American Express Insurance Offer: Earn up to 10,000 Points on Insurance Spends

American Express has come up with an insurance offer on credit cards for the third time since September 2021. Last time, the offer was reintroduced in January 2022 and was valid until March 2022. The card issuer has introduced it once again with slight changes. The reward rate is comparatively lower this time, however, the other terms and conditions are almost the same. American Express Credit Cardholders can earn up to 10,000 bonus Membership Rewards on their insurance spends during the offer period. you can find more details about the offer below:

December 2022 Update: Offer Reintroduced

American Express has reintroduced the insurance offer in December 2022. The offer is now valid from 22 December 2022 to 31st March 2023. This time, however, cardmembers will earn 5 Membership Rewards Points per Rs. 100 (as compared to 10 MRPs last time) on insurance spends, which is a slight devaluation of the offer. The cardholders can earn a maximum of 10,000 Membership Rewards under this offer. Even if you have multiple AmEx Credit Cards and you make insurance payments using all of them, a total of only up to 10,000 Rewards can be earned by you.

If you have received a communication regarding the same, make sure that you register for the offer at the earliest. Your insurance spending will not be considered eligible for the bonus membership rewards until you enroll your card for the offer.

Offer Terms & Conditions

• The offer is applicable only for those cardmembers who received a formal intimation from AmEx regarding the offer.
• The offer is not applicable on American Express corporate credit cards.
• The cardholder must register for the offer in order to earn the additional Membership Rewards Points. Spends made without enrollment will not be considered eligible for the reward points.
• The offer is valid from 22nd December 2022 to 31st March 2023 and the bonus Membership Rewards Points earned under the offer shall be credited latest by 31st July 2023.
• A maximum of 10,000 Membership Rewards Points per cardmember can be earned during the entire offer period.
• Spends on supplementary card(s) shall account towards the spends on the basic card and supplementary card(s) need not be registered separately for the offer.
• For detailed terms and conditions, you may refer to the official offer T&C page on American Express’s website.

You usually do not earn any reward points or cashback on paying insurance premiums via your credit card. There are very few credit cards that reward you for insurance spends. Even if they do, either the reward rate is less or there is a lower max cap on the number of reward points that can be earned on insurance spends. For example, there is a max cap of 2,000/5,000 reward points that can be earned on insurance spends on HDFC credit cards. American Express, under a limited period offer, is allowing you to earn up to 10,000 Membership Rewards Points on insurance spends made with your eligible AmEx credit card during the offer period. The offer is valid from 22nd December 2022 to 31st March 2023.

American Express September 2021 Insurance Offer:

American Express, in an attempt to promote insurance premium payments through credit cards, has come up with an insurance offer for its credit card customers. Under this offer, eligible cardmembers shall earn 15 Membership Rewards Points for every Rs. 100 on insurance spends. The maximum number of Bonus Membership Rewards Points that can be earned during the entire offer period is capped at 10,000 Membership Rewards Points.

It is worth noting that normally (without this offer), you don’t earn any Membership Rewards Points on insurance spends with your AmEx credit card. Therefore, all the Membership Rewards Points earned on insurance spends during the offer period shall be considered Bonus Membership Rewards Points and shall count towards the max cap of 10,000 Bonus Membership Rewards Points.

American Express Insurance Offer Eligibility:

• The offer is applicable only on the following American Express credit cards- American Express Platinum Reserve SM Credit Card, American Express Platinum Travel Credit Card, American Express Gold Card, American Express Membership Rewards Credit Card and American Express SmartEarn Credit Card.
• The offer is applicable only for select cardmembers who have received a formal communication from American Express regarding the same.
• The offer is not applicable on corporate cards issued by American Express.

American Express Insurance Offer Terms & Conditions:

• The offer is valid from 4th September 2021 to 30th November 2021.
• A maximum of 10,000 Bonus Membership Rewards Points can be earned during the entire offer period.
• You need to enroll your eligible American Express credit card to avail of the offer.
• Spends on the supplementary card(s) shall also be accounted for under the primary card only, and therefore shall count against the max cap of 10,000 Membership Rewards Points as applicable on the primary card.
• In case a cardmember holds and qualifies for the offer on more than one eligible credit card, the cardmember can earn a maximum of 10,000 Membership Rewards Points on all the eligible cards combined.
• Only eligible insurance transactions going through merchant platforms shall be eligible for the offer. Transactions processed via aggregators (like Paytm, PayU, Paypal, etc.) shall not earn any Membership Rewards Points.
• The Membership Rewards Points earned under this offer shall be credited to the cardholder’s account by 20th March 2022.
• For detailed terms & conditions, you may refer to the official offer T&C page.

Final Thoughts:

Since insurance premium payments usually do not earn any reward points or cashback on most credit cards (regardless of the issuer), cardholders often hesitate to transfer their insurance spends to their credit card and therefore increase the credit limit utilization. This offer by American Express is a good attempt to encourage cardholders to use their credit cards for insurance spends. Earlier this year also, in January, American Express ran a very similar offer on insurance spends. We expect other card issuers to also join AmEx and offer reward points on insurance spends on their credit cards as well.  Apart from the insurance offers, American Express seems to be aggressively promoting their credit cards for quite some time now with many other offers (Shop Small offer, Spends based offer, etc.). This most probably is an attempt by the card issuer to retain its existing customer base, as AmEx is currently not allowed to onboard to customers owing to RBI restrictions.