For many people the National Bank of Canada World Elite Mastercard is one of the best when it comes to insurance coverage and is often lauded as the best in Canada. There are however some limitations one needs to be aware of that can restrict the coverage provided on this card and others issued by National Bank of Canada..
The first limitation is one we covered back in July 2024 in our Loyalty Lesson: Be aware of this condition with National Bank of Canada and Desjardins out of province emergency travel medical insurance coverage. This is where you will NOT receive any out of province medical coverage if you trip exceeds the maximum number days of coverage – zero, zilch, nada. Most other card issuers will cover you up to the maximum number of days regardless of the length of your trip. Any days you go over you simply won’t be covered on those extra days.
Not all additional cardholders get the same coverage on National Bank cards
In this Loyalty Lesson we explore another limitation found on these cards and that’s insurance coverage for additional cardholders. Recently I was helping a RWRDS Canada reader with determining which credit card would be best for them with which they could add their retired parents as additional cardholders. The reasons for this are to take advantage of the higher income of the adult kids to get a credit card that can provide good travel insurance coverage for the retirees who are both in their early 70s.
Both our reader and ourselves quickly defaulted to the National Bank of Canada World Elite Mastercard since it has one of the longest duration periods of out of province emergency medical coverage (15 days) for those between the ages of 65 and 75.
However digging into the insurance certificate of National Bank of Canada World Elite Mastercard it quickly becomes apparent that not all additional (aka supplementary aka authorized user) cardholders are treated the same.
This is from the NBC World Elite Mastercard’s policy:
Emergency Medical Care (EMC) Outside of the Province of Residence (Warning: Covers only the primary cardholder, a spouse travelling with the primary cardholder on a trip and any accompanying dependent child. The spouse who travels without the primary cardholder is covered only if he is also a cardholder; in which case the dependent children who travel with him are also covered…
….Authorized users of the account who do not meet the above criteria are not EMC insureds and are not eligible
for emergency medical care insurance coverage
As you can see, if our reader provided her parents with additional National Bank of Canada World Elite Mastercards they would not receive this coverage. The only additional cardholder that receives out of province emergency medical coverage beyond the primary cardholder is the spouse and dependent children that may be traveling with the spouse.
Most other cards do provide this coverage for all additional cardholders
Most credit cards in Canada provide the same insurance coverage across the board for primary and additional cardholders without a limitation like National Bank does. Whether it’s the popular TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Card, RBC Avion Visa Infinite Card or countless others, any person who finds themselves in a situation similar to our reader could add additional cardholders (regardless of their age) and those additional cardholders would receive all the provided insurance coverage.
Here’s an example of several cards with emergency medical coverage for those aged 65 and over which would work for our reader’s situation:
CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite Privilege Card
This CIBC card offer 10 days of Out of Province Emergency Medical coverage for those over the age of 65 (with no age cap)
This insurance covers the insured person for certain expenses incurred as a result of an emergency occurring while travelling outside your province…
…you, your and insured person(s) mean (i) the primary cardholder, (ii) the primary cardholder’s spouse and
dependent children, whether they travel with the primary cardholder or not, and (iii) an authorized user.”
Here you can see “(iii) an authorized user” falls under the definition of an insured person and there is no other wording in the policy that would contradict this. Our reader would be fine to get this card and add their parents as additional cardholders (authorized user)
Desjardins Odyssey Gold Visa, Odyssey World Elite Mastercard, Odyssey Visa Infinite Privilege
These cards from Desjardins offer 15 days of Out of Province Emergency Medical coverage for those aged 65-75;
This policy is part of your travel insurance contract. It’s for Desjardins credit cardholders. If your name is on the card and you’re a primary, joint or additional cardholder, that’s you…
… Who’s covered under your travel insurance a) You (the credit cardholder) b) Your spouse, if they’re travelling with you during the entire trip c) Your children or grandchildren, or your spouse’s children or grandchildren, if they’re travelling with you during the entire trip
In the case of Desjardins cards, our reader would be fine to add their parents as additional cardholders are consider credit cardholders and there is no where in the policy that states additional cardholders are exempt from any of the coverage.
However, with Desjardins cards our reader would need to be aware of another insurance quirk we have covered in the past and that’s the cards’ convoluted age restrictions on baggage insurance: Loyalty Lesson: Be aware of this quirk with Desjardins Baggage Insurance. (This is honestly the most mind boggling rule I have ever seen in nearly 24 years of doing this)
Scotiabank Platinum American Express Card
This Scotia card offer 10 days of Out of Province Emergency Medical coverage for those over the age of 65 (with no age cap)
“For this coverage, the Cardmember, the Cardmember’s Spouse who are a resident of Canada and covered by a GHIP and their Dependent Children are eligible for Travel Emergency Medical coverage, provided that
the Account is in Good Standing…Cardmember means the Primary Cardmember and, any supplemental Cardmember who is a natural person resident in Canada to whom a Scotiabank Platinum American Express Card is issued and whose name is
embossed on the card. The Cardmember may be referred to as “You” or “Your”
Once again our reader would be fine to get this card and add their parents as additional cardholders (supplemental Cardmember) falls under the definition of “Cardmember” and there is no other wording in the policy that would contradict this.
Wrapping it up
Here we have yet another limitation or as I like to call it “Quirk” with National Bank of Canada credit card insurance coverage. I’m sure as we take deeper dives into policies from other card issuers we will find more quirks but as the National Bank of Canada World Elite Mastercard has always been considered a front runner on the insurance side of things, it gets Sherlock Holmes’d more often than others.
You may ask what makes NBC’s coverage good? For one, it’s the 60 days of out of province emergency medical coverage (as we know now only for the primary cardholder and the spouse who is an additional cardholder) but more so it is for the ability to get coverage on other loyalty programs award flights etc. as NBC does not have a 50%, 75% or 100%stipulation in terms of how much of a trip has to be paid for with the card which means you can use points or miles from other programs for a flight and then pay for the taxes and fees with the NBC card and you’re covered (well at least for coverage that may be required on reward travel such as trip interruption and the non-refundable cash portion should the need arise to cancel – it does not cover the actual points or miles redeemed if the other program itself does not refund them as part of a cancellation)
In the end if you are looking at adding cardholders who are parents, grandparents, older children who are no longer considered dependent (And may not have the income yet for premium cards with insurance RWRDS Canada’s kids have several additional cards from us and have coverage for when they travel alone) or are younger and travelling on their own, you may want to avoid National Bank of Canada cards as they will not receive the Out of Province Medical coverage.
Recommended reading: RWRDS Canada’s Guide to Credit Card Emergency Medical Insurance Coverage
Title image by Hamilton Viana Viana from Pixabay