Earn points on your car insurance
Avios.com finally launches its own car insurance aggregator. The launch is no surprise: the option has been “coming soon” on their website for a while now. The timing is perfect, as my own car insurance is due for a renewal.
Can’t you already earn points on car insurance?
Yes. The Avios Shopping Portal has a host of insurers and aggregators listed already. For car insurance, they cover the big brands like MoneySuperMarket (2,850 points/policy), uSwitch (3,600), Confused.com (3,800) and Compare The Market (2,500).
These are not bad earn rates, but by cutting out the middleman, they can give you more.
How many points can you earn from Avios Car Insurance?
You earn at a rate of 10 Avios per £1 with a maximum of 5,000 per policy. That upper ceiling is higher than the current rates for all the other insurance aggregators on the Shopping portal.
There is a launch offer that doubles your earn rate: 20/£, with a maximum of 10,000 per policy. This runs until the 27th November 2026.
The Insurance landing page currently says, at the top, “up to 1,000 Avios”. This is wrong, and I believe it hasn’t been updated since they launched the Car Insurance product. This was the maximum when they only offered travel insurance.
Who will the insurer be?
Avios Car Insurance is an aggregator, so your car insurance will be with an insurer and not Avios Insurance direct. The platform behind Avios Insurance is run by a company called Open, which is basically a connector between car insurance companies and Avios. Think of it as a white-label MoneySuperMarket.
Listed on the Avios Insurance website are:
- Allianz
- Ageas
- and Covea
This is a short list, missing off a lot of UK insurers. It’s worth noting that whilst this is for UK customers, if you’re based in the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man, car insurance can’t be offered to you.
When will you get your Avios?
This is the only negative of the scheme. Avios will be awarded 150 days after the start date of the policy. That’s around five months. This is actually faster than earning Avios via any of the aggregators on the Avios Shopping portal. They all list 180 days as the time from policy start to points.
It still feels like a very long time, and you would have hoped it would be much faster given that the insurance product is issued by Avios themselves, and they could claw points back if you cancelled a policy.
Are all policy types available?
It seems like the new product will be restricted to comprehensive policies only. In their words “…comprehensive car insurance cover as standard, including accidental damage, windscreen protection, personal belongings and European driving cover for up to 90 days.”
That suggests you could get a cheaper, third-party policy elsewhere. It wouldn’t be the worst move if they restricted the policies to the more expensive ones (which may well be competitive) to stay at the top end of the market and ensure higher margins.
What are Avios themselves saying?
This is – assuming it works – going to be a decent source of Avios points for a lot of people out there, so the Avios team are rightfully excited about it.
IAG Loyalty, the company behind Avios.com, told us “Avios Insurance is all about finding new ways to reward customers for the everyday essentials they already spend money on. Car insurance is an essential purchase for millions of people across the UK, and now customers can protect their car while collecting Avios towards their next flight, holiday or experience. It’s another example of how we’re making everyday life more rewarding.”
It’s another example of how Avios aren’t just moving into new ways of earning points (you have been able to earn from car insurance for a while), but how they can go deeper into verticals. That simply means they can offer a better earn rate than hooking into the incumbents in a sector.
Is Avios Car Insurance any good?
This is a difficult one to answer. I entered all my details and got a “Sorry, we’re unable to offer you insurance today” message.
I am, to the best of my knowledge, a law-abiding driver who has always been able to get insurance with a few clicks. Maybe others have had a better experience than I, in which case please let me know in the comments below.
How many points could you earn annually?
This is an easy one to do the maths on. Assuming the 5,000-point ceiling remains, your annual earnings are simply the number of cars you need to insure each year multiplied by 5,000. I am also assuming that your car insurance policy is at least £500 a year, which is a fairly safe assumption for most drivers in the UK.
Points are given when you organise a new policy through Avios Car Insurance, and when you renew. That means if you can’t be bothered to shop around, you’ll still earn points on renewal.
A two-car household could get 10,000 points a year. That’s not a huge number, but it’s reasonable. The best part is that you are earning on something that you would have paid for already.
There is one important point: you can only earn points on one policy per person. That means earning more in a household is dependent on each individual having a policy in their name, and linked to their own BA Executive account.
Another benefit of going direct through Avios Car Insurance is tracking. This is the same reason why I prefer to use the Avios Hotels website, rather than booking a hotel via
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