Pay insurance premiums with a credit card and earn rewards

Business insurance is part of running a company. Whether you’re covering liability, staff, vehicles, or data, your insurer will come calling for their annual premiums.

Most businesses never think twice about how they pay those bills… but they should.

Insurance bills are predictable, recurring, and large enough to affect cash flow. That makes them one of the few fixed expenses where the payment method can actually work in your favor. When you pay insurance premiums with a credit card, you can earn rewards on those payments. But of course, some insurance companies don’t make it that easy.

Why insurance payments usually default to ACH

Most insurers prefer ACH. It’s cheaper for them to process, easy to automate, and familiar to their finance teams. Some will accept cards only for certain policies. Others will allow cards, but they’ll add convenience fees, limits, or restrictions.

From the insurer’s side, that setup makes sense. From your side, it reduces flexibility.

ACH gets the bill paid. But it doesn’t earn credit card rewards, and it doesn’t help with cash flow timing.

Turning insurance premiums into reward-earning spend

For most businesses, having insurance isn’t a choice. It’s a required annual business expense, which is why it’s easy to set up an annual transfer and forget about it. 

But insurance premiums are still business expenses, and when you can route them through a credit card, they earn points or miles the same way as other operating costs.

Over a year—especially if you’re carrying multiple policies—that adds up fast! Take a business paying $80,000 in annual premiums across multiple policies. If you can charge those premiums to a 1.25 points-per-dollar card, then you’re looking at 100,000 points. That’s enough for a one-way Business Class flight from New York to London!

And guess what? There’s a way you can earn even more.

Paying insurance premiums by card without changing insurers

“But my insurance company doesn’t accept credit cards, and I don’t want to go through the process of switching carriers.” Worry not! With PayRewards, you don’t need your insurer to accept credit cards directly.

You pay through us using your preferred funding method. Then we pay your insurer the way they expect to be paid—typically by ACH or check. You earn your usual credit card rewards on the payment, but even better, you can also earn PayRewards Points on top!

How it works

The setup is simple: 

Add your insurer, broker, or finance company as a payee

This is whoever issues the invoice or collects the premium. It might be the insurance carrier, a broker, or a premium finance company.

Choose how you want to fund the payment

You can pay by credit card, ACH, or wire. If earning rewards is your goal, you’ll want to use a credit card. But don’t worry, if you pay by ACH or wire, you can still earn PayRewards Points!

Pay once or set it up for renewals

Insurance renewals have a habit of sneaking up on you. Scheduling payments ahead helps avoid last-minute scrambles, missed due dates, and coverage lapses.

Everything stays in one place, which simplifies reconciliation and makes renewals easier for you to manage.

Which insurance payments does this apply to?

Because the payment is tied to the vendor rather than the policy itself, this approach works across most business insurance and commercial insurance payments, including:

• General liability
• Professional liability (E&O)
• Cyber insurance
• Workers’ compensation
• Commercial auto
• Property and bundled business policies

If you receive an invoice or premium notice with payment details, it’s generally the kind of expense we’re built to handle… and reward you for.

Fees and what to expect

Paying by card does involve fees, and the exact amount depends on how you fund the payment and the card you use.

For many businesses, insurance premiums are large enough that even modest earn rates justify the credit card fees. If your main priority is flexibility, there’s a benefit to paying today, but cash leaving the business later. Most business cards offer up to 55 days before repayment comes due, which is useful when a large annual premium lands on your desk.

You’ll see the fee before you pay, so you can decide whether the rewards and cash flow timing make sense for that payment. But don’t worry, you can always opt for an ACH transfer and forego the credit card fee if that works better for you.

Why it’s worth it

1. The value of the credit card rewards or points you earn
2. The fees associated with paying by card
3. The cash flow timing you gain from your card’s billing cycle

There are a few benefits to paying your insurance premiums by card. Some businesses focus on rewards. Others are all about smoothing out cash flow. 

Your business could benefit from both.

For businesses carrying significant premiums, your payments could earn a lot of points! A year of payments could generate enough points for a round-trip business class flight, all from an expense you’re already paying. In addition, when you make a payment on a credit card, the funds don’t actually leave your business the moment you make the transfer. This offers your business additional cash flow for a period of up to 55 days, in the case of some cards.

Security and data handling

Insurance premiums can be significant, so payment security needs to be solid. Fortunately, PayRewards maintains the highest security standards. Our priority is keeping your information safe.

We’re PCI DSS compliant and use tokenization, which means we don’t store card numbers. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest, and everything is hosted in a US-based AWS environment aligned built to enterprise security standards (ISO/IEC 27001).

Getting started with PayRewards

Interested in earning rewards on your next insurance payment? Get started today! Just sign up here and our team will be in contact to walk you through everything. 

Not sure which business card maximizes your earn rate on large recurring expenses? Our team can point you in the right direction before you make your first payment.

PayRewards is not an insurance provider. This content is general information and is not financial, tax, or insurance advice.

Written by PayRewards

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