How does credit card travel insurance work? (2024)

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Vacations should be relaxing, but there are plenty of things that can go wrong: Your flight is delayed or your luggage gets lost. You may wind up booking last-minute hotel accommodations or repurchasing lost items.

It can be a lot less expensive if you paid for your flight, hotel or car rental with a credit card: Many of the best travel credit cards offer travel insurance that can cover unexpected expenses.

Below, Select reviews credit card travel insurance, including what benefits are offered, what's not covered and which cards provide the best protection.

• Car rental insurance
• Baggage insurance
• Trip delay insurance
• Trip cancellation and interruption insurance
• Travel accident insurance
• Emergency evacuation insurance

If you've ever rented a car before, you've likely received a long agreement with various terms of the rental. One of the options the salesperson often tries to push is car rental insurance. But signing up for the insurance may not be necessary if you're using the right credit card.

Credit card car rental insurance often covers you and additional drivers added to the rental agreement. Coverage is for damage or theft of the rental car up to a certain dollar amount.

There are two types of car rental insurance: primary and secondary.

• Primary car rental insurance is the premium version, which means eligible car rental loss and damage will be covered by your credit card issuer with no affect on your personal auto insurance policy. That means you don't have to file a claim with your car insurance and you avoid an increase to your premium.
• Secondary car rental insurance is supplementary to your personal auto insurance and covers what your personal insurer doesn't. You will need to file a claim with your personal insurance and the credit card issuer.

In order to take advantage of car rental insurance, you need to decline the rental company's insurance and pay for the entire car rental with your eligible card.

• Capital One VentureOne Rewards Credit Card (secondary)*
• Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card (secondary)**
• Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card (primary)
• Chase Sapphire Reserve® (primary)
• American Express® Gold Card (secondary)
• The Platinum Card® from American Express (secondary)
• Bank of America® Premium Rewards® credit card (secondary)

*Terms, conditions and exclusions apply. Refer to your Guide to Benefits for more details.

**Benefit available to accounts approved for the World Elite Mastercard product, subject to terms, conditions, and exclusions in the World Elite Mastercard Guide to Benefits. See Account Terms or Application Terms for more details. Terms, conditions and exclusions apply.

If you're traveling on a common carrier (airplane, train, bus) and your luggage is lost or delayed, you may receive reimbursem*nt through credit card baggage insurance. This may also be referred to as lost luggage reimbursem*nt or baggage delay insurance.

• Lost luggage reimbursem*nt covers damage or loss of your luggage by the carrier for you and immediate family members on the same trip.
• Baggage delay insurance covers select items you purchase, such as clothes or toiletries, when your baggage is delayed a certain amount of time.

• Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card (baggage delay insurance and lost luggage reimbursem*nt)
• Chase Sapphire Reserve® (baggage delay insurance and lost luggage reimbursem*nt)
• American Express® Gold Card (baggage insurance for loss and damage)
• The Platinum Card® from American Express (baggage insurance for loss and damage)
• Bank of America® Premium Rewards® credit card (baggage delay insurance and lost luggage reimbursem*nt)

If your flight is significantly delayed, you may have to scramble to make last-minute arrangements, such as booking a hotel and buying additional meals. These unexpected expenses can add up to hundreds of dollars pretty quickly.

If your credit card offers trip delay insurance, you may be reimbursed for lodging and meals up to a certain dollar amount per common carrier ticket, such as an airplane, bus or train ticket, when your trip is delayed a certain number of hours.

• Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
• Chase Sapphire Reserve®
• Bank of America® Premium Rewards® credit card

There's any number of events that could occur that would force you to cancel your trip or cut it short. If you didn't pay for travel insurance, you could be out a lot of money for missing out on part or all of your trip.

However, some credit cards offer trip cancellation or trip interruption insurance that may provide reimbursem*nt if you need to cancel your trip due to sickness, severe weather or other covered situations.

• Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
• Chase Sapphire Reserve®
• Bank of America® Premium Rewards® credit card

While you may not want to think about accidents that can occur when you travel, events may be out of your hands. If you or an immediate family member gets hurt, it can lead to unexpected expenses.

If you purchase your trip with a credit card that offers travel accident insurance, you may be covered for certain situations, such as accidental death or dismemberment, or a loss of speech, sight or hearing, experienced while on a common carrier (air, bus, train or cruise transportation) or during a covered trip.

• Chase Sapphire Reserve®
• Bank of America® Premium Rewards® credit card

Another benefit a few cards provide is emergency evacuation insurance, which differs from travel accident insurance. If you or an immediate family member become sick or are injured during a trip and you require an emergency evacuation, you may be covered for eligible medical services and transportation.

Take note that coverage is secondary to any valid and collectible insurance or other reimbursem*nt.

• Chase Sapphire Reserve®
• Bank of America® Premium Rewards® credit card

Information about the Bank of America® Premium Rewards® credit card has been collected independently by Select and has not been reviewed or provided by the issuer of the cards prior to publication.

For Capital One products listed on this page, some of the above benefits are provided by Visa® or Mastercard® and may vary by product. See the respective Guide to Benefits for details, as terms and exclusions apply.

For rates and fees of The Platinum Card® from American Express, click here.