One of the great benefits of a credit card is the included travel insurance. For a frequent traveller the benefit of the overseas travel insurance offsets the annual fee alone. I now always use the credit card car rental insurance when travelling overseas.
However with overseas travel curtailed is the insurance still worth it?. The short answer is yes, depending on the card.
In this post:
International Credit Card Car Rental Insurance Benefit
Most travel credit cards offer international car rental insurance providing you meet minimum hurdles such as spend and pre registering your holiday. It’s best to check before you leave to make sure the minimum requirements are met.
The Commbank Ultimate Awards Credit Card offers great travel insurance benefits however you must activate the feature to get all the benefits. It is easy to activate for travel insurance inside the CommBank app, The simple way is to use the Ceba chat bot to find the feature by typing in “report overseas travel”.
If you don’t register your travel plans with CommBank you will not be eligible for all the benefits.
The other key is this insurance only covers you for the excess so you still need basic insurance with the rental company. Most car rental companies have a large excess and will allow you to reduce the excess with additional insurance. I was recently in a queue to collect a car and the person next to me was complaining his car rental doubled when additional insurance was added!
Domestic Credit Card Car Rental Insurance Benefit
One great benefit of the Westpac Altitude Black credit card is that it offers car rental insurance on domestic car rental. This is a huge benefit when you consider that most travel in the foreseeable future will be domestic.
Can I get a Policy Document
Once you register with CommBank you can get a copy of your insurance policy sent to you that you can either print or keep somewhere safe when you need it. CommBank is one of the few card issuers that offer this.
How easy is it to claim credit card insurance
Most credit cards make it easy to claim on your insurance. I have used the American Express card to claim on a pair of glasses I chipped. I only had to pay a modest $50 excess.
CommBank has an easy to use portal to submit and retrieve claims.
Read Pearls story of claiming on her credit card car insurance when travelling in New Zealand
Will My Travel Insurance Cover Me For Cancelled Travel Plans Due To Covid
Unfortunately your travel insurance does not cover you for any Covid related changes. They usually have epidemic or pandemic clauses that allows them to decline your claim.
Summary
Some credit cards have great insurance benefits. For years I was paying a premium with the rental agency to reduce my excess. I now exclusively use my credit card insurance to supplement my car insurance policy.
