Insurance premiums are generally large payments that most of us have to make every year. Further, these insurance premiums tend to run into lakhs depending on the family size. Personally, for me, the annual insurance premiums are in five digits every year. Thus, it makes sense that I use credit cards for insurance premiums. However, here is the catch. Not all credit cards are the same when it comes to insurance premiums. Below are a few best credit cards for insurance premiums.
Below is a list of the best credit cards for insurance premiums. Further, I have added a few cards that are otherwise great cards to hold but are the worst credit cards for insurance premium payments.
Amex Platinum Travel Card
Reward rate on insurance payment: ~7%
Amex Platinum Travel credit card is a unique credit card that despite not giving any reward points for insurance payments ends up giving around a 7% reward rate on insurance payments. The way it works is this credit card gives 15k MR points on spending 1.9lk and a further 25k MR points on spending 4lk in a year. Therefore, you get 40k MR points on spending 4lks in a year. The beauty of this card is the milestone of annual spending of 4lks has no exclusions.
Thus, it doesn’t matter if you spend on fuel insurance or tax payments. You will get those 40k MR points. 1MR point is worth at least 40p. Therefore, these 40k MR points are worth 16k at least. Further, you get a Taj voucher worth 10K on reaching the 4lk milestone. Thus in all, you get reward points plus a voucher worth at least 26k on this card. A whopping 6.5% i.e. ~7% reward rate. Now, depending on where you redeem your MR points, this 7% reward rate could improve further. Thus making Amex Platinum Travel one of the best credit cards for insurance premiums.
Please note that I have simplified the calculations above. Kindly go through my detailed review of the Amex Platinum Travel credit card to understand the card in detail.
Amex MRCC
Reward rate on insurance payment: 4%
Amex MRCC is another versatile credit card from American Express. Amex MRCC credit cards give a 4% reward rate on insurance premiums. The way this works out is Amex MRCC gives 1000 bonus reward points if you do 4 transactions of at least 1500 every month. Further, it gives an additional 1000 bonus reward points if you spend 20k on the card. Thus, overall you get 2000 bonus reward points on spending 20k in a month. As mentioned earlier, valuing 1MR = 40p, the 2000 bonus points are worth 800 at the minimum.
Therefore, giving a reward rate of 4% on spending of 20k. Again, depending on your redemption choices the reward rate may increase further. Thus making Amex MRCC one of the best credit cards for insurance premiums. The catch here is the milestones are based on monthly spending, therefore you need to use this card regularly to get the best out of it. So just in case you have monthly insurance premiums this card is best suited. A detailed review of Amex MRCC is available here.
Amex credit cards offer for insurance payments
Amex generally runs offers giving 2x-5x points on credit card insurance premium payments from December to March every year. The timing varies every year but the offer does come. This becomes like a double dip for Amex cardholders. Last year Amex offered 5 MR points for every 100 spent on insurance premiums between Dec and March. Typically, January-March is the period when most of us have insurance payments due and thus this offer from Amex becomes very handy. I suggest that you apply for an Amex card right now so that when the offer comes your card is eligible for the offer.
HDFC Tata Neu Infinity credit card
Reward rate on insurance payment: 5%
HDFC Tata Neu Infinity credit card is arguably the best Rupay credit card in the country right now. It works on UPI and gives a 10% reward rate on the Tata Neu app, 5% on utility bill payments through the Tata Neu app and 5% on insurance premium payments through the Tata Neu app.
The good part is that the Tata Neu app allows credit cards for insurance premium payments. Further, most major insurers are already listed on the app. As of now, I noticed that LIC, HDFC Life, ICICI Pru Life, SBI Life, Max Life, Kotak Life and many more are listed on the life side. Among the general and health insurers, most major insurers are available on the app.
Thus, if you are someone who wants clean cashback and doesn’t want to get into airmiles and hotel loyalty then the Tata Neu Infinity credit card is best suited for you. The Neu coins earned as cashback can be used across the Tata ecosystem, right from BigBasket, Tanishq, to Taj Hotels. The 5% cashback on insurance premiums makes the Tata Neu Infinity credit card one of the best credit cards for insurance premium payments.
HDFC Infinia/HDFC Diners Black
Reward rate on insurance payment: 3.3%
HDFC Infinia and HDFC Diners Black credit cards offer a base reward rate of 3.3% on most spending categories and insurance premium is one of them. Thus if you have one of these credit cards, you can earn a 3.3% reward on insurance premiums without a fuss. Further, on HDFC Diners Black, if your monthly spends are above 80k in a month you get an additional 1k vouchers, taking your reward rate to ~4.3%. This is helpful during the last few months of the financial year where many tend to have bulky insurance premiums taking the monthly bill easily above 80k. At 3.3% reward rate without any fuss or too much calculations, HDFC Credit cards are definitely among the best credit cards for insurance premium payments.
Do keep in mind that both HDFC Infinia and HDFC Diners Black have a daily cap of 5,000 points for insurance payments. What this means is if you make insurance premium payments of more than 1.5lk in a single day you will get only 5k reward points. However, nothing is mentioned about monthly or annual capping. Thus, plan your payments accordingly when using these cards
Vistara Co-brand credit cards
Many Vistara co-brand credit cards(Apply Now) offer very good reward rates on insurance premium payments. However, with recent Axis devaluation, Axis Vistara credit cards no longer give reward points for insurance. Anyways, depending on your spend levels your reward could vary anywhere between 2% to 7%. For example, if you pay annual insurance premiums of ~3.6lks, you can earn close to a 5% reward rate on SBI Vistara Prime. Further, if you pay insurance premiums of say 6lks in a year, your reward rate on the Indusind Vistara Explorer(Apply Now) will be at ~6%. the workings are based on taking a monetary value for the free tickets that these cards offer. For detailed calculations please read the review of Vistara credit cards here.
Below is the summary of rewards earned on using credit cards for insurance payments.
Insurance payment using Amazon Pay
Earlier, AmazonPay used to allow credit cards for insurance premium payments. However, now it doesn’t allow credit cards.
However, one can still pay insurance premiums using Amazon vouchers. Thus if you can get Amazon vouchers at a discount from any source such as HDFC SmartBuy, Axis GrabDeals, Amex Reward Multiplier etc. then you will get additional savings on your insurance payments. However, the issue is at times Amazon doesn’t show the Amazon voucher option on the checkout page for insurance premiums. I don’t know how the algorithm works but has happened with me in the past. Therefore, this method remains a hit-or-miss case for using credit cards for insurance premium payments.
Don’t use SBI Cashback, Axis Ace and Axis Atlas credit cards for insurance payments. These are otherwise very good credit cards. However, they don’t offer any reward points on insurance payments.
Conclusion
While all of us have to make insurance premium payments, however, by using the right credit card for insurance premium payments, we can earn cashback, reward points or airmiles. One way to think of it is using credit cards for insurance premium payments could enhance our returns by a few percentage points on those low-earning LIC policies that we all own.
Which are your go to credit cards for insurance premium payments and whats the reward rate? Do share in the comment section below, would love to read them.
Image courtesy: Photo by Vlad Deep on Unsplash
This article was published/last updated on 6th Apr 2024.
Disclaimer
In the interest of full disclosure, Credit Cardz may earn a referral bonus for anyone that’s approved through some of the links in this post. However, opinions and views expressed here are of the author's alone and not those of the bank, credit card issuer, or anyone else and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.
Is Insurance payment recently been stopped? Because I have paid Insurance premium during last month and received cashback too.
by AmazonPay I meant the APay wallet not the ICICI Amazon credit card.