Pay Insurance Premium using Credit Cards

By | August 29, 2023
65. Insurance Premium Payments

Let’s discuss the best ways to pay insurance premium using credit cards and earn reward points/cash back on the same.

Over the next few months, we all will have a hefty insurance premium due on us. Typically, a household’s annual insurance premiums would easily be above 100k+. Given that we all have those dreaded LIC policies sold by our ‘insurance wale uncle’ where premiums run into tens of thousands. Plus, the actual term insurances and health insurances that we own. So why not pay these insurance premiums by credit cards and earn handsome reward points.

Best Ways to Pay Insurance Premiums using Credit Cards

Insurance premium payment using Amazon Vouchers

AmazonPay allows insurance premium payment for nearly all insurers, including LIC. The best way is to buy Amazon vouchers thru your credit cards and use those for premium payments. The reason is we can buy Amazon vouchers at a decent discount thru multiple ways as discussed here. I primarily rely on HDFC and Amex credit cards to buy Amazon vouchers for my premium payments.

Using HDFC credit cards, you can buy Amazon vouchers thru the SmartBuy platform at ~6-16% discount depending on the credit card you hold.

Insurance Premium SmartBuy

Similarly, you can buy Amazon vouchers using Amex credit cards thru its Reward Multiplier website.

Amex Reward Multiplier

Tips on making insurance premium payment

  • Amazon vouchers are like parallel currency, so even if you buy them in excess you can use them to pay off your other utility bills, Ola/Uber rides, Amazon purchases etc.
  • Plan a few months in advance and start buying vouchers from SmartBuy and Amex Reward Multiplier websites. As there is a monthly limit of 10K on SmartBuy and 25K on Amex Reward Multiplier. Thus if you have a large premium due, you can start accumulating vouchers a few months in advance.
  • Buy vouchers in multiple ways and add them to your account. Eg: 10k vouchers thru SmartBuy and the rest thru Amex. This way you can maximise your reward points.
  • Amex credit cards don’t give reward points on insurance payments, but they give reward points + multiplier benefits on buying Amazon vouchers. Thus, you can circumvent the Amex rule of zero reward points on insurance payments. Moreover, not to forget that these spends are counted towards milestone spending.
  • If you hold Amex MRCC/Gold card, you can split the voucher purchase to meet monthly milestones of 4 transactions and 20k spend (on MRCC card). Eg. If you buy vouchers worth 25k on MRCC in 4 or 5 transactions using the Reward Multiplier, you will earn 3000 reward points, roughly equivalent to 1200 rupees, a pretty good 4.8% reward rate.
  • AmazonPay only allows insurance premiums of under 1lakh thru its platform. Plus, only 6 premium payments can be made in a month using credit cards/AmazonPay. Post that only UPI works. ( Thanks Gautam Garg for highlighting the same).

Insurance premium thru Payzapp

Payzapp is currently running an offer where you get 3x (1x base rewards + 2x bonus rewards) on making any payment of over 2k thru the Payzapp platform. Thus, if your insurer is listed on the Payzapp app you make insurance payments using credit cards and get up to 10% reward points. The only drawback here is this offer is limited to select HDFC Cards (Infinia, Regalia, Diners Black and Diners Privilege credit cards). Nonetheless, a 4-10% reward rate on insurance premium payment is not bad.

Insurance Premium Payzapp

Insurance premium payment directly on insurer’s website

At times, it becomes mandatory to pay insurance premiums using a credit card directly on the insurer’s website. For e.g. when buying a new policy or the insurer is not listed on any third party platform eg. New India Assurance, Tata AIG etc.

If you happen to land in such a situation, make sure that your credit card gives reward points on insurance payments. You can use HDFC Credit cards to make payments as you get reward points on insurance payments with some capping. Few other cards that give reward points on insurance premium payment are Axis Ace credit card (2% cashback), Kotak Kaching credit card (up to 2% reward rate depending on variant), ICICI Amazon credit card (1% cashback), BoB Eterna (0.75% reward rate), SC Ultimate etc.

Remember that among the prominent ones Amex and Citi credit cards don’t give reward points on insurance spending. However, the Amex spends are counted towards your annual milestone spends and thus reward is not completely zero.

Other things to keep in mind

Do keep an eye on offer emails you get from card issuers. Many card issuers give bonus reward points or cashback on making insurance payments using credit cards during these months. I remember seeing Axis and Yes Bank running some offer in December itself.

Amex is famous for offering up to 10,000 reward points on insurance premium payments. Recently, Amex was running the offer in conjunction with another spend based offer of spending 1.25lakhs to get a 10k Taj voucher. It was a nice double/triple dip opportunity for Amex cardholders. I used the offer to pay some of our insurance premiums using my Amex Platinum Travel credit card. This made me eligible for 10K reward points + part of the 1.25L milestone spend target+ part of the annual 4L spend milestone.

Further, typically for life insurance premiums, one has 2 months window to make the payment. 30 days before the due date and 30 days grace period, post the due date. Thus, one can plan and make the most of the ongoing credit card offers. For other insurance policies, one can pay 30 days in advance in case a good offer comes along.

Conclusion

While you have to make the insurance premium payments every year, plan the same and put these on your credit cards. You can earn decent rewards on them. One way to think of it is, it enhances the RoI by a few percentages on those low earning LIC policies that we all own.

Please do share how you maximize your reward points on insurance payments? Do share if I have missed any good method of paying insurance premiums thru credit cards.

Photo by Kindel Media from Pexels

Disclaimer

In the interest of full disclosure, Credit Cardz may earn a referral bonus for anyone that’s approved through some of the links in this post. However, opinions and views expressed here are of the author's alone and not those of the bank, credit card issuer, or anyone else and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.

20 thoughts on “Pay Insurance Premium using Credit Cards

  1. Kripa Shankar Choudhary

    Can we pay other’s lic from own credit card or Amazon voucher

    Reply
  2. Gautam Garg

    Amazon has capped insurance payments:
    1. Insurance premium payment up to the value of INR 1 lakh is only permitted on Amazon.
    2. From your 6th or higher Insurance premium payment in a calendar month, you can only use Amazon Pay UPI as the payment method.

    Reply
    1. CreditCardz Post author

      Thanks Gautam. I was not aware of the norm that after 6th premium payment in a month, only UPI is applicable on Amazon.

      Reply
  3. Lav Kanodia

    This was a very informative article. Can the author consider making one on NPS payments also? It will benefit the community greatly.

    Reply
  4. Nagaraja D

    Amex credit cards thru its Reward Multiplier website doesn’t considers buying e vouchers. No multiplied rewards for these purchases.

    Reply
  5. Dileep H

    there is 1.25% service charge + GST on the gift card amount, which is not mentioned. Also for Regalia card, value of RP is 0.25, not 0.5

    Reply
  6. Dharmil Shah

    Now, Amazon Pay also has disconnected LIC payment through Credit Card. It interm means rejection of Amazon Pay ICICI Credit card 2% Cashback.

    Reply
    1. CreditCardz Post author

      Axis Atlas yes. Amex Gold No. but Amex spends are counted towards milestone

      Reply
      1. Akash Agarwal

        Hello, Axis Atlas Credit Card T&C says that we will not get 2Edge Miles on 100 spent if the Insurance premium payment in more than 5000.
        Please clarify.

        Reply
        1. CreditCardz Post author

          If the insurance payment is more than 5k, you get only 100 reward pts. Thats the TnCs of the bank

          Reply
  7. luta

    Since a lot of this information changes rapidly with time, doesn’t it make sense to put a date of last update on the article?

    Reply
  8. ved vibhu

    (Tata neu app) limit (bill pay) insurance premium payment 25k only so credit card not working inside App. Is there any other way to pay premium by tata neu plus HDFC credit card to get cashback or reward points for insurance premium more then 25k?

    Reply
    1. CreditCardz Post author

      use the card to pay the premium directly on insurer website. you will get 1.5% reward rate on infinity variant

      Reply
  9. Ashish

    can anyone tell how much cashback can I earn on Axis Flipkart or Diner’s millenia through any app/site for insurance premium payment?

    Reply

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