Making Sense of Insurance Coverage with Credit Cards

This blog gets a flood of announcements every day that we mostly ignore, but a quirky web site called Credit Card Navigator that seeks to educate consumers about the insurance coverage they get from using credit cards caught my eye. (Disclaimer: We have no connection to this web site and receive no money from them.)

In the “about” section of the site, they tell a story about getting caught without insurance on a car rental and how this drove them to help others avoid the problems they faced. The insurance toolkit section has a “compare cards” section that lets you choose your credit card to see what kind of coverage it offers in many different categories. In the “find the card you need” section you can pick various coverages and you’ll be shown which cards give you what you want.

I found it interesting to see what insurance features various credit cards have. I also found it interesting that it wasn’t obvious how the web site will be monetised. Could they be true believers?

I’d be interested to know whether any knowledgeable readers find the site accurate and helpful. I’m always suspicious of the motives of anyone who has a site connected to credit cards, but I didn’t find this one to be an obvious credit-card promoter.

Comments

  1. CanadianInvestorJune 23, 2011 at 10:56 AM

    Good website it appears. Cross-checked against a site focussed on travel rewards - http://www.rewardscanada.ca/cccompare.html - and the data seems to line up. Good usability too. Might even change my card as a result!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Michael JamesJune 23, 2011 at 3:59 PM

    @Mike: I agree that good websites can have compensation. However, the nature of the compensation matters. For example, if a website purported to be a whistleblower for bank misdeeds and they were compensated by the number of people who sign up for bank accounts, we'd be justified in being suspicious. None of these concerns seem to apply here, though.

    @Canadian Investor: I had a feeling that this site had some good information. I'm glad to hear your confirmation and that you found it useful.

    @Anastasia: For what it's worth, I like quirky things :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Michael JamesNovember 2, 2020 at 9:33 AM

      The first reply above is the Mike Holman's comment:

      Does a website have to forego all compensation to be able to provide good information?

      I don't see any ads, but it's very possible that they have worked out deals with the companies providing the cards.

      It appears the insurance tool is just their first offering. They will probably charge for some of the future offerings.

      This is no non-profit. ;)

      Delete
    2. Michael JamesNovember 2, 2020 at 9:35 AM

      The last reply above is to Anastasia Mityagina's comment:

      Hello everyone,
      Being Head of Marketing from this “quirky site” I’d like to clear some points you discuss about our Credit Card Navigator project.

      First of all I would say that you are right! We are true believers. And one more Yes - this site is a business case.

      We do something we truly believe is important for lots of people including us. And we like it so much that we want it to be our business. That was the point we started from. I wouldn’t bore you with our startup story now but if there is an interest I can send it privately per e-mail.

      By the way the project name is InsurEye not Credit Card Navigator. The mentioned tool is our first service that is absolutely free for every user.

      And it will be free as far as we own the project. Mike Holman is absolutely right – we currently work on large products that will help to get understanding across all insurance types. And some of them are not supposed to be free.

      Anyway we will be happy to give you an information about them as soon as we’re ready to present them. For those who are interested it’s possible to subscribe for our newsletter on the site (the link can be found in the article).

      Anastasia Mityagina

      Delete

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