Rogers Bank World Elite Mastercard Insurance Claims Experience | Credit card reward programs | Discussion forum

The certificate of insurance for the Rogers World Elite Mastercard is available through the link in footnote #3:

3. Insurance benefits included with the Rogers World Elite Mastercard are underwritten by CUMIS General Insurance Company, a member of The Co-operators group of companies and administered by Allianz Global Assistance, which is a registered business name of AZGA Service Canada Inc. Coverage is subject to conditions, limitations and exclusions, including a pre-existing condition for certain benefits as well as the requirement to charge the eligible expenses and/or items to the Rogers World Elite Mastercard. For full terms and conditions, please refer to the certificates of insurance at rogersbank.com/coverage

At the top of page 17, it says the rental car collision/damage coverage is secondary.

administered by Allianz Global Assistance

Poor customer service, incompetence of CSRs, inordinately long wait times on hold and unreliability of claims being correctly processed by Allianz have been a significant problem for several years, as they have had contracts like this with numerous Canadian providers.

I have had first hand experience with several different types of claims that I had to have processed by this outfit.

Stephen

You might check with your own car insurer to see if your coverage could be accessed to cover a rental.
If it can, then Roger's is clearly secondary to that and they will ding your insurer.
The reason I suggest contacting them is because there is a waiver that you can purchase with your car insurance that allows it to cover other cars. Most people don't buy it, I gather, and may not know it exists although it's cheap - used to be about $30, not sure now. What I'm not clear about is whether this waiver would be necessary for the rental company to bill your insurance.

Another way to get a recommendation about CCs is to chat up staff at a local car rental outlet when they aren't busy, especially a manager or someone who has worked there a while. I can assure you that they do know which cards are best! I used to rent tons of cars and got to know the staff and have discussed this with them. They know because they have to deal with the irate customers who find their CC insurance is no good - and also with the ones that are satisfied.

I can't say much about the medical insurance. I wouldn't trust it though. I read some good advice once to the effect that you should always buy travel health insurance from someone who is licensed to sell insurance, which CCs don't provide. (I realize it's not exactly a purchase but the principle applies.) If licensed, they are under some sort of obligation to be honest with you - no doubt somewhat loosely defined but better than no obligation at all. The details of the policy really matter - note both exclusions and pre-existing conditions clauses as well as age and duration limits. What happens if you get stranded somewhere? (not so uncommon these days); can you buy an extension or are you simply cut off?

I have a suspicion that Allianz may have cornered this market. I think it was them I had to deal with a couple of years ago on an Extended Warranty on a computer from CC purchase. They did pay up, about $1000 so I was happy about that, but dealing with insurance companies is always nervous-making.

Hmm. Sounds like the Rogers CC insurance is worse than useless as it inspires false confidence. That's about what I expect from a free card though.

It may be worth your while to look around for a fee-based card that gives you what you want. I haven't looked at ours for a while as we don't rent cars right now and don't travel, but it's a BMO card and we DID get reimbursed for extended warranty fairly recently.

My personal opinion, having looked at some policies in the past, is that I would restrict my search to cards issued by the big banks.

Some other free but unsolicited advice: don't make a claim on your home insurance for small amounts. Your insurance can be cut off after X number of claims, regardless of size. A friend of mine who worked for a big bank in management and was very aware of their policies advised me that you should basically only claim for major events like fire etc. We made a relatively small theft claim about forty years ago and the insurance company still mentions it from time to time. It seems it never gets erased. Claims on credit card policies are OK though because they are not technically insuarnac.e - at least that is my understanding

My understanding from talking to various people in this field is that you are not getting insurance on the car rental when you acquire this card. That's why they call it a "waiver" ("Collision Loss Damage Waiver", CLDW). Yes, there is an insurance company behind it but you are not getting insurance per se. You would not have access to whatever forms of appeal are open to those who buy insurance, there is no liability coverage, and you as a driver are not individually rated by any insurer, all of which are standard with car insurance, at least in Ontario. This is why I said it is "technically" not insurance. It may be that the CC company has contracted with an insurer to cover cost of collision loss damage on all rentals by card holders on a secondary or primary basis, however
I can't comment on the other forms of CC 'insurance" as I don't know if they qualify as insurance; they may.

Loonie said
My understanding from talking to various people in this field is that you are not getting insurance on the car rental when you acquire this card. That's why they call it a "waiver" ("Collision Loss Damage Waiver", CLDW). Yes, there is an insurance company behind it but you are not getting insurance per se. …

That's not correct. There is insurance. The coverage offered by the credit card is called "insurance" and not a "waiver". That's because no-one is waiving anything.

The people you spoke with are confused. They are confused between that collision loss damage waiver (CLDW) offered by the car rental company and the insurance provided by certain credit cards and sometimes by the car renter's own car insurance.

If renter agrees to pay extra per day for the CLDW from the car rental company, then the rental company will waive its right under the car rental agreement to hold the renter responsible for damages to the car. That's why the CLDW fine print says the CLDW is not insurance. It's just the rental company agreeing to not enforce certain of its rights under the rental agreement.

If renter declines to pay extra for the CLDW, then there is no waiver and the rental company will continue to have its right under the car rental agreement to hold the renter responsible for damages to the car. It is then up to the renter whether he or she pays for any damages out of pocket or obtains insurance coverage for such damages.

An insurer doesn't have to individually rate each cardholder as a driver to insure the cardholders for damage to the cars the cardholders rent.

The insurer can charge the card issuer an averaged premium for the group of cardholders. Insurers do that all the time for employee group life insurance policies.