What should you check before going on vacation with the travel insurance of your bank card?
travel insurance and bank cardAt the top of the excuses for not taking out travel insurance, we always find the unbeatable “But I have my bank card insurance!”.
Yes, it's true, the insurance included in your credit card can cover you during your trip, but (and yes, there is a but...) depending on the type of card and the bank chosen, sometimes the guarantees will not be not sufficient.
To settle this question once and for all, we have immersed ourselves in the general conditions of travel insurance offered by the bank cards of the major French banks to see if these insurances can be sufficient during your trip. So, before packing your suitcase, here are the 5 points to check to be able to trust the travel insurance of your bank card:
Length of stay
The first point is one of the most important, the duration of the insurance! Regardless of the length of your trip, your credit card insurance will cover you for a maximum of 90 days. If you are planning a PVT or a world tour, it is therefore imperative to find an alternative solution.
Reimbursement ceiling
Depending on the type of your credit card, the maximum support limit varies a lot. With a classic card, for example, the maximum ceiling for medical expenses is between €10 and €12,000, which is clearly insufficient in the event of problems abroad. Whether you are going to a country where medicine is expensive (like the USA or Canada) or even a country where care is more affordable (Thailand or Mexico), hospitalization for several days can very quickly reach exorbitant prices!
Some examples
Canada – Ski accident on Mont Tremblant €5,500
Peru – Altitude sickness during a visit to Machu Picchu €1,200
Thailand – Monkey bite in Kho Phi Phi Ley 200 €
New Zealand – Hospitalization in Auckland €9,200
Indonesia – 6 days of hospitalization in Jakarta for suspected dengue €2,000
Australia – Motorcycle accident in Perth with multiple fractures €130,000
Find out more about the cost of medical expenses abroad.
With a Gold card, you will have access to higher guarantee limits.
Franchise
A deductible is an amount that will not be reimbursed to you when your expenses are covered. In most travel insurance included in your bank card, an excess will apply to each reimbursement request! This deductible is generally around fifty euros and can go up to 75 euros.
In other words, if you go to the doctor and then to the pharmacy for a bad cold and your total costs amount to 40 euros, there is no point in claiming reimbursement, since the deductible is higher than the total amount of your care. And this will apply every time you need your insurance to cover your medical expenses, which means that it will not be of great help for “everyday” care.
Public liability
To better explain this guarantee to you, we give you a real example, happened to one of the members of the ACS team. To remain anonymous, let's call him Pierre. So, Pierre flies away for a few days of well-deserved vacation far from Paris. Arrived on his heavenly beach, he finally lets himself fall on his deck chair. Except that he falls a little clumsily and that while trying to catch up, he hits the table of his neighbor on the beach, sending a SLR camera flying in the sand.
Fortunately, Pierre took out insurance that includes Civil Liability, and he and his beach neighbor were able to remain good friends 🙂
In this type of situation, it is the civil liability guarantee of your travel insurance that applies to cover the objects that you have broken or worse, the people that you have injured without wanting to.
This guarantee simply does not exist in most travel insurance offered by your classic bank card. If you hurt someone or break something that doesn't belong to you, you will have to pay the cost of treatment or repair! You will think twice before sitting on a deckchair…
With a Gold bank card, the civil liability guarantee is generally included. Remember to check this point before leaving on a trip.
Advance of hospitalization costs
Advance of hospitalization costs
We saved the best for last, because this guarantee is really THE most important point to check in your credit card travel insurance. If, during your vacation, your state of health requires that you go to the hospital, some travel insurance will cover the costs with the hospital in question, if and only if you agree to reimburse these costs by the following ! Yes, you read that right.
So, if your appendix decides to act up during your roadtrip in the United States, and you need urgent surgery for appendicitis, your insurance will pay the American hospital, but it will be up to you to reimburse insurance! Suffice to say that you can quickly return to France to work without vacation for the next five years to reimburse the 10,000 euros or so that such an operation costs.
For some banks, support is only possible after signing an acknowledgment of debt. You then have 60 days to repay your insurance that so kindly lent you money for your operation. Suffice to say that this guarantee, instead of helping you abroad, puts you in an extremely delicate situation!
Fortunately, some bank cards offer you real coverage, just check the guarantee table of your insurance before you leave. This guarantee is called “Advance of hospitalization costs”, which is completely different from “Support for hospitalization costs”. A quick look at the general conditions of your insurance contract will be enough to reassure you on this point.
We hope that these arguments will have overcome the few doubts you still had about the usefulness of checking whether the insurance offered by your bank card is suitable for you and, if not, taking out travel insurance.
Our Globe Partner contract, for example, covers (for real!) your medical and hospitalization expenses abroad up to €150,000 without any deductible. It includes a civil liability and repatriation guarantee. The contract can be taken out for a period of between 5 days and 12 months, all for one of the best quality/price ratios on the market. Enough to go on a REALLY quiet vacation!
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