LIC Credit Card Detailed Review – 2024

Did you know that LIC has a credit card subsidiary named LIC Cards Services and it issues LIC credit card in partnership with Axis Bank, IDFC First Bank and IDBI Bank? Given that insurance premiums are a major expense for most of us and whether we like it or not a substantial part of it is towards the LIC premiums. Thus, it makes sense to evaluate these LIC credit cards to see if keeping them in your wallet leads to substantial savings or not

LIC Credit Card

LIC Cards Services issues a total of 6 LIC credit cards in partnership with 3 banks namely IDFC First Bank, Axis Bank and IDBI Bank. Below is the review of these LIC credit cards.

IDFC First LIC Credit Card

LIC Classic Credit Card

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Partner Bank: IDFC First Bank

Fee and Eligibility

• Lifetime free credit card

Reward and Benefits

• Welcome Benefits:
  • 1000 RP on spending 5k within 30 days, i.e. 5% reward rate
  • You also get a few vouchers and discounts as welcome benefits.
•  Ongoing Benefits:
  • 6 RPs per 125 spent on LIC premium. 1RP = 25paise, thus resulting 1.2% reward rate.
  • 3 RPs on other spends, resulting in a 0.6% reward rate.
  • Spends on groceries, utilities, railways, education and government spending will earn 3 RPs on every 125 spent i.e. 0.6% reward rate, but reward points are capped at 300 reward points/month. Thus, max spending can be 12500 in these categories.
  • No RPs of spending towards, fuel, rental, non-LIC insurance spends, EMI and cash withdrawal.
  • Reward points are valid only for 3 years
•  Lounge access
• • 1 domestic lounge access per quarter and 2 railway lounge access per quarter

Thoughts on the LIC Classic Credit Card

To be honest this is a very basic LIC credit card with a very basic feature set. At best it offers a 1.2% reward rate on LIC premium payment. Further, note that only the first 5 LIC premiums in a statement cycle are eligible for reward points. Post that you won’t receive any reward points. Also, do note that if you pay the insurance premium of any other insurer then you won’t receive any reward points. I don’t recommend applying for this card. This card appears to be of no use to anyone. One should better apply for the LIC Select credit card, if at all; which I discuss next.

 LIC Select Credit Card

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Partner Bank: IDFC First Bank

Fee

• Lifetime free credit card

Reward and Benefits

• Welcome Benefits:
  • 2000 RP on spending 10k within 30 days, i.e. 5% reward rate
  • You also get a few vouchers and discounts as welcome benefits.
•  Ongoing Benefits:
  • 10RPs per 125 spent on LIC premium. 1RP = 25paise, thus resulting 2% reward rate.
  • 5 RPs on other spends, resulting in a 1% reward rate.
  • Spends on groceries, utilities, railways, education and government spending will earn 5 RPs on every 125 spent i.e. 1% reward rate, but reward points are capped at 600 reward points/month. Thus, max spending can be 25000 in these categories in a month.
  • No RPs of spending towards, fuel, rental, non-LIC insurance spends, EMI and cash withdrawal.
  • Reward points are valid only for 3 years
• Lounge access
  • 2 domestic lounge access per quarter and 4 railway lounge access per quarter

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Thoughts on the LIC Select Credit Card

While the restrictions on insurance premium payments remain the same as the LIC Classic credit card. They are you get reward points only on the first 5 LIC premium payments in a statement cycle. And insurance premiums of other insurers won’t give reward points.

However, this LIC credit card is better than the previous one as you get a 2% reward rate on LIC premiums, plus 1% on nearly all other spends. Further, the capping on essential spending (groceries, utilities, railway, education and government spending) is at 600 reward points. This means that you can spend up to 25k in a month towards these. I believe 25k per month is a decent limit towards these categories.

LIC Axis Bank Credit Cards

I am very confused about these LIC credit cards. The reason is LIC credit card website mentions 2 LIC Axis credit cards. However, when you check out the Axis Bank page it displays photos of 3 credit cards but provides links only for 2 credit cards. The confusion doesn’t end there, the features and reward rate of the Axis LIC Signature credit card and the Axis LIC Platinum credit card are the same. I could find only one difference between them, the number of lounge access allowed. ☹

The difference between the Platinum and Signature variants is in the value of the reward points. For the LIC Signature credit card, the 1RP = 1INR whereas for the LIC Platinum credit card, 1RP = 66p. The Axis Bank reward catalogue is available here. The best redemption option is redeeming for Amazon pay vouchers. However, do note that there is a small redemption fee of 30+GST.

LIC Axis Signature Credit Card

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Partner Bank: Axis Bank

Fee

• Lifetime free credit card

Reward and Benefits

• Welcome Benefits – None
• Ongoing Benefits:
  • 2RPs per 100 spent on LIC premium. 1RP = INR1, thus a decent reward rate of 2%.
  • 1 RP on all other spends, resulting in a 1% reward rate.
  • No RPs of spending towards utilities, education, govt spending, fuel, rental, EMI and cash withdrawal.
  • Reward points are valid only for 1 year
  • There are some very convoluted T&Cs regarding reward points that you can read here.
• Lounge access
  • 8 domestic lounge access per year. The number of lounge access is quite good; however, Axis Bank has now imposed minimum spending criteria of 50k in the last 3 months.

Thoughts on the LIC Axis Signature credit card

The only reason I think this LIC credit card existed was it gave 8 free lounge access in a year. Now that Axis has come up with minimum spending criteria for lounge access, I am just wondering if anyone would hold this card. Unless the reward rate I assumed with significantly lower.

IDBI LIC Credit Card

LIC in partnership with the IDBI has 2 LIC credit cards. LIC Eclat credit card and LIC Lumine credit card. LIC Lumine credit card offers a 0.75% reward rate on most spends and 1.5% on LIC premium payments. Whereas, the LIC Eclat credit card gives a 1% reward rate on most spends and 2% on LIC premium payments. Further, the Eclat credit card also gives 2 lounge access per quarter. One can redeem the reward points in the form of IDBI gift cards, however, I am not able to figure out the T&Cs around this.

Comparison of LIC Credit Card

Below is the calculator that compares LIC credit cards along with a few credit cards that are among the best for insurance premium payments. They are Amex Platinum Travel(Apply Now), Amex MRCC(Apply Now), HDFC Tata Neu(Apply Now), HDFC Infinia and HDFC Diners Black variants

Overall when one compares the LIC credit card with other credit cards, one finds that the LIC credit card is a very mediocre set of cards and it’s better to have other credit cards for insurance premium payments.

Final thoughts on LIC credit card

While there are 6 co-brand LIC credit cards, especially for paying LIC premiums, I don’t find any of them to be truly worthy in my wallet. If I have to take any one of them, I will opt only for the LIC Select credit card from the IDFC First Bank and no other.

Having said that I believe there are much better credit cards available for paying insurance premiums. I have discussed them in detail here. If insurance premium is your major expense, then I recommend Amex Platinum Travel(Apply Now), Amex MRCC(Apply Now) and HDFC Tata Neu(Apply Now) credit cards among the ones with low annual fees. HDFC Infinia and HDFC Diners Black among the ones with high annual fees.

My go to cards for insurance premium payment are Amex Plat Travel and HDFC Diners Black. Which ones are yours? Do let me know in the comments

Image courtesy: cookie_studio on freepik 
The article was last updated on 17th April 2024.