This article reviews the three LIC Axis Bank Credit Card variants. These card gives accelerated Reward Points for LIC’s insurance Premium Payments.
The Best ways for paying insurance Premiums are listed which give the maximum savings.
LIC Axis Bank credit card comes in three variants in increasing orders of features.
1. Titanium
2. Platinum
3. Signature
The table below compares the credit cards against each other.
Table of Comparison for the three LIC Axis credit cards
*As per Amazon/Flipkart voucher redemption.
**It is actually similar, the difference is because of the payment gateways Visa or Mastercard
Reward Programme
· You get accelerated Reward Points (RP) on LIC premium payments. 2RP/₹100 spent for all the three variants.
· RP are not given on Fuel, wallet and EMI transactions.
· Reward Points have validity of 1 year.
Reward Redemption
· Reward points can be redeemed only against the products listed in the reward catalogue (https://www.liccards.co.in/pdf/lic-cards-rewards-catalogue.pdf ).
· The value of a reward point is drastically different for each of the card variant.
The savings for LIC insurance Premium for the three cards:
1. LIC Titanium Axis credit card: 0.67%
2. LIC Platinum Axis credit card: 1.3%
3. LIC Visa Signature Axis credit card: 2%
Barring the Visa Signature Variant, all the other are giving poor savings even for LIC. This will be especially apparent when you see the next section which compares it with other ways to pay insurance premiums.
· The best redemption of the RP is Amazon/Flipkart eGift card.
· The Reward Redemption charges is only Rs.30 + GST for every request. This is quite low compared to the industry standard of Rs.99 + GST.
Fuel Surcharge Waiver
1% waiver on the fuel surcharge upto ₹ 400 per month for transactions between ₹400 and ₹4000.
This is helpful, but you still lose the GST charged on the surcharge which is 0.18% of the fuel filled. It is a small value, smaller than the interest you may make on the same amount sitting in your savings account for a month. So swipe away.
Insurance Benefits
0 Lost Card Liability: This means that any expenses that may occur on the card after you have reported it as stolen/lost will not have to be paid by you. How is it better than just blocking your card? I don’t know.
Personal Accident Cover and Air Accident Insurance: Personal Accidental Insurances are very cheap and upto Rs 5 Lakhs can be easily bought at less than Rs 50 per month. The Air Insurance only takes into effect when two airplanes collide! Calculate the odds of that! All in all, this is a pretty useless Feature.
Many credit cards do provide these insurances, but don’t advertise it much.
When this card might have been useful?
Before online premium payment from third party platforms like Amazon Pay, Paytm etc.
It was difficult to get savings on insurance premiums.
This is because many credit card issuers either don’t give points (eg. Amex, Citi, SBI Cashback) on Insurance transaction or give reduced (eg. Indusind) points on it.
Now, however, when you pay via these third party platforms the transactions are not flagged as insurance transactions. This allows you to get the base points.
Better ways to pay Insurance Premiums
There are multiple ways to pay insurance premium/payments and save while doing so.
1. Amazon Gift Cards: You can use your Amazon Gift card balance to pay insurance premiums from Amazon Pay.
There are many platforms which allow you to buy Amazon Gift cards at discounts. All generally come with monthly limits, so it makes sense to stock up on the gift cards before the actual premium date. Few notable platforms are
· HDFC Smart Buy: 5% cashback or 5X RP
Infinia/ Diners Club Black credit card gets you saving of 16.5%
Regalia/ Diners Club Privilege credit card gets you saving of 6.6%
All other HDFC credit cards gets you saving of 5%
· Axis Grab Deals: 5% cashback
· SBI Yono Gyftr: 2% discount, especially stacks well with SBI Cashback cards (5% additional cash back)
· Yescart: 2% discount
· Amex Reward Multiplier: Last I checked it was only selling Amazon Shopping Voucher (instead of the Amazon Gift Card) which cannot be used for insurance payments.
If you have multiple credit cards, you can stack the Amazon Gift cards from multiple sources to pay your premiums. Many times the base points of the credit card are also applicable over and above the discounts over the above platforms.
· Amex Smart Earn credit card: 5x for Amazon gift card each month upto Rs 2500. Approx. 3.8% in savings.
2. HDFC Tata Neu credit card: Use the Tata Neu App for payment of Insurance Bills (LIC not listed) with HDFC Tata Neu credit cards to get 5% back as Neu Coins. These can then be used on the same app for payment on its listed Tata Merchants. Big Basket (groceries) is a good option to redeem the Neu Coins.
3. Base Reward Points: Many credit cards give high base reward Points. If the issues does not give reward points on insurance payments the same can be made via third party platforms. Notable are
· HDFC Infinia, Diners Club Black credit cards: 3.3%
· Standard Chartered Ultimate: 3.3%
· ICICI Amazon Pay credit card: 2% via Amazon Pay
· Axis Ace credit card: 2%
· Indusind Legend credit card: 1.5% when done on weekends (via third party platforms)
· Citi Premier Miles credit card: 1.8%
· Flipkart Axis Bank credit card: 1.5%
4. Milestone completion: Even those credit cards issues which do not give points on insurance payments do consider the spends for milestone completion.
· Axis Magnus: Monthly Rs 1 Lakh gives a bonus of 25000 RP. At least 5% savings.
· Amex Membership Rewards Credit card (MRCC): Monthly Rs20k gives a bonus of 1000 MR and for 4 transactions you get 1000 MR. (Approx. 4% in savings)
5. Special Offers: Many times specific offers are given accelerated spends on particular categories.
· Amex Insurance Offers: Till March, 2023 Amex is giving 5 MR each Rs 100 spent on insurance. (Approx. 2% in savings)
Conclusion
You can save at least 5% using Amazon Gift cards/ HDFC Tata Neu credit cards/ Axis Magnus credit card on your Insurance Premiums.
The top LIC Visa Signature credit card gives just 2% savings on LIC Insurance Premiums only. The other methods work well with other insurance companies also.
The Titanium and Platinum Variants give too low returns. LIC Visa Signature Axis Credit Card is a Life time free credit card and comes with complimentary Airport lounge Access. For that reason it can be taken but there are too many better credit cards out there offering the same and more.
The Ratings are
LIC Axis Titanium Credit Card: 1/5
LIC Axis Platinum Credit Card: 1/5
LIC Axis Visa Signature Credit Card: 1.5/5