Essential Insights on Credit Card Travel Insurance

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Traveling can be thrilling and enjoyable, but various issues can arise during a journey. Flight cancellations, delays, lost luggage, and the unfortunate chance of contracting COVID while away can occur. Purchasing travel insurance can help ease concerns about these scenarios. However, some protections offered by travel insurance providers might already be included at no extra cost with your credit card.

You heard that right. By simply using your credit card for travel expenses, you might discover coverage you didn't realize you had. Similar to third-party travel insurance—and really any insurance—there are numerous terms and conditions, plus a multitude of rules, and navigating COVID reimbursements can be particularly complex.

Navigating the realm of credit card travel insurance can be quite complex—far too intricate for just one article—but understanding the fundamentals is essential before planning your next getaway.

What does credit card travel protection entail?

While most credit cards offer various implicit travel insurance benefits for their cardholders, this isn’t universal. These insurances typically activate when you charge travel expenses to your card or use points for travel through the card's loyalty program. Collectively, these travel insurances are known as travel protections in credit card documentation. When exploring the coverage your credit card offers, you’ll often find it categorized under a heading like “Travel Protections.”

What is included in your credit card travel insurance?

Some of the top travel credit cards include travel insurance as part of their standard benefits, while others do not. Depending on your credit card, you might qualify for compensation through the following types of insurance:

• Emergency Evacuation & Transportation: If you fall ill during your trip and need medical evacuation and treatment.
• Trip Interruption and Cancellation: If you must cancel or shorten your trip due to certain unexpected events.
• Emergency Medical and Dental Coverage: If you need urgent medical or dental care while on a covered journey.
• Trip Accident Insurance: If you suffer severe injury, disfigurement, or–yikes–pass away during your travels.
• Trip Delay: If your common carrier is delayed beyond a specific number of hours.
• Delayed Baggage: If your luggage arrives late, exceeding a designated timeframe.
• Lost Baggage: If your bags are officially declared lost.
• Rental Car Insurance: If you rent a vehicle far from your home and it suffers theft or damage that wasn't your fault.

It's crucial to remember that not every card offering travel insurance provides all of these coverages. Each card is unique. Additionally, purchasing third-party travel insurance might not cover certain protections (and reasons for coverage) that your credit card already includes.

Which credit cards offer travel insurance?

Recall those brochures that came with your credit card—those you probably tossed in the recycling bin? Nestled within that paperwork was likely a useful “Guide to Benefits” that outlined your credit card’s travel insurance offerings. Fortunately, you can still access much of this information online by logging into your credit card account or conducting a quick Google search.

Generally speaking, each credit card is distinct in its benefits—including travel insurance options. Some cards, such as the Citi Premier® Card, known for its extended warranty protection on purchases and strong travel points earning, may offer no travel protections at all. Conversely, the Chase Sapphire Reserve® boasts a robust array of travel protections, encompassing everything from Medevac insurance to primary coverage for rental cars.

Here’s a chart showcasing six popular travel credit cards along with the insurances they do and do not cover.

Each box in this chart reveals additional layers of complexity. Typically, you qualify for specific coverages only under certain circumstances referred to as “covered reasons.” Furthermore, multiple cards might provide the same protection, like “Trip Delay Protection,” yet each may have different definitions for what constitutes a delay (e.g., 6 hours versus 12 hours) and may impose varying reimbursement limits. Additionally, while some rental car insurance options, such as the Chase Sapphire Reserve, provide primary coverage, others offer only secondary coverage (meaning you'd first need to utilize your regular car insurance). Moreover, travel to particular countries could be excluded from certain policies.

In summary, make sure to read the fine print!

How does COVID-related coverage integrate into credit card travel insurance?

Firstly, your credit card travel insurance does not serve as a blanket policy for COVID-related expenses. However, you may find some COVID coverage within the Trip Cancellation & Interruption policies of specific cards.

Generally speaking, if you choose to cancel your trip due to COVID (or civil unrest—another significant issue these days), you will not be covered. Even the most accommodating travel insurance-promoting credit card, Chase Sapphire Reserve, specifies in its Guide to Benefits that “your unwillingness to travel because of an epidemic or pandemic” is excluded from its Trip Cancellation & Interruption policies.

However, if you fall ill while traveling, some coverage may be activated. Again, this necessitates reviewing the fine print in your credit card’s Guide to Benefits. The Trip Cancellation & Interruption policies for Chase Sapphire Reserve indicate that “quarantine of you or your travel companion imposed by a physician or a competent governmental authority due to health reasons” qualifies as a covered event. Similarly, the guide for The Platinum Card® from American Express (see rates and fees) also states that “quarantine imposed by a physician for health reasons” is covered. What could be reimbursed (if properly documented) are any prepaid trip expenses charged to the credit card that you can’t complete due to your illness. This includes expenses like changing your flight home or getting a refund for parts of your trip/hotel stay missed after testing positive and needing to quarantine. However, neither card will reimburse you for hotel expenses incurred while recovering from COVID.

Key Takeaways

Credit card travel insurance is intricate, with policies varying by card. Nevertheless, it's essential to understand your card’s coverages to know precisely what you’re entitled to as a cardholder before planning your next trip—and to avoid unnecessary third-party travel insurance.

While the offers mentioned above are accurate at the time of publication, they are subject to change at any moment and may have altered or may no longer be available.