A while back I compared five credit cards that offer cell phone protection. All of these cards have the same maximum coverage per claim, but differ in other areas such as deductibles and annual maximums. Of these cards, I want to highlight the very best of them and a formula for determining which card is best for your phone and your family situation.
I should note the only one of these cards with an annual fee is the Chase Ink Business Preferred and it is $95.
The Best: Chase Ink Business Preferred
As you can see, all of these cards will insure up to $600 per claim, but only the Chase Ink card offers up to three claims per year, though at a field-high of a $100 deductible per claim.
I value maximum annual amount the most, especially if you have multiple devices on your plan. For example, if you’re a family of four and three of you shatter your brand new Samsung Note9 ($1000 each), your total loss is only $1,500 once you subtract the $1,800 maximum annual claim plus the $300 in deductibles.
Just remember, you’ll have to pay your phone bill with all of these credit cards to be covered.
Earning rate: 3x URs per $
The Others That Work Just Fine
If you’re a single person and are insuring your iPhone X ($1000), you might elect to go with one of the other three $25/$1,200 plans — Barclays Uber, Wells Fargo, or US Bank. You’ll only be able to claim up to $600 for the device but your deductible will be minimized at $25, thus reducing your loss to only $425 as opposed to the other options ($500 and $450).
Earning rates: nothing special
The Worst: First National Bank Visa Card
This card scores the low and in all three categories at a $50 deductible, $600 per claim maximum, and $1,000 maximum claim per year. If you shatter two iPhone X’s in a year, your total loss will be $1,100 ($2000 phone cost-1,000 max claim+100 in deductibles).
Earning rates: nothing special
Final word
Choose the card that works for you and your family, but in my opinion it’s usually always better to use credit card cell phone protection as opposed to paying your carrier a monthly fee of $10-20 for coverage since these monthly plans often come with higher deductibles than the credit card offers.
What are your thoughts?
wpDiscuz
What about Navy Federal Credit Union?
I didn’t include the NFCU cards because they just aren’t that great. $250 per claim and max of $500 annually with a $50 deductible for the Visa, but the MasterCard has $600 per claim, $1,000 max annually, and a $50 deductible. Plus, the requirements are that the phone most be rendered unable to receive or make phone calls.
Can you list the annual fees?
@Barry — the only one with the annual fee is the Ink Business and it’s $95.
Tried to make claim via wellsfargo on phone that no longer works.. because we purchased from google, they wanted us to take it to a service center to tell us it was broken :/ no service centers anywhere near..
Every time I’ve had to file a claim with any card, they’ve insisted on that I get a quote. I’d call and ask Wells if they’ll take a local place. Chase did.