Insurance You Didn’t Know About: Hotel Burglary

Travelling can be not only a pleasure but can often be stressful. Planning a trip, choosing accommodation, hectic arrivals, struggling with the time difference – this all may require some effort. It’s no wonder that soon after arrival we want nothing more than a relaxing, nice and cozy or luxurious and chic hotel or bungalow (depending on the type of person you are). We expect these places to be safe. However sometimes they are not. It’s always a disaster to face this reality after being robbed while you are shopping, having a business meeting or chilling out at the beach. Luckily there is insurance to protect you against these mishaps, to a certain extent. Hotel burglary insurance reimburses you a certain amount in case your personal belongings / values should be stolen from your hotel or motel room or ship cabin.

Where Can I Find It?

According to data from InsurEye’s Credit Card Navigator some credit cards are already equipped with the feature Hotel Burglary Insurance. In Canada you can find three main issuers that include this protection in their cards; RBC, Scotiabank, and American Express. These issuers have the following cards with Hotel Burglary Insurance feature:

• RBC: Westjet Mastercard, Westjet RBC World Mastercard, Visa Gold Preffered, RBC Rewards Vise Preferred, Visa Infinite Avion, Visa Business Platinum avion, Cathay Pacific Visa Platinum, British Airways Visa Platinum
• Scotiabank: Scotiabank Gold Passport Visa Card, Scotiabank Gold Passport Business Visa Card
• AmEx: AmEx Air Miles Platinum Business Card, AmEx Aeroplan Plus Card, AmEx Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card, AmEx Starwood Preferred Guest Business Credit Card, AmEx Gold Rewards Credit Card, AmEx Business Gold Rewards Credit Card, Amex Platinum Card, The Business Platinum Card from AmEx, AmEx Aeroplan Plus Platinum Card

You can check if your card has such a feature using InsurEye’s Credit Card Navigator for free at https://insureye.com/Canadian-Credit-Cards

What Are the Exact Conditions? How Much Do I Get Back?

All these cards protect you under following conditions:

• You took reasonable measures to secure your room or cabin
• Only cases of “wrongful entry indicated by visible signs of force” are covered
• The hotel room, motel room or cruise cabin was paid with this credit card

Coverage amount varies between $500 and $1,000 on AmEx cards and $2,500 on RBC cards per single occasion. Scotiabank offers a maximum of $1,000 and highlights that this insurance covers accidents that take place in Canada or USA only.

So What Should I Finally Do?

After learning the key aspects of hotel burglary insurance you can decide if you:

• Go with a protection your credit card offers: It will be probably the best solution if you are not planning to have too many valuables with you while travelling.
• Consider buying additional insurance protection from the insurers or banks offering such packages if you plan on having an extensive itinerary with a large wardrobe or cannot leave back home your favorite electronic gadgets such as iPad, portable DVD player.

Other travelling tips are:

• Make sure to check travel reports about your destination hotel – others might have already had painful experiences here
• Do not leave valuables lying around in the hotel – things happen!
• Keep copies of all your documents separate from your originals: either with you or with hotel staff

In any case we hope that you will have a great trip and you will never need to make use of your hotel burglary insurance.

About InsurEye:

InsurEye Inc. is a Canadian company, located in Toronto, ON. Its mission is to offer people transparency and insights around insurance using modern technology (https://insureye.com). The first service launched by InsurEye is the Credit Card Navigator that helps everyone to understand what options their credit card has including all possible insurance coverage.