Cardguard Schemes

keithattwood

I wonder if it is possible to talk about Cardguard scemes. Because I have recently been asked by Barclaycard and Alliance and Leicester to think about taking out there insurance, to protect my debit,credit,nectar, cards including my Passport in case of loss, fraud etc.

Each has a different pricing structure, but are they worth the money?

Can anyone help?

Thanks

Keith:undecided

Capyboppy

I suppose it is a matter of opinion to some degree. I have cancelled my policy that I had with Sentinel. When I first signed up with them it was £10 for the year. This also included lots of useful extras, such as key recovery, a system where you could list numbers of important documents policies etc. The following year it shot up by £4 so I asked to cancel. They put me through to the cancellations department and the upshot of it was they offered me the rate of £12 which I accepted. This happened again the last two years, but the difference being, a lot of the extras disappearing and new ones that were less useful appearing. Not to mention the charge going up to £20. This year they wouldn't budge so it "bye bye." As I have always been very careful and had each card's number in case of loss to hand anyway, I feel this was probably best for me. If you are the sort of person who is scatty and may lose them easily, then there are cheaper deals out there if you search, but beware, they nearly always put them up the following year. You could also check if you have an "all risks" section on your household contents insurance that might cover them.

henrym

You'll be pleased to know that Sentinel have upgraded their product to Sentinel Plus, which has the benefit of them getting £70 form their customers, a massive increase for benefits you may or may not need. I did think the key return system could be valuable - but now there's a free system. Get a Nectar card (Sainsbury's) or a Tesco card and you will be provided with a key tag (from each) which have instructions about returning lost keys - so why invest £70? If you have both cards, you have one for each of 2 sets of keys. And your partner can do the same.