2025 Edition: Best Credit Cards for Insurance Premiums

Insurance premiums have been progressively excluded by more and more banks through the years. When I first started writing this blog in 2015, you could earn as much as 4 mpd on premium payments. Today, you’d be lucky to earn a fraction of that amount. 

The good news, if you dare to call it that, is that it’s not impossible to earn miles on insurance premiums. The scope is just very limited, or you’ll need to pay a fee.

What MCC does insurance code as?

Insurance transactions code under two main MCCs: 

• 5960: Direct Marketing Insurance Services
• 6300: Insurance Sales, Underwriting and Premiums

In case you’re uncertain about the MCC, there’s three ways of looking it up before making a transaction:

Merchants assigned insurance-related MCCs typically pay a below-average processing fee, and banks are therefore less inclined to offer rewards on such transactions. 

Which credit cards earn rewards for insurance?

As mentioned at the start, the vast majority of banks now exclude insurance transactions from earning points. Here’s a snapshot of each bank’s policy:

Issuer	Awards Points for Insurance?
	✓1
	✕
	✕
	✓
	✕
	✕
	✓2
	✕
	✓3
	✓4
1. Except payments made for insurance products purchased through American Express authorised channels (e.g. Chubb) 2. Visa Infinite and Horizon only 3. Prudential Platinum & Prudential Visa Signature only 4. UOB KrisFlyer Debit Card only

There’s only a handful of scenarios where you can earn miles when paying insurance premiums with your credit card. 

AMEX Cards

Card	Earn Rate for Insurance
AMEX HighFlyer Card Apply	1.8 mpd
AMEX KrisFlyer Ascend Apply	1.2 mpd
AMEX KrisFlyer Credit Card Apply	1.1 mpd
AMEX Centurion Apply	0.98 mpd
AMEX Platinum Charge Apply	0.78 mpd
AMEX Platinum Reserve Apply	0.69 mpd
AMEX Platinum Credit Card Apply	0.69 mpd

American Express cards generally exclude rewards for insurance payments, with one exception: buying insurance from the special AMEX x Chubb portal.

The types of premiums you can purchase are limited to gadget insurance, travel insurance, hospital cash insurance, and surgical cash insurance, but if you plan to get one of these policies anyway, you might as well earn miles.

Earn rates are based on the regular SGD accrual, so an AMEX KrisFlyer Ascend cardholder would earn 1.2 mpd for example.

There is currently an ongoing MGM promotion that awards up to 8,000 MR points, 4,000 KrisFlyer miles or S$50 eCapitaVouchers to AMEX cardholders who purchase insurance policies, so you can factor that into your calculations too. 

Chocolate Visa Platinum Debit Card

Apply here

No annual fee or minimum income requirement

From 11 February 2025, the Chocolate Visa Platinum Debit Card earns 2 Max Miles per S$1 on all spend, including insurance premiums. This is capped at S$1,000 per calendar month, beyond which the earn rate reduces to 0.4 Max Miles per S$1.

You have the option of paying your insurance premiums either directly, where Visa is accepted, or via AXS. Either option will be eligible for Max Miles. 

👍 250 Max Miles joining bonus

Sign up for a Heymax account and get up to 250 Max Miles as a welcome bonus

250 bonus Max Miles

To get the Chocolate Visa, you’ll need to download the Chocolate Finance app and open a Chocolate Finance account.

Once that’s done, you can create a virtual Chocolate Visa Card immediately.  After that, you need to pair the card with Heymax under the Your Cards > Add Card menu. A test transaction will be charged and later refunded. 

Maybank Visa Infinite & Horizon Visa Signature

Card	Earn Rate for Insurance
	SGD	FCY
Maybank Visa Infinite Apply	1.2 mpd	3.2 mpd Min. S$4K / c. mth 2 mpd
	Capped at S$3,000 per c. month
Maybank Horizon Apply	0.24 mpd	2.8 mpd Min. S$800 / c. mth 1.2 mpd

While the T&Cs of the Maybank TREATS programmes excludes insurance payments, an explicit exception is carved out for the Maybank Visa Infinite and Maybank Horizon Visa Signature.

2.2 (d) Payments to insurance companies (does not apply to Maybank Visa Infinite for payments up to S$3,000 per calendar month and Maybank Horizon Visa Signature)

However, the Maybank Visa Infinite has a minimum income requirement of S$150,000, and a hefty annual fee of S$654 (which is waived in the first year, and in subsequent years with a minimum spend of S$60,000). 

For the first S$3,000 of insurance premiums each month, cardholders will earn 1.2 mpd (SGD) or 2 mpd (FCY). If the cumulative spend on all transactions exceeds S$4,000 per month, the FCY earn rate is upsized to 3.2 mpd.

Do note that insurance spending does not count towards airport limo rides, even though it does earn points. 

The Maybank Horizon Visa Signature is much more accessible with a minimum income of just S$30,000 per year. Spending on insurance premiums earns 0.24 mpd (SGD) or 1.2 mpd (FCY). If the cumulative spend on all transactions exceeds S$800 per month, the FCY earn rate is upsized to 2.8 mpd.

Standard Chartered Prudential Cards

Card	Earn Rate for Insurance
SC Prudential Platinum Apply	0.29 mpd
SC Prudential Visa Signature Apply	0.44 mpd

The little-known Standard Chartered Prudential Platinum and Standard Chartered Prudential Visa Signature explicitly state that rewards points are awarded on insurance premiums- even if they’re not from Prudential.

The earn rate is 1X points per S$1 for Prudential Platinum Cardholders, and 1.5X points per S$1 for Prudential Visa Signature Cardholders. This works out to 0.29 and 0.44 mpd respectively.

Do note that the Prudential Visa Signature is only available to members of Ascend by Prudential.

KrisFlyer UOB Debit Card

Card	Earn Rate for Insurance
KrisFlyer UOB Debit Card Apply	0.4 mpd  + Miles from KrisFlyer UOB account

The KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card does not earn miles on insurance, but the KrisFlyer UOB Debit Card does. Cardholders can earn at least 0.4 mpd on their premiums.

Why “at least”? Because accountholders can earn bonus miles for putting money in the KrisFlyer UOB Account and spending on their debit card. The current structure gives a bonus 5 or 6 mpd to anyone who keeps a minimum monthly average balance (MAB) of S$1,000 in the account. 

The catch is that you earn a puny 0.05% p.a. interest, and the bonus miles are capped at 5% of the MAB. For example, someone who put the bare minimum S$1,000 in the account would be limited to earning just 50 bonus miles per month.

So unless you’re willing to forgo a significant amount of interest, it’s probably better to forget the KrisFlyer UOB Account altogether and just take the earn rate as 0.4 mpd.

KrisFlyer UOB Account Review: Do not resuscitate

Bill payment services

If you’re willing to pay a fee in exchange for earning miles on insurance premiums, then bill payment platforms like CardUp, Citi PayAll and SC EasyBill are all options.

Provider	Fee
	2.25% 1.79% fee for first payment  with code MILELION
	2.6%
	1.9%

Whether it’s “worth it” to buy miles at this price all boils down to how much you value a mile. The gold standard is of course to earn miles for free, though if banks keep cracking down, this may be the only option left.

Workarounds

Banks may not be fond of rewarding insurance purchases, but there’s still ways we can “disguise” the transactions.

The key is to find an insurance premium sold by a company whose main line of business is not insurance.

A good example is Klook. Klook usually sells tours and attraction tickets, but they also sell a travel insurance product known as Klook Protect. These policies are underwritten by companies like AIG, AXA, FWD and Zurich, so it’s basically a white label kind of product.

Buying Klook Protect codes the same as any other Klook transaction- MCC 4722 Travel Agencies and Tour Operators. You’d earn 4 mpd with the DBS Woman’s World Card, or 6 mpd with the UOB Lady’s Cards (with Travel selected as your quarterly bonus category). 

Likewise, when you’re booking a Singapore Airlines or Scoot air ticket, you’ll typically be offered the opportunity to include travel insurance. If you opt in, the transaction will code under the airlines’ MCC, allowing you to use the same cards mentioned in the previous paragraph.

Now, I can’t vouch that these policies will always offers the lowest possible rates and the best possible coverage. You’ll need to do your comparison shopping for that. However, to the extent that the rates are competitive, it’s a simple workaround to get your miles. 

Conclusion

Earning miles on insurance premiums gets tougher and tougher each year, but there are a handful of avenues available.

The most straightforward would probably be the Chocolate Visa Platinum Debit Card at 2 mpd, though the Maybank Visa Infinite is also an option for high earners. 

Are there any other ways you know of earning points on insurance premiums?