Don Maycock...advising you to and through retirement!

Is Your Credit Card Travel Insurance Coverage Adequate?

Credit Card Travel Insurance CoverageCredit Card

I have heard stories whereby consumers thought they had emergency medical travel insurance through their credit card when in fact they didn’t or it had specific limitations they were not aware of. Don’t make that mistake and review what coverages you have.

As a financial planner who offers specific travel insurance policies for consumers, as part  of my business, I decided to do some of my own own investigation and you should do your own as well when you decide to purchase travel insurance. Below is a summary of what I found with one credit card company.

I decided to used one well recognized bank, CIBC.

Here is a link to their vast array of CIBC cards which is public information.

In this case, if you wanted just a basic free card with no annual fee, the plain vanilla, “CIBC Dividend Card”,  may be the choice.  Just be aware, it doesn’t have any travel insurance protection offered. 

However, if your choice is the CIBC Aventura® Visa Infinite™ Card, it does have a variety of insurance coverage available as follows.

    • Flight Delay and Baggage Insurance
    • Auto Rental Collision/Loss Damage Insurance
    • $500,000 Common Carrier Accident Insurance
    • Trip Cancellation Insurance/Trip Interruption Insurance
  • Purchase Security & Extended Protection Insurance

So I downloaded the link above, for “out-of-province emergency travel medical Insurance” and it does provide 15 day coverage if you are age 65 or under or 3 days coverage if you are age 65 and over. At the time of writing, this card costs $120 a year, so you have to weigh the costs and benefits of the card as a whole.

Do you have to purchase travel using the card, for the coverage to be in effect?

I called CIBC and was told by the agent, that I would be covered without purchasing travel using the card, but I could not find anything in the document. So just be aware. I did see this disclaimer in the first paragraph. “This coverage may be cancelled, changed or modified at the option of CIBC at any time without notice.”

Here’s a good article from the Canadian MoneySense magazine entitled ” Are you really covered? Travel health insurance should never be a last-minute purchase. Making assumptions about a policy could end up costing you a small fortune.

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