EASA: Why you should save your emergency helpline number in your phone right now!

We never know when we’re going to need medical attention, or when we’re going to get locked out of our house or even need roadside assistance because of a flat tyre. The fact is, we have no control over some life events that take place. This is why having an emergency helpline number in your phone will help you be better prepared for any event.

Our partner, Europ assistance, a leader in assisted services, shares some emergency assistance tips for brokers in the recent COVER article.

The so-called “emergency helpline” service has become a standard value-add in most short-term insurance products. Many insurers and brokers embed a basic assistance product into their domestic short-term policies as standard practice.

But are your clients really aware of the benefits of the automatic add-ons on their short-term insurance policies? Do they know, for example, that they can call the emergency number if they get locked out of their home or car? Or if they go into labour in a foreign country? Some policies even provide a certain degree of legal assistance.

“The advantages of the emergency helpline are often undersold to policyholders,” says Christelle Colman, CEO of Europ Assistance South Africa. “In many instances, clients aren’t even aware of the extent of the benefits available to them. They may also be unsure of who to contact in an emergency.”

Colman says access to a 24-hour emergency helpline is a huge selling point for brokers to include when writing new policies, as well as at renewal time.

“Usually the benefit is automatically embedded into the policy,” she says. “The client doesn’t have to do anything at all to qualify. It’s actually a no-brainer.”

And contrary to popular understanding, the emergency helpline isn’t just for flat tyres or burst geysers.

“We hear stories every day of Europ Assistance helping South Africans in a variety of amazing ways,” says Colman. “We have organised counselling for people in difficult family situations, found and liaised with doctors for clients in foreign countries, helped families whose loved ones have died while travelling, organised additional household security for clients when they have needed it, helped to find relocation services for families moving house, got people home safely after they’ve had a little bit too much to drink… the list is endless.”

So what can brokers and insurers do to fully leverage their emergency helpline add-on benefits? Colman has a few suggestions:

• Spell out the main benefits of emergency assistance to the client, preferably as part of a conversation about the policy
• Put the emergency number on the homepage of your website so that it is easily accessible
• Encourage your clients to save the number into their phones and share it with their families
• Send out constant reminders. These can easily be incorporated into regular communications – for example, as part of your email signature or in your on-hold messaging

“At Europ Assistance we have adopted a global policy of non-stop caring through our tagline ‘You live. We care.’,” says Colman. “Around the world we handle two calls every second, covering over 200 countries. Like brokers and insurers, our core business is helping people – and we have become very good at it over the years. We would love to share our good news stories with brokers and insurers so that you, in turn, can share them with your clients. We believe everyone can win, together.”

Read the original article: Emergency assistance tips for brokers