Are Credit Card Protector Plans Worth Looking at?

Since getting the Chase Flexible Rewards Card earlier this year, Chase has sent me their Chase Protector Plan in the mail every once in a while. Today, I decided to open it and read the terms and conditions carefully. This is what the plan is all about.

The Chase Protector Plan is essentially an insurance policy in which cardholders pay a premium every month in return for protection against various events like unemployment. When these events happen, you are
allowed to suspend your payments with no adverse effects on your credit rating. You will also not incur interest charges.

Let’s take a closer look at the events that can trigger the suspension of payments.

1. Leave of absense or Business Hardship – 6 months

2. Life Events (birth or adoption of child, marriage, domestic partnership, divorce, retirement, change of primary residence, experiencing a natural disaster or death of a covered person) – 4 months

3. If you incur a household, medical, transportation, or education expense of $50 or more for one of the three federally recognized holidays – New Years’ Day, Memorial Day and Labor Day) – 1 month

4. Up to 2 years for other qualifying events like unemployment.

You have to pay a fee of $0.89 for every $100 in monthly ending statement each month.

While many people dismiss insurance type products that credit card issuers try to push to cardholders, I am quite tempted to take this one up because there is hardly any insurance against job losses or any of the other trigger events. Should you lose your job, paying your bills and conserving cash (and obviously looking for your next job or starting your own business) should be your top priority.

I do not use the Chase Flexible Rewards as my main card, so the fees should be just be a couple of dollars at most a month. The only thing that may limit the effectiveness is my relatively low credit limit on this card compared to my main cards – the Blue Cash and the Amex Gold Card.

I would be curious to see if you have signed up for something similar.