourist plan.

We read both documents attached to this plan end to end on 11 September 2026: the general terms (11 pages, English, form reference E11.2017) and the insurance product information document (2 pages, French). Neither one contains the word Campus. Neither contains the words student, university or enrollment. The general terms carry a single table called “Summary of Covers”, one set of exclusions, and no split whatsoever between a classic version and a studies version. What AVA sells as a student policy is the same contract it sells as a tourist policy, under a different name and at a different price.

That is not a reason to dismiss it. It is a reason to judge it on what the contract actually says rather than on what the name implies, which is what the rest of this page does. The short version: the €30,000 headline is real but almost all of it sits behind a hospital admission, routine care runs out at €750, mental health is excluded from every cover, and nothing in the document relates to your studies. On the same academic year we priced two rival student plans that carry ten times the medical ceiling for less money.

It calls it “Incoming”. The general terms are titled INCOMING and open with a single sentence: AVA has taken out with the insurer travel insurance and assistance policy No. 4.089.008. The French product sheet answers the question “what type of insurance is this?” with one product, also called Incoming. The commercial names Campus and Start exist only in the shop window.

We checked this against the catalogue rather than assuming it. Schengen Campus is stored internally as “Incoming Studies” and Schengen Start as “Incoming Classic”, and both point at the exact same two files: document 227 for the product sheet and document 228 for the terms. There is one Summary of Covers in that document, and every euro figure quoted on this page comes out of it.

The one genuine difference we found is not in the coverage at all. It is in who can buy. Schengen Start still returns a quote for a 45-year-old; Schengen Campus stops at 38. More on that below, because it is the single most consequential thing in this review for anyone starting a doctorate or a late-career internship.

None of it. The general terms state that the policy provides three covers and that they cannot be taken out separately: medical expenses, assistance and repatriation, and personal liability abroad. There is no fourth. Nothing in the 11 pages mentions tuition, course interruption, repeating a year, or an early return home that ends your studies.

Our own catalogue agrees, and says so openly: the study-interruption guarantee on Schengen Campus is marked as not available. So the product name describes the buyer, not the coverage. If you are insuring against the risk of your course going wrong, this contract does not do that, and neither does the tourist version of it.

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  Course interruption: If illness forces you to abandon the semester, the policy pays nothing toward the year you lose.
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  Tuition fees: No refund of enrollment fees, and no contribution toward repeating a year.
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  Trip cancellation: If your visa, your admission or your plans fall through before departure, the premium is not refundable and there is no cancellation coverage.
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  Baggage and laptop: Loss or theft of luggage and electronics is not part of this contract. The French product sheet lists baggage as an optional guarantee, and it is not in these three covers.
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  Accommodation deposits: Nothing toward a student room you paid for and cannot use.

What the contract does insure is the thing that actually ruins a year abroad financially: an accident or an illness that puts you in a European hospital. Judge it on that.

Mental illness. The general terms list, among the exclusions common to all covers, “nervous disorders or mental illnesses, unless otherwise provided in this policy”, and nothing else in the policy provides otherwise. A depressive episode, an anxiety disorder or a breakdown during your year abroad falls outside this contract completely, including the assistance and repatriation side of it.

We flag this first among the exclusions because of who is reading. This plan is sold to people who move to a country they have never lived in, usually alone, usually for the first time, usually for nine months or more. Student mental health is the most predictable claim in that population and it is the one the contract removes. Our own catalogue records the psychological and mental health guarantee as not available on this plan, which is consistent with the wording.

Alongside mental illness, the same list of common exclusions removes pre-existing conditions that relapse, any pregnancy known before the coverage started, suicide and its consequences, and anything that happens under illegal drugs or above the French drink-driving alcohol limit.

The €30,000 is a European Union maximum that only a hospital admission can reach. Everything you are more likely to actually use, a doctor, a pharmacy, a blood test, shares a separate allowance of €750 reimbursed at 75%. The gap between those two numbers is the whole story of this contract.

Two conditions sit on top of that table and both matter. A hospital admission has to be notified to the assistance company first: the terms exclude “expenses incurred by the insured without the assistance company’s prior agreement”. And every medical expense is measured against a “reasonable ordinary expenses” clause, which lets the insurer refuse anything it judges above the going rate in the region where you are treated.

The small allowances refill every quarter, and the contract defines a quarter as 90 consecutive days counted from the start date of your stay. On a nine-month enrollment that is about three refills of the €750, not one. Except that the same document also says the opposite, in its own article body.

The contradiction we have to publish twice

The Summary of Covers caps outpatient care at €750, emergency dental at €150 and optical at €25, each one “maximum per quarter”. Article 5, three pages later, restates the dental, dental-prosthesis and optical caps as maximums “per person and per year”. Both sentences are in the binding document and they do not agree.

We cannot tell you which reading an adjuster would apply, and we will not pick the flattering one for you. Assume the annual reading when you budget, and keep the quarterly wording in writing if you ever have to argue the point.

The optical line is not for glasses

This is the trap most worth knowing on a student policy. The Summary of Covers shows a line called “optical expenses” at €25, which reads like a small contribution toward a new pair of glasses. Article 5 defines it as 75% of the cost of an ocular prosthesis, and the exclusions strike out “the cost of eye-glasses, contact lenses, prostheses of any kind”. If you break your glasses in the first week of term, this contract pays nothing toward replacing them.

You do. The plan advertises direct billing and the contract does provide it, but only for hospital admissions, and only if you call the assistance company before you are admitted. Everything else on this policy is reimbursement against original receipts, which is a meaningful difference when you are a student with a new bank account in a country you just moved to.

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  Hospital admission: The assistance company issues a payment number and settles directly with the hospital it sends you to.
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  Transport and repatriation: Arranged and paid by the assistance company, at actual cost, with no ceiling.

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  A doctor’s appointment: You pay the consultation, keep the original receipt and claim 75% back afterwards.
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  Prescriptions at the pharmacy: Same again, out of your own pocket first, inside the €750 allowance.
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  A hospital that refuses direct settlement: The terms say that if the hospital will not accept direct payment, you must advance the money yourself.
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  Anything you arrange before calling: Expenses incurred without the assistance company’s prior agreement are excluded outright.

Claims are not filed in an app. The general terms require every non-assistance claim to be reported by recorded-delivery letter to AVA Assurance Voyages, 25 rue de Maubeuge, 75009 Paris, within 15 business days, on pain of forfeiture. Payment follows within 15 days of the claim being agreed. Assistance and hospital admissions go through AVA Assistance on +33 1 49 02 42 11, which is staffed around the clock.

Amateur sport is not excluded from the medical side of this contract, so a broken wrist from a university match is treated like any other accident and goes against the €30,000. The personal liability cover is a different matter, and its exclusion list reads like a campus sports directory.

The general terms remove from the liability cover “the practice of dangerous sports, mountaineering, potholing, boxing, polo, karate, American football, parachuting, piloting, gliding, hang-gliding, ULM and diving using self-contained apparatus”, plus skiing, ice-skating and sledging practiced as a professional in competition. So if you injure somebody else at the karate club or on a dive, your own treatment is covered and their claim against you is not.

This plan stops quoting at 39. We did not read that from a settings field, we hit the funnel: pricing a 268-day stay in France for a student resident in India on 11 September 2026, the plan returned a premium at every age from 16 to 38 and nothing at all from 39 upward. Our own catalogue says the ceiling is 69.

That is worth spelling out because it contradicts both the contract and the sister product. The only age rule in the general terms is the definition of the insured: a customer “who is no more than 70 years old on the day they enroll”. And at the same moment, on the same contract, Schengen Start quoted happily at 39 and at 45. A 39-year-old starting a PhD or a mid-career internship is refused with no reason given on screen.

The residence rule is the one that catches second-year students. The contract defines the insured as somebody who resides outside the Schengen Area and is a temporary resident inside it, so this policy is for the journey in, not for the renewal. When we priced it with a French residence it correctly returned nothing. If you are already living in Europe and your first year is ending, this is not the product to renew onto.

A 268-day academic year in France costs a 22-year-old student €508.50 on Schengen Campus. Price moves with the length of the stay in steps rather than smoothly, it jumps by 60% the moment you turn 29, and it is strictly per person: two students on one policy cost exactly twice one.

Against the market, that is not a good number. On the identical 268-day stay we priced two rival plans built for exactly this buyer. WorldSecure Basic came back at €457.65 with a €300,000 medical ceiling and €4,500,000 of personal liability, which is ten times the medical coverage and ninety times the liability for €50 less than the AVA plan. World Student came back at €299.45 with a €200,000 ceiling, though its own product sheet restricts it to residents of the European Economic Area, Switzerland, Andorra and Monaco, so check that you qualify before you count on that price.

Four organizations appear on this policy and only one of them carries the risk. AVA is the broker that holds the group policy, runs enrollment and handles claims. AVA Assistance answers the emergency line. The insurer is AIG. The complication is that the two documents name two different AIG companies.

The English general terms name the insurer as “AIG Europe Limited, a company registered in England and Wales under number 01486260” and add that it is “authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority”. The French product sheet, dated 2025, names AIG Europe SA, registered in Luxembourg under RCS number B 218806, with a French branch registered in Nanterre under 838 136 463. Those are two different legal entities, and the regulator named in the English version stopped existing in 2013. The form reference on those terms is E11.2017.

For a student this is a paperwork risk rather than a payment risk: AIG is a real and solvent insurer either way, and French law governs the policy with the French courts holding exclusive jurisdiction. But you should know that the English document you are given as your 2025 terms is a 2017 form naming a company structure and a regulator that have both since changed. We have reported it for correction.

• Is Schengen Campus accepted for a student visa application?

  Yes. The plan is built to meet the Schengen visa insurance requirement: it covers emergency medical expenses and repatriation to €30,000, which is the minimum a consulate asks for, across the Schengen Area, and the certificate is issued immediately after payment so you can attach it to your file. Requirements vary slightly by consulate, so check your own country’s list before you submit.

• Is this plan different from Schengen Start?

  Not in the contract. Both are sold under policy No. 4.089.008 and share the same general terms and the same product information document, with one Summary of Covers between them and no student-specific section anywhere. The differences are commercial: a different name, a different price and, in practice, a different age ceiling.

• How much does Schengen Campus cost for a year of study?

  We priced it at €508.50 for a 268-day academic year in France for a student aged 22 resident in India, captured on 11 September 2026. A single semester of 151 days came to €282.50 and the longest stay it will sell, 364 days, came to €678.00. From age 29 the same academic year costs €813.60.

• Does the plan cover interruption of my studies?

  No. The policy provides exactly three covers, which the terms say cannot be taken out separately: medical expenses, assistance and repatriation, and personal liability abroad. There is no course-interruption, tuition or repeated-year benefit anywhere in the document, and our catalogue records that guarantee as not available on this plan.

• Does it cover a doctor’s appointment or medicine from the pharmacy?

  Yes, but modestly and not up front. Outpatient care, meaning a physician, pharmacy and laboratory tests, is reimbursed at 75% within a €750 allowance, and you pay first and claim it back against original receipts. Only a hospital admission can reach the €30,000 headline figure.

• Does the plan cover mental health?

  No. Nervous disorders and mental illnesses are listed among the exclusions common to all covers, and nothing else in the policy provides otherwise, so psychological and psychiatric care falls outside the contract entirely. Your university counseling service and the public health system of your host country are the realistic routes.

• Is there an age limit on this plan?

  In practice it stops at 38. Pricing the plan on 11 September 2026 we got a quote at every age from 16 to 38 and nothing from 39 upward, even though our catalogue records a ceiling of 69 and the contract’s only age rule is that the insured is no more than 70 years old on the day they enroll. The price also steps up by about 60% at 29.

• Can I buy it if I already live in Europe?

  No. The general terms define the insured as a customer who resides outside the Schengen Area and is a temporary resident within it. We confirmed the behavior: priced with a residence in France, the plan returns no quote. It is a policy for arriving, not for renewing at the end of a first year.

• Does the plan cover my laptop or my luggage?

  No. Baggage and electronics are not part of the three covers in this contract. The French product information document lists baggage loss and theft during air transport as an optional guarantee, and it is not included here. Rival student plans we priced the same day include €1,150 to €2,000 of baggage coverage.

• Is university sport covered?

  Your own injuries are, up to the €30,000 ceiling, because amateur sport is not excluded from the medical coverage. Your liability toward somebody else is not, for a long list of club sports: the terms exclude karate, boxing, American football, mountaineering, caving and scuba diving from the personal liability cover, and exclude paragliding, hang-gliding, ULM and parachuting from every cover.

• Do I have to call before going to hospital?

  Yes, and it is a condition of payment rather than a formality. The terms require you or your representative to contact AVA Assistance on +33 1 49 02 42 11 before admission, and they exclude expenses incurred without the assistance company’s prior agreement. If your condition prevents the call, make it as soon as you are able.

• How long can the policy run, and can I extend it?

  We could buy up to 364 days; exactly 365 returned no quote, even though the catalogue records a 365-day maximum. Enrollment is for a firm, non-renewable term and the premium is not refundable, including if you go home early, so an extension means buying again rather than prolonging what you have.

On the academic year we priced, two of them. Below are the plans our comparator returned for a student moving into the Schengen Area, with the premium each one actually charged on 11 September 2026. Enter your own dates, age and destination to see what they cost for your year rather than ours.

Before you choose, one honest caveat about the cheapest line: World Student’s own product sheet limits it to residents of the European Economic Area, Switzerland, Andorra and Monaco even though our comparator quoted it for a residence in India, so confirm your eligibility with the insurer before relying on that price. If you want the wider picture first, our guide to student travel insurance covers what to look for, and our Schengen student visa page sets out the paperwork your consulate expects.

Recommended for youA. Fruchard · Co-Founder & Travel Insurance Expert

Our pick for an incoming student

If you are moving to Europe for an academic year, you are insuring one thing above all: the hospital bill that would otherwise end the year. This plan covers that to €30,000 and clears a visa file, but on the exact stay we priced, WorldSecure Basic covered the same student for less, with a €300,000 medical ceiling instead of €30,000, €4,500,000 of personal liability instead of €50,000, and €1,150 of baggage coverage this contract does not offer at all. That is more of everything for less money, and it is why Schengen Campus scores 2.5 out of 5 here rather than higher. Buy Schengen Campus if your consulate file is the only thing you need to satisfy and you are under 29; look at the alternatives if you want the coverage to hold up for the nine months after the visa is granted.

Schengen CampusUnderwritten by AIG

From€508.50

Included coverage

Emergency medical expenses€30,000

Direct billingIncluded

Emergency medical evacuation & repatriationCovered in full

24/7 worldwide assistanceIncluded

See all 22 benefitsGet a quote

Personalized quote · no obligation

WorldSecure BasicUnderwritten by MGEN

From€457.65

Included coverage

Emergency medical expenses€300,000

Direct billingIncluded

Emergency medical evacuation & repatriationCovered in full

24/7 worldwide assistanceUnlimited

See all 22 benefitsGet a quote

Personalized quote · no obligation

World StudentUnderwritten by Mutuaide

From€299.45

Included coverage

Emergency medical expenses€200,000

Direct billingIncluded

Emergency medical evacuation & repatriationCovered in full

24/7 worldwide assistanceUnlimited

See all 22 benefitsGet a quote

Personalized quote · no obligation

Real quotes captured on hellosafe.com on 11 September 2026: 1 student aged 22, 268 days in France (5 October 2026 to 30 June 2027), residence India, in euros. These plans are sold and paid in euros, so every price and every ceiling here is a euro figure. Schengen Campus prices in two age bands on the same cover (508.50 € up to 28, 813.60 € from 29), and stops quoting entirely at 39. Your own premium changes with your dates, your age and the number of students on the policy.