What Air Accident Cover on Credit Cards in India Actually Pays Out

In June 2025, the Air India Ahmedabad crash killed 241 of the 242 people on board and others on the ground. Tata Group announced a ₹1 crore ex gratia payment per victim, and industry estimates put total insurance claims from the crash at around $475 million. What got far less coverage: passengers who had booked their tickets on certain credit cards were separately entitled to additional personal accident cover, on top of whatever the airline paid, simply because of which card they used to pay. Most people carrying that exact card had no idea. Air accident cover is a real, complimentary benefit on a number of Indian credit cards, worth anywhere from ₹25 lakh to ₹3 crore depending on the card. It's also a benefit banks have been quietly trimming, and the fine print decides whether a claim goes through at all. Below is what's actually verified against issuers' own terms right now, not what a card advertised last year. ## What this cover actually is, and isn't Air accident cover, sometimes listed as "Air Personal Accident" in a card's insurance certificate, is a lump-sum payout to your nominee if you die or suffer permanent disability in a flight-related accident. A few things about it surprise people who've never read the certificate. It isn't travel insurance. It doesn't touch medical costs abroad, trip cancellation, or lost baggage, those are separate covers some cards bundle in alongside it. It's complimentary, no separate premium, no enrolment. And the condition that catches almost everyone out: the ticket has to be bought on that specific card. Carrying the card in your wallet isn't enough. If you paid via UPI, net banking, or a different card, even one from the same bank, the cover doesn't apply, and it doesn't matter which platform you booked through. MakeMyTrip, Cleartrip, the airline's own site, all fine, as long as the card was the actual payment method at checkout. ## What's verified right now Three figures checked directly against the issuing bank's own insurance terms, not a secondhand roundup: [HDFC Infinia](/cards/hdfc-bank-infinia-metal-credit-card) carries ₹3 crore in air accident cover per HDFC's own policy document (a lower figure circulates in places, but the bank's certificate is unambiguous). [ICICI Sapphiro](/cards/icici-sapphiro-credit-card) currently lists ₹3 crore on ICICI's own site, a step up from what older reviews still quote. [HDFC Regalia](/cards/hdfc-bank-regalia-credit-card) sits at ₹1 crore. Beyond these three, treat any number you read, including ones on this page in six months, as a starting point to confirm, not a fact to act on. A number of other premium cards also carry this cover at similar or higher levels, among them [Axis Magnus](/cards/axis-bank-magnus-credit-card) and [Axis Burgundy Private](/cards/axis-bank-burgundy-private-credit-card), both around ₹4.5 crore, [HDFC Diners Club Black](/cards/hdfc-bank-diners-club-black-metal-edition-credit-card) around ₹2 crore, and the [Emirates Skywards ICICI Emeralde](/cards/emirates-skywards-icici-bank-emeralde-credit-card) around ₹3 crore. The point isn't to chase the highest number, it's this: whatever card you're actually carrying, check its current insurance certificate for this benefit specifically. You're hoping you never need it, but it costs nothing to know it's there, or isn't. ## The number that should worry you more than any of the above SBI discontinued the complimentary ₹1 crore air accident cover on [SBI Card ELITE](/cards/sbi-card-elite) and several other SBI-branded and co-branded cards in mid-2025, without much fanfare. Multiple SBI-branded cards lost either ₹1 crore or ₹50 lakh in cover across that year, some cardholders only found out when they went looking for the certificate and it wasn't there anymore. If you're carrying a card partly because you remember it came with strong accident cover, that memory can be a year or two stale. Cards also change issuer or brand entirely, Axis's Vistara-branded cards are being revised following the Vistara-Air India merger, which is its own reason a card's insurance terms from even a year ago aren't safe to assume still hold. The only real defence against this is checking your own card's current insurance certificate before you rely on it, not trusting a table, including this one. ## The fine print that decides whether a claim goes through A handful of conditions do the actual work here, and any one of them can sink a claim. The card must be active, not blocked, expired, or seriously overdue. Some cards distinguish between domestic and international flights, entry-level cards more often restrict cover to international travel only, so check rather than assume both are covered. The cover window typically runs from boarding to disembarkation, occasionally extended to cover the airport premises, rarely the full door-to-door journey. And a claim without a registered nominee is a much harder process for the family left behind, updating nominee details takes a few minutes on net banking and is worth doing regardless of which card you carry. ## How a claim actually works Contact the card-issuing bank, typically within 30 days of the incident, though some banks allow 60 to 90. The documents needed usually run to a death certificate, FIR copy, boarding pass or ticket confirmation, a card statement showing the ticket purchase, and nominee ID proof. The bank doesn't pay out directly, it routes the claim to its underwriter, commonly Tata AIG, ICICI Lombard, or Bajaj Allianz, and settlement typically takes 30 to 90 days after documents are submitted, sometimes longer. Keeping a screenshot or PDF of the ticket confirmation showing which card was used matters more than it sounds like it should, proving the payment method after the fact is often the hardest part of the process. ## Why this shouldn't be your only cover Air accident cover is narrow by design, death or permanent disability on a flight, nothing else. It doesn't replace a standalone personal accident policy, which covers accidents generally, not just ones in the air, and it doesn't replace travel insurance, which covers medical emergencies, cancellations, and baggage. A standalone personal accident policy with roughly ₹1 crore of cover typically runs a few thousand rupees a year, and a week-long international trip's travel insurance usually costs a few hundred to low thousands. Card-based air accident cover is a genuine bonus layer on top of that, not a substitute for it, and airline compensation and a standalone policy payout are independent of each other, a nominee can claim both without one reducing the other. The one habit worth taking from all this: book flights on whichever card in your wallet actually carries this cover, since it costs nothing extra, and check that card's current insurance certificate today rather than after you need it. If you're comparing travel cards from scratch and want to weigh insurance alongside lounge access and forex costs rather than chase this one benefit in isolation, the [Card Recommender](/tools/card-recommender) is a reasonable place to start that comparison.