Credit card travel insurance

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MartinGZ

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#324901 10-Jun-2026 11:48

Is it an issue paying for international travel by credit card?

Have paid for travel using my credit card that has built in travel insurance. As I understand the CC travel insurance policy wording, providing you meet the criteria, the instant you make the payment, a policy becomes active. Unlike normal insurance, no policy document is issued, but you can make a claim at any time by referring to your purchase details.

That's fine, but in my instance, I regard the policy coverage as very poor. Although at first glance my CC policy seem equivalent to other travel policies, they are not. The CC policy max claim amounts are typically the total aggregate amount for all travellers for all claims during the travel period. Most other policies are per traveller, effectively doubling the available cover for a couple. For a family of 4, well.....

Yes we could take out an additional travel policy in addition to the CC cover. However some companies (e.g. SCTI) will refuse cover if you have another travel policy. Most will only pay the additional amounts that the CC policy does not cover. E.g. For a flight claim, the order of recovery is Airline, CC policy, Other Travel policy. That would be an interesting claim to sort out!

For a short trip to Oz, I think the CC policy would be fine for us, but for long distance travel, I'm not sure I would be paying again by CC. I'd rather pay the additional for a separate Travel policy to get better coverage and simplify the claims procedure. Not that in the dozen or so time I've taken out travel insurance have I made a claim.

Any thoughts/experience on this?

lxsw20

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#3501761 10-Jun-2026 11:50

Not sure what card you have but with ANZ Visa Platinum there is a form to fill out still.

If you have preexisting conditions don't lie, they will check with your GP before payout.

nzkc

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#3501765 10-Jun-2026 12:08

I've used my ASB CC for travel insurance and had to claim against it once (was when Auckland had the floods in 2023). Flights were cancelled as Auckland airport was closed. Ended up with extra accommodation costs, new flights and so on for 4 of us. The only thing they refused to pay was the extra nights accommodation for my dogs (at a doggy hotel). We didnt expect to get that - but figured "why not try" ;-)

So have found it fine. Granted not the greatest costs that could have arisen. To me its like any insurance: You have to decide what is right for you.

MartinGZ

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#3501781 10-Jun-2026 12:58

lxsw20:

Not sure what card you have but with ANZ Visa Platinum there is a form to fill out still.

If you have preexisting conditions don't lie, they will check with your GP before payout.

Mine is KB Visa Platinum. If you are using the ANZ Premium Card policy, then yes, your limits seem to be more generous than KB (had to do a google search to find a copy of the ANZ policy!) Both banks seem to use the same Allianz front end, with different underwriters (KB = Tower....). From what I can see, documentation will only be generated if you declare pre-existing conditions, using the checkyourcover website. From what I can see if there are no pre-existing conditions, there is no obligation to go through that website to get the cover. However putting dummy data in, it does spit out a "Letter of Eligibility" which I imagine would do for most purposes.

No worries, my policy is to never lie, it will always bit you in the bum at some time!

johno1234

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#3501794 10-Jun-2026 13:22

The biggie for me is unlimited hospitalisation or repatriation. Last I looked at the KB Visa policy that was still in there. Nothing more important than reading the policy though especially if you are going to doing anything that elevates risk e.g. skiing or riding a motor scooter.

eracode

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#3501799 10-Jun-2026 13:52

We have Advantage Visa Platinum cards through BNZ and have relied on the CC travel insurance - underwritten by AIG - for 20 international trips since 2016. It gives up to 90 days cover. I need to declare a minor, common pre-existing condition and for most destinations they charge me a $240 premium to cover that condition, regardless of trip duration.

I’m quite happy with the amounts and types of cover - which includes unlimited hospitalisation or repatriation for each of us.

So far we have made only two claims - the first was $1,500 for replacement of a cracked iPad Pro display last year. The second claim was a large and somewhat complicated claim covering a two-month trip we had to cancel due to illness just prior to departure earlier this year.

The one time we did not use CC cover was in 2017 because the trip was longer than 90 days. We used SCTI and ended up making a claim for a badly broken wrist - which required our repatriation to NZ for surgery. SC were totally brilliant to deal with - an earlier post on this is here.

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shk292

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#3501811 10-Jun-2026 15:45

I only ever use CC insurance for overseas travel. Only had to claim once, which was for overseas surgery last year. The claim was handled very promptly and professionally. Notably, ANZ card insurance has a longer max trip than Westpac, although I suppose that may depend on card type also. I’ve never had to fill out any paperwork in advance although I did generate the coverage confirmation letter in advance of a long trip for my own peace of mind.

Noting the other benefits of paying by credit card, one suggestion for the OP is to get a different card if your existing card insurance is inadequate. Could be simpler and cheaper than buying separate insurance

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nova

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#3501812 10-Jun-2026 15:46

Interesting question. With the Kiwibank credit card insurance, most limits are still ok. $40 million for medical cover is still pretty good, even if divided by four. But section one, for Cancellation & Travel Disruption Benefits, is quite weak. $5000 is pretty meagre for one person, let alone four. But you have to weigh that up against the cost of a better policy, and unless the travel was very expensive, I'd be inclined to self insure that aspect. So if my travel cost $8000 in total, and a policy for four people was $1000, then you'd have to have a better than 1 in 3 chance of claiming the insurance for it to be worth it (on average). In my experience the probability is much less than that, and I'd be ok with only getting $5000 back on the odd occasion I had to claim. If my travel cost $20,000 the equation alters, but there might still be other ways to mitigate the risk. For example, making sure that the airfare class has a reasonable cancellation fee, sometimes the global sale fares aren't much cheaper than the next class up which has a $250/journey fee.

MartinGZ

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#3501844 10-Jun-2026 20:32

nova:

Interesting question. With the Kiwibank credit card insurance, most limits are still ok. ....... $5000 is pretty meagre for one person, let alone four. ............... I'd be inclined to self insure that aspect.

Yes, you make a good point. We always travel cattle class, I just can't justify the HUGE additional cost to sit on my bum for 32 hours. But these days the costs are getting up. E.g. travelling to Europe with Singapore Air is around $3.5k each return booking well in advance. If we had to shift the trip to next week the cost would be around $6.5k so the additional costs to move could be well over the KB limit even for a couple. (Gross simplification I know.)

My issue is really that I did not fathom the impact of paying with the KB credit card until I started investigating policies, a task that slowly drives one insane. It would be fine if the policy had similar values to the ANZ one that lxsw20 has, but I feel the KB policy is pretty stingy. It's free, but it stuffs me up from getting better coverage.

eracode

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#3501847 10-Jun-2026 21:10

MartinGZ:

…

Yes we could take out an additional travel policy in addition to the CC cover. However some companies (e.g. SCTI) will refuse cover if you have another travel policy. Most will only pay the additional amounts that the CC policy does not cover. E.g. For a flight claim, the order of recovery is Airline, CC policy, Other Travel policy. That would be an interesting claim to sort out!

…

I have to wonder about this. Earlier I outlined the policy we arranged, and claimed under, with SCTI in 2017.

All of our travel expenses for that trip were paid by credit card - which means that CC cover would have arisen - sort of automatically - in the background. When we claimed under the SC policy, they made no investigation as to whether there was another policy in existence.

I would say almost all people would pay for at least part of their travel by CC. This means that CC travel cover is being created all the time - only one travel-related transaction is enough to invoke it. Many people would not be aware that the CC cover is there - and/or would never think about it. Yet people still arrange cover with other companies and make claims and get paid out, AFAIAA without problems.

I would have thought that if this ‘order of recovery’ is a real thing - impacted by CC cover - there would be a lot more awareness of and discussion about all this.

Sometimes I just sit and think. Other times I just sit.