Schengen Start review: what the dearest Schengen certificate on our shelf does and does not buy

This Schengen Start review is built on the plan's own binding wording. AVA's entry-level Schengen certificate pays emergency medical and hospital costs to €30,000, repatriates you at actual cost, and charges €80 for a fortnight in France. That is the highest premium on our Schengen shelf.

The €30,000 is not a number AVA chose. It is the exact minimum the Schengen visa code sets for travel medical insurance, and this plan is built to reach it rather than to pass it. Six other plans on the same shelf reach it too. On 11 September 2026 we priced all seven for one traveler of 34 spending 14 days in France: it came back at €80, against €19 for the cheapest compliant certificate and €22.80 for a plan carrying €80,000 of medical coverage instead of €30,000.

We score it 2.6 out of 5. It earns real points that the cheaper certificates do not all earn: €50,000 of personal liability, hospital bills settled directly so you advance nothing, emergency dental treatment, and a territorial reach that includes Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Bulgaria and Romania, six countries where two of its rivals stop selling. It loses them on price, on a €750 ceiling that quietly governs most ordinary medical care, on a premium that is non-refundable in every circumstance the contract names, and on documentation problems we could not ignore.

Those problems need stating at the top, because they shape everything below. The full terms we read are policy 4.089.008, form reference E11.2017, an English document from November 2017. The product information document that sits beside it is dated 2025 and is written only in French, which is an awkward thing to hand an applicant in Lagos or Manila. The two disagree about the insurer, about the territory and about the age limit. Where they disagree, this page prints both readings and never the more flattering one. Updated September 2026.

Because the €30,000 is not one pot. The summary of covers splits medical spending into two channels with very different ceilings, and only one of them can ever approach the headline figure. A hospital admission draws on €30,000. Everything you do without being admitted draws on €750.

That second number is the one most visitors will actually meet. A consultation with a doctor, the prescription you fill afterwards and the blood test that confirmed the diagnosis are all outpatient expenses. The contract reimburses them at 75% of what you paid, up to €750, and no further. A €400 course of treatment returns €300 and the remaining €100 stays with you, which is the correct arithmetic even though nothing has gone wrong and nothing has been refused.

The hospital channel behaves differently again. The wording pays 90% of the first €5,000 and 100% of everything above it, to the €30,000 ceiling. Read as arithmetic, an admission billed at €5,000 leaves €500 with you, and an admission billed at €25,000 leaves the same €500, because the shortfall is fixed at the bottom of the scale rather than proportional to the bill. The larger the emergency, the less the 90% tranche matters.

One more condition governs the whole hospital channel, and it is the clause that costs travelers the most money on policies of this kind. Before an admission you or someone acting for you must call AVA Assistance, which then names an approved hospital and settles the bill directly. Expenses incurred without the assistance company's prior agreement are listed among the exclusions. Paying a hospital yourself and claiming afterwards is the natural instinct and it is the one the contract does not reimburse.

Every 90 days, on the reading printed in the summary of covers. The contract defines a quarter as 90 consecutive days counted from the start date on your application form, and the €750 outpatient allowance, the €150 dental allowance and the €25 optical allowance are each written as a maximum per quarter. A visitor staying a year therefore gets four of each rather than one.

This matters more than it sounds, because Schengen Start sells stays far longer than a tourist visa. Our quote form priced trips of up to 364 days and refused 365, which sits just inside the contract's own limit of stays up to 12 consecutive months. On a stay of that length the €750 quarterly allowance, not the €30,000, is the number that decides whether the policy is useful to you.

The premium follows a different clock from the allowances, which is worth knowing before you choose your dates. Any stay of 15 days or less is charged a flat €80 at age 34, so a weekend costs the same as a fortnight. From day 16 the price becomes a straight €110 for each 30-day month, with no discount for length at all.

Read the flat band first if your trip is short. At 15 days the plan costs €5.33 a day; at three days it costs €26.67 a day for exactly the same coverage. If your consulate appointment allows any flexibility in the dates on your application, the arithmetic rewards using the full fortnight rather than a long weekend.

Three of the numbers above appear twice in the same document with two different meanings. This is not a discrepancy between the summary sheet and the full terms, which would be ordinary. It is the binding wording contradicting itself between its own table of covers and its own article 5, four pages apart.

We publish both readings rather than the one that flatters the product. On each of these rows, get the answer confirmed in writing by the claims office before you rely on it, and keep the reply with your policy documents.

The first row is the strangest of the four, because the two statements cannot both be applied. Article 5 deducts an excess that it says is stated in the summary of covers. The summary of covers states no medical excess anywhere: the only excess printed in that table is the €50 that applies to personal liability claims. So article 5 points at a figure that does not exist, while the table it points at says plainly that there is none.

The refill rows matter to anyone staying more than three months. On the table's reading, a nine-month visitor has three separate €150 dental allowances. On article 5's reading they have one. That is a €300 difference on a single line of a policy costing €990 for the nine months.

An unusually specific list of them. Most travel policies exclude broad categories and leave the detail to a claims handler. Schengen Start names individual conditions in its exclusions, and several of them are complaints a traveler would reasonably expect an emergency medical policy to handle.

The most striking is the spinal and hernia clause. The contract excludes medical expenses in connection with dorsalgia, lumbar pain, lumbago-sciatica and herniated disc, and then excludes parietal, intervertebral, crural, scrotal, inguinal, linea alba and umbilical hernias by name. A visitor who puts their back out lifting a suitcase at Roissy is outside this policy from the first euro.

• ✓
  Emergency hospital care to €30,000: Room, surgery, treatment and hospital medicines, with the bill settled directly by the assistance company when the hospital agrees to it.
• ✓
  Repatriation and medical transport at actual expenses: Transport to the best equipped hospital, repatriation to your home when you are fit to leave, and return of remains in the event of death.
• ✓
  Personal liability to €50,000: Bodily injury and property damage you cause to a third party, each with its own €50,000 limit and a €50 excess per claim.
• ✓
  Emergency dental treatment: Temporary fillings, permanent fillings, pulpectomy and extraction, reimbursed at 75% up to €150.
• ✓
  A family member flown to your bedside: The contract pays a travel ticket and accommodation costs for one relative when you are hospitalized, a benefit our comparison card does not display.
• ✓
  Your own stay extended: If you are kept in Europe longer than planned for medical reasons, the extra accommodation cost is covered, which is again absent from the card.
• ✓
  Ordinary recreational skiing: There is no ski guarantee and no mountain rescue line, but skiing is excluded only when practiced professionally in competition, so a broken ankle on a marked run is treated as an ordinary emergency.

• ✕
  Back pain, sciatica, disc problems and every kind of hernia: Dorsalgia, lumbar pain, lumbago-sciatica, herniated disc and seven named hernia types are excluded by name from the medical coverage.
• ✕
  Anything pre-existing: The consequences or recurrence of an accident or illness that predates the cover, and the recurrence of a pre-existing illness carrying a risk of sudden deterioration.
• ✕
  Pregnancy you already knew about: Expenses to diagnose or treat a pregnancy known before the cover started are excluded, as are maternity costs, elective termination and fertility treatment. Only a recognized medical necessity or a covered accident is an exception.
• ✕
  Physiotherapy, osteopathy, chiropractic and acupuncture: Excluded unless they follow a covered accident or illness, alongside thermal cures, glasses, contact lenses, routine check-ups and preventive tests.
• ✕
  Nervous disorders and mental illness: Excluded from every coverage in the contract, with no ceiling and no exception written in.
• ✕
  Search and rescue: There is no search or rescue line anywhere in the wording, so the cost of getting you off a mountain or out of the sea is yours.
• ✕
  Trip cancellation and baggage: Neither exists on this plan. Baggage loss during air transport and individual accident are offered by AVA as separate optional covers, not as part of the certificate you buy for a visa.
• ✕
  Microlights, hang-gliders, parachutes and paragliders: Excluded whether you are the pilot or a passenger, along with professional sport and any amateur race using a motorized land, air or water vehicle.
• ✕
  Care in your own country: Medical expenses incurred at home are outside the contract, and the covered territory explicitly excludes your country of residence.

At 69, in practice. Our quote form returns a price for a traveler of 69 and returns nothing at 70, which we tested live on 11 September 2026 rather than reading off a data sheet. That is the lowest age ceiling of any plan on our Schengen shelf, where the others stop at 75, 85 or, in one case, 59.

The two contract documents do not agree on where the line falls, and the difference is exactly one year at exactly the wrong place. The English terms define an insured person as someone who is no more than 70 years old on the day they enrol, which admits a 70-year-old. The French product information document lists persons aged 70 and over at the date of subscription among those who are not insured, which excludes the same person. Our funnel applies the stricter of the two, so nobody can buy a policy the French wording would refuse.

Two rows deserve action. If you are insuring a parent or grandparent aged 70 or more, this plan is closed to you and you need one of the certificates that still quotes at that age. And if you already hold a liability policy at home, the wording is explicit that this one pays only after yours is exhausted, which quietly turns the €50,000 into a second layer rather than a first.

The visa refusal refund. Our own catalogue records Schengen Start as including a refund if your visa application fails, and for a reader filling in a visa file that is close to the most decisive line on the card. We could not find it in either binding document, and the full terms say the opposite in plain words.

Section 1 of the policy states that enrolment is for a firm and non-renewable term and that the corresponding premium is non-refundable. The French product information document repeats the rule from the other direction: if you come home early, the premium is not returned. It adds that the 14-day withdrawal right does not apply to contracts running less than one month, which is most visa policies. Neither document mentions a visa refusal anywhere.

The audit ran in both directions, and the card is wrong the generous way too. Our comparison card is built from an older feature set that shows only four benefits for this plan: the €30,000 medical ceiling, the direct settlement, the repatriation and the €50,000 liability. The contract is more generous than that. Emergency dental treatment, the family member flown to your bedside and the extension of your own stay are all really in the wording and none of them reaches the card.

Six French collectivities in the Pacific, the Caribbean and the North Atlantic. Our comparator will sell the plan for a trip to French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna, Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, Saint-Barthélemy or Saint-Martin, and for each of those it is the only plan on the shelf that returns a price at all. None of the six is in the Schengen Area, and none of them is in the European Union.

This is where the two documents part company most sharply. The English terms define the geographical scope as mainland France, Corsica, the French overseas departments and territories, Andorra, Monaco, and the countries of the European Union and the Schengen Area, excluding your home country. On that reading Tahiti is inside the contract. The French product information document answers the same question with the European Union, the Schengen Area, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Andorra, Monaco and Switzerland, and then lists stays outside the European Union or the Schengen Area among the restrictions. On that reading Tahiti is outside the contract.

There is a second reason not to buy it for those destinations, and it has nothing to do with insurance. A Schengen visa does not admit you to French Polynesia, New Caledonia or the French overseas departments in the first place: each has its own entry regime and its own visa. If you are reading this page because a consulate asked you for proof of insurance, none of the rows below the first two concern you.

The positive finding in that table is the second row, and it is the strongest practical argument for paying more. Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Bulgaria and Romania are full members of the Schengen Area, and two of the cheaper certificates on our shelf simply stop selling for those six destinations. This plan does not, and both of its documents name them. If your visa is for Sofia, Bucharest, Zurich, Oslo, Reykjavik or Vaduz, the shelf shrinks and this plan is genuinely on it. Check the Schengen visa requirements for your nationality before you commit to any of it.

By recorded delivery letter to a street address in Paris, and the deadline runs whether you are still in Europe or not. For every coverage except assistance and direct hospital settlement, the contract requires you to report a claim in a letter sent recorded delivery as soon as you become aware of it and no later than 15 business days afterwards, on pain of forfeiture.

For this plan's buyer that sentence is heavier than it looks. A visitor who breaks a tooth in Lisbon on the last day of a two-week stay lands home in Manila or São Paulo the following morning with a fortnight to get a signed letter and the original receipts into the French postal system. The claims office is AVA Assurance Voyages, 25 rue de Maubeuge, 75009 Paris, and the wording asks for original receipts rather than scans.

1. Call AVA Assistance on +33 1 49 02 42 11 before you accept any treatment you expect to be paid for, and always before a hospital admission. Expenses incurred without prior agreement are excluded.
2. Note the policy number, 4.089.008, and your own identification number from the cover certificate. Every later contact needs both.
3. Keep the original receipts. Outpatient claims are settled against originals, not copies.
4. Report the claim by recorded delivery within 15 business days of becoming aware of it, to the claims office in Paris, attaching everything that helps assess it.
5. Declare any other insurance covering the same risk, and any reimbursement you receive elsewhere. The contract requires it and false declarations forfeit the coverage.
6. For a theft, file a police complaint within 24 hours and send the original of that report. This applies to the optional baggage coverage if you took it.

Once the file is complete and the amount is agreed, the contract pays within 15 days and without interest. A late claim is only forgiven if you can show it was impossible to report in time, or if the insurer cannot show the delay harmed it. Claims are time-barred two years after the event under the French insurance code, which governs the whole policy.

Four companies appear on this plan's paperwork and only one of them carries the risk. AVA is the broker: it holds the group policy, takes your premium, issues the certificate and handles claims. AVA Assistance answers the emergency line and settles hospital bills. The insurer, the company legally on the hook for your treatment, is AIG. Which AIG depends on which document you open.

The English terms name AIG Europe Limited, registered in England and Wales under number 01486260, with a branch in France at Courbevoie, and state that it is authorized and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. Both of those facts stopped being true some time ago. The Financial Services Authority was abolished in 2013. AIG Europe Limited transferred its European business to a Luxembourg company as part of the Brexit restructuring and no longer underwrites in the European Union.

The 2025 French product information document names the current carrier correctly: AIG Europe SA, an insurance company registered in Luxembourg under RCS number B 218806, operating in France through a branch registered at Nanterre under 838 136 463. That is the entity a French court would look to today, and it is the one to quote in any correspondence.

The last row is the one to keep in mind. The policy states that French is the applicable language and that French courts have exclusive jurisdiction. If the English translation and the French original ever disagree, and on this contract they demonstrably do, the French text is the one that decides. Complaints go first to AIG's customer service at Paris La Défense and then to the ombudsman of the Fédération Française des Sociétés d'Assurances.

Between two and six times what the same visa requirement costs elsewhere, depending on who is traveling. It prices in three age bands rather than flat: €55 up to age 29, €80 from 30 to 49, and €120 from 50 to 69, all for the same 14-day trip. That is unusual on a Schengen shelf where two of the rivals charge one price at every age.

We priced five real situations on our own comparator on 11 September 2026 and set each beside the cheapest certificate that meets the same €30,000 rule, and beside the plan that carries the most medical coverage for less money than Schengen Start. Every figure below is a live quote rather than a published rate card.

The 66-year-old row is the hardest one for the plan. At that age the plan costs €120 and gives a €30,000 ceiling, while Gold Plan costs €22.80 and gives €80,000. There is no age band, no destination and no guarantee in the wording that explains a gap of that size, and we could not construct a trip on which the 66-year-old is better served here.

The family row is fairer than it looks. Children are priced in the €55 band rather than as adults, so a family of four pays €270 rather than four times €80. Groups are capped at 11 people on one policy and a twelfth returns no quote, which matches the wording's silence on group size with a practical limit in the funnel.

• Is Schengen Start accepted for a Schengen visa application?

  Yes. It carries €30,000 of emergency medical and hospital coverage and repatriation at actual expenses, which are the two things the Schengen visa code requires, and the cover certificate naming you, your dates and the assistance numbers is issued for your file. It is valid across the whole Schengen Area including Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Bulgaria and Romania.

• How much does Schengen Start cost?

  €80 for any stay of 15 days or less at age 34, then €110 for each 30-day month: €110 for a month, €330 for 90 days and €1,320 for the longest stay sold, 364 days. The premium moves with age in three bands: €55 up to 29, €80 from 30 to 49 and €120 from 50 to 69. Those figures were quoted on hellosafe.com on 11 September 2026.

• Why is Schengen Start more expensive than the other Schengen plans?

  We could not find a coverage reason in the wording. On the same 14-day trip to France it costs €80 against €19 for the cheapest compliant certificate and €22.80 for a plan carrying €80,000 of medical coverage rather than €30,000. Its genuine advantages are the €50,000 of personal liability and a territory that includes six Schengen countries two rivals do not sell for.

• Does the €30,000 cover a visit to a doctor?

  Only up to €750. The contract splits medical spending in two: a hospital admission draws on the €30,000, while outpatient care, meaning a doctor, a pharmacy and laboratory tests without an admission, is reimbursed at 75% up to €750 per quarter. The €30,000 headline is reachable only through a hospital stay.

• Do I get my money back if my visa is refused?

  The binding wording says no. Section 1 of policy 4.089.008 states that enrolment is for a firm and non-renewable term and that the premium is non-refundable, and neither the terms nor the product information document mentions a visa refusal anywhere. Our own catalogue currently records a refusal refund, we have reported the mismatch, and until AVA confirms it in writing you should treat the premium as spent.

• What is the age limit on Schengen Start?

  Our quote form prices a traveler of 69 and refuses 70, which we tested live on 11 September 2026. The two documents disagree by one year: the English terms admit someone who is no more than 70 on the day of enrolment, while the French product information document excludes persons aged 70 and over. The funnel applies the stricter reading, so 69 is the real ceiling.

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

  No. The contract defines an insured person as an AVA customer who resides outside the Schengen Area and is a temporary resident of the Schengen Area or the European Union, and medical expenses incurred in your own country of residence are excluded. The plan exists for visitors traveling into the area, not for people already living in it.

• Does Schengen Start cover trip cancellation or lost baggage?

  Neither is in the certificate. This is a medical, assistance and liability contract only. AVA offers baggage loss or theft during air transport and individual accident as separate optional covers, which are not part of what you buy for a visa file. If you need your flights and accommodation protected you can compare travel insurance with cancellation included.

• Is skiing covered by Schengen Start?

  There is no ski guarantee: no piste rescue, no equipment coverage, no ski pass refund, and no search and rescue line anywhere in the wording. Recreational skiing itself is not excluded from the medical coverage, though. Skiing, ice-skating and sledging are excluded only when practiced professionally in competition, and only from the liability coverage, so a broken ankle on a marked run is handled as an ordinary emergency.

• Do I have to call before going to hospital?

  Yes, and it is the condition that most often costs money. The contract requires you or your representative to contact AVA Assistance before any admission, or as soon as you are able if your condition prevented it, and it excludes expenses incurred without the assistance company’s prior agreement. In exchange the assistance company pays the hospital directly, so you advance nothing when the hospital accepts it.

• Which company actually insures Schengen Start?

  AIG. The 2025 product information document names AIG Europe SA, registered in Luxembourg under RCS B 218806 with a French branch at Nanterre 838 136 463, and that is the current carrier. The English terms still name AIG Europe Limited of England and Wales and a regulator abolished in 2013, because that document dates from November 2017. AVA is the broker and AVA Assistance runs the emergency line.

• Can I use it for a trip to Guadeloupe or Tahiti?

  Our comparator will sell it, and for Tahiti, New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna, Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, Saint-Barthélemy, Saint-Martin and Mayotte it is the only plan that returns a price. Be careful anyway: the English terms include the French overseas departments and territories, while the French document limits coverage to the European Union and Schengen Area and excludes stays outside them. A Schengen visa does not admit you to any of those destinations in the first place.

On the 14-day trip we priced for this review, seven plans came back and this one was the dearest of them. Two of the others are worth opening before you decide, and one situation genuinely favors paying more.

Silver Plan is the cheapest compliant certificate at €19, with the same €30,000 ceiling and the same repatriation at actual expenses. Gold Plan costs €22.80 and raises the medical ceiling to €80,000, which is the single most useful €3.80 on this page for anyone worried that €30,000 is thin for a serious admission in western Europe. The case for paying more is narrower and specific: €50,000 of personal liability that Silver Plan and Gold Plan do not carry, and a territory that reaches Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Bulgaria and Romania. Before you buy anything, it is worth reading the Schengen visa document checklist so the certificate is not the piece that holds your file up, and the Schengen visa refusal reasons if you think the application is finely balanced.

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

Buy it for the liability and the six extra countries, not for the ceiling

Start with what you actually need. Your consulate wants €30,000 of emergency medical coverage and repatriation, and every plan below gives you both, with the certificate in your inbox as soon as you pay. Once that is settled the question is only what else your money buys.

On that test this plan is hard to recommend to most readers. It costs several times more than the cheapest certificate on the same shelf, and more than three times a plan that carries €80,000 of medical coverage instead of €30,000. For a 66-year-old the gap widens further, and nothing in the wording explains it.

There are two situations where I would still take it. If your visa is for Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Bulgaria or Romania, the shelf shrinks and this plan is one of the few that keeps selling. And if you want personal liability in the same contract, the €50,000 here is real coverage that Silver Plan and Gold Plan do not include at all, though Go Schengen + writes €3,500,000 for less.

One thing to settle before you pay, whichever plan you choose: the premium on this one is non-refundable in the wording we read, so do not buy it expecting money back if the consulate says no. Run the comparison on your own dates, destination and ages below, because every premium here moves the moment yours do.

Schengen StartUnderwritten by AIG

From€80.00

Included coverage

Emergency medical expenses€30,000

Direct billingIncluded

Emergency medical evacuation & repatriationCovered in full

24/7 worldwide assistanceUnlimited

See all 12 benefitsGet a quote

Personalized quote · no obligation

Gold PlanUnderwritten by Vyv International Assistance

From€22.80

Included coverage

Emergency medical expenses€80,000

Direct billingIncluded

Emergency medical evacuation & repatriationCovered in full

24/7 worldwide assistanceUnlimited

See all 12 benefitsGet a quote

Personalized quote · no obligation

Silver PlanUnderwritten by Vyv International Assistance

From€19.00

Included coverage

Emergency medical expenses€30,000

Direct billingIncluded

Emergency medical evacuation & repatriationCovered in full

24/7 worldwide assistanceUnlimited

See all 12 benefitsGet a quote

Personalized quote · no obligation

Go Schengen +Underwritten by Mutuaide

From€30.00

Included coverage

Emergency medical expenses€30,000

Direct billingIncluded

Emergency medical evacuation & repatriationCovered in full

24/7 worldwide assistanceIncluded

See all 12 benefitsGet a quote

Personalized quote · no obligation

Go SchengenUnderwritten by Mutuaide

From€26.00

Included coverage

Emergency medical expenses€30,000

Direct billingIncluded

Emergency medical evacuation & repatriationCovered in full

24/7 worldwide assistanceUnlimited

See all 12 benefitsGet a quote

Personalized quote · no obligation

Schengen AnnualUnderwritten by AIG

From€749.00

Included coverage

Emergency medical expenses€30,000

Direct billingIncluded

Emergency medical evacuation & repatriationCovered in full

24/7 worldwide assistanceIncluded

See all 12 benefitsGet a quote

Personalized quote · no obligation

Real quotes captured on hellosafe.com on 11 September 2026: 1 traveler aged 34, 14 days in France (10 to 24 November 2026), residence India, no cancellation option, in euros. Schengen visa insurance is sold and paid in euros, so every plan here is priced in euros. Schengen Start charges a flat premium for any stay of 15 days or less and then €110 per month, and it prices in three age bands (€55 to 29, €80 from 30 to 49, €120 from 50 to 69). Your own premium changes with your dates and ages.