Amex Insurance: How to File a Claim and Get Paid

A great deal has been written about what Amex insurance covers. Almost nothing about what happens next. Yet that is where a valid claim turns into a payment — or does not: who is responsible, which deadline is running, which document is missing.

This article deals only with the claims process for a card issued in Germany. What is covered is set out in the overview of Amex insurance benefits and, for the most common case, in the article on trip cancellation insurance.

Amex is not your insurer

The first point explains the whole process: American Express does not insure you itself. In Germany it acts as an insurance intermediary under section 34d of the German Trade Regulation Act and is the policyholder of a group insurance contract. Other companies provide the cover — which is why filing a claim takes you not to an Amex hotline but to the relevant insurer.

For the insurance benefits attached to your card, the official Amex Germany claims page splits it as follows:

• Europ Assistance — international travel medical insurance, trip cancellation and curtailment, baggage, flight or baggage delay, rental car. Claims go through the Europ Assistance claims portal for Amex.
• Chubb — purchase protection, return protection, common carrier accident insurance. Separate online portal for Amex customers.

Risk carrier and filing route are not the same thing. The Platinum terms name Chubb as insurer for the rental car covers, travel inconvenience, travel accident and personal liability, and Europ Assistance (legally EUROP ASSISTANCE S.A. Irish Branch) for medical costs, cancellation, curtailment and personal belongings — yet the claims page routes all card-linked travel claims, rental car included, to Europ Assistance first. Take the route Amex specifies.

Strictly separate are policies bought separately — comprehensive travel cover, ticket insurance, hospital cash, accident and phone insurance. Arranged through Amex but taken out independently of the card, they run through AXA, Chubb, Mehrwerk or Assurant depending on the product. Using the wrong channel costs weeks.

The deadlines are where claims die

The most important section of this article. The Platinum Card insurance terms (version dated 1 January 2025) set out concrete deadlines under "Requirements for assistance and obligations in the event of a claim":

• 30 days for the basic notification. You must inform the relevant insurer or the assistance service provider fully and truthfully within 30 days of any circumstance that could give rise to a liability to pay. What you report is the circumstance, not the finished, fully documented claim.
• 15 days for baggage delay, where the notification period is expressly shortened.
• 48 hours for a death by accident, even if the accident itself was already reported.
• 48 hours to report loss or theft of personal belongings to the nearest police station or to your transport or accommodation provider, and to obtain a report. The same applies to damage occurring while your baggage is in a transport provider's care.
• 30 days to return the claim form, if one is sent to you.

On top of that comes the statutory limitation period: claims lapse after three years, counted from the end of the year in which the claim arose and you became aware of it. While your claim is registered with the insurer, that period is suspended until the decision reaches you in text form.

These figures come from the current Platinum booklet. For Gold, Green, Blue or a co-branded card they may differ, and Amex revises the booklets. What binds is the document for your card, not this article.

Where to find your policy document

Two official routes, neither requiring a phone call. The Amex Germany customer service area has a page listing the insurance and membership terms as PDFs sorted by card product — Blue, Green, Gold, Platinum, Payback, BMW, Sixt and others. The insurance portal in the logged-in area shows the benefits attached to your card and lets you download your insurance certificates.

Save the PDF locally once. In a claim you need three things from it: the deadlines, the list of documents to submit, and the assistance provider's emergency number on page 3.

Before you file: the checklist

The terms include a "general" section listing what is required in practically every travel claim. Have these together before you open the form:

• Your card number — it is your insurance number.
• Proof that you were on a trip paid for with the card. Booking confirmation plus the matching card statement.
• Original third-party invoices. Copies suffice only if a third party is processing the same case in parallel.
• The treating doctor's name and their release from confidentiality for anything medical. Without it the insurer cannot assess the case.
• A police report, if the police were involved.
• Your bank details with IBAN and BIC. Reimbursement is transferred, not credited to the card.
• Proof of how much third parties have already paid — airline, health insurer, tour operator.

That last point follows from a hard clause: apart from accident cover, the card insurances apply strictly on a secondary basis. They pay only where no third party is obliged to pay, or where a third party's payment was insufficient. Concealing what someone else already paid does not just delay a claim, it endangers it.

The process, step by step

1. Limit the loss. The first obligation is to avert and mitigate the damage where possible: actually cancel the hotel that is still free to cancel, accept the airline's alternative transport. Failing to do so produces costs nobody reimburses.
2. Make the immediate reports. Police or transport provider within 48 hours, the airline straight away for missing baggage, each with a written report. You cannot obtain these later.
3. File with the right insurer. Via the Amex claims page to the correct portal, then open a case and note its number.
4. Upload the documents. Receipts, photos and cost estimates attach directly in the portal. Completeness beats speed — queries cost more time than a day of gathering.
5. Wait for the decision and challenge it if necessary. Europ Assistance states in the terms that a claim assessment may be fully automated. Expressly guaranteed is your right to an explanation of the decision, to contest it and to demand personal review by a member of staff. Against an unjustified rejection, insist on precisely that.

Amex states no reliable processing time in its public documents. Rely on your case number and on following up, not on week counts circulating online.

Illness or accident abroad

One rule differs from every other claim type, and overlooking it is expensive: you do not report afterwards, you call first.

The Platinum terms require you to contact the assistance service provider as promptly as possible on accident or illness during the trip. The provider arranges the doctor's visit, hospital admission and treatment, and pays the necessary costs approved by its senior medical officer. Then comes the sentence that matters: all costs must be approved in advance by the assistance service provider. Getting treated first and submitting an invoice afterwards puts you outside the intended process.

The emergency number is on page 3 of your booklet, staffed around the clock. For repatriation, the provider's senior medical officer decides whether it is medically sensible and justifiable.

For settlement you need, beyond the general checklist, medical certificates and invoices detailing the treatment and the costs, plus all unused tickets. Nothing moves without your doctor's release from confidentiality.

On timing, since it is frequently searched for: the public Platinum terms state no separate, shorter deadline for medical cases. The general 30-day notification applies — alongside the duty to involve the assistance service at the moment of treatment. In doubt, the deadline in your own policy document governs.

Trip cancellation and non-departure

The most common case, and the one with the most avoidable mistakes. The order is not optional: cancel with the provider first, then file. The terms expressly exclude additional costs arising because you failed to inform the provider promptly that cancellation was necessary. Asking the insurer first and losing two days means paying the higher cancellation tier yourself.

Second: for medical grounds you need a certificate from a doctor who is not a close relative, confirming that cancellation was necessary because of your condition. A certificate that merely records sick leave is what sends cases into the follow-up loop.

Required are medical certificates, unused tickets or travel vouchers, the booking and cancellation invoice from the travel company, independent documentation for non-medical grounds, and — for e-tickets — confirmation from the airline that the flight was not taken and how much, if anything, was refunded.

Baggage: loss, damage, delay

Three different cases with three different requirements.

• Loss or theft: report within 48 hours to the nearest police station or to the transport or accommodation provider, and obtain a report. Processing requires that report, proof of ownership and, where applicable, the damaged items.
• Damage while in a transport provider's care: likewise report within 48 hours and request a report. Unpacking the suitcase at home and complaining afterwards breaches this obligation.
• Delay: the shortened 15-day period applies. Required is the airline's written confirmation of the reason and duration — the Property Irregularity Report — plus the time the baggage was recovered. You must also have reported it missing at the destination immediately and done everything sensible to recover it. Only items immediately necessary for the trip are reimbursed.

Rental car: do you pay first?

The car was booked through a rental company, there is a scratch — do you pay out of pocket and claim it back? As a rule, yes. The Platinum cover is expressly secondary: the exclusions state that the provider pays only after the insurances contained in the rental agreement, naming the excess explicitly. The rental company charges you under its own terms, and the card cover responds to what you are left carrying — including the excess, regardless of fault. The condition is that the rental was paid for with the card; the deductible you bear yourself is in your booklet.

On the frequently searched "zero excess" scenario: if you booked cover with no excess at the desk, no reimbursable loss arises — and the card insurance pays nothing for it. The economic point of the card cover is precisely to let you decline the rental company's expensive add-on. How that plays out at the counter is covered in the article on rental car insurance through credit cards.

One clause is easy to breach under stress at the scene: if you admit liability in whole or in part, negotiate, make promises or pay without the provider's prior consent, the resulting costs are excluded. Sign nothing containing an admission of liability.

Submit the rental agreement, the accident report, medical certificates, a copy of the driving licence, the repair invoice and the police report.

Does the trip have to be paid for with the card?

Yes — and more precisely than many assume. The Platinum travel benefits are headed "valid only when the card is used", and the terms define a trip as one paid for with the card outside your home country, or one paid for with the card at home that includes a flight or at least one pre-booked overnight stay away from home.

That also answers whether it is enough that only the hotel went on the card. The cancellation cover applies to the unused travel, accommodation, excursions and leisure activities paid for with the Platinum Card that were pre-booked and are non-refundable. Cover follows the individual paid items: hotel on the Amex, flight on another card, and the hotel portion is the insured loss — the flight is not.

Cancellation and delay at the same time?

Can cancellation costs and compensation for travel inconvenience be claimed together from one event? They are formally separate covers with different risk carriers — cancellation with Europ Assistance, travel inconvenience with Chubb. Two clauses limit the combination. First, the secondary basis: cover responds only where no third party is liable, or a third party's payment was insufficient. Second, travel inconvenience covers amounts only where a third party's reimbursement — the airline's, for instance — was not enough, and the cancellation section excludes costs recoverable from providers, booking agencies, compensation schemes or your card provider.

Two different loss items from one event can both be reimbursable, but the same euro only once. File both openly and evidence what third parties have covered.

If the claim is refused

Start with the insurer. Chubb names its own complaints address and undertakes to reply within ten working days; Europ Assistance acknowledges receipt within ten working days and replies within two months at the latest. Describe precisely what you disagree with, and quote your contract and claim numbers.

If that leads nowhere, the German Insurance Ombudsman in Berlin is open to you — a free out-of-court procedure. Where Chubb is the insurer, the terms state jurisdiction up to a value in dispute of currently EUR 100,000 and an undertaking to accept decisions up to EUR 10,000. BaFin is the competent supervisor, and the courts remain open. On the service contact itself there is a separate article.

Other issuing countries, other process

A note that expressly does not apply to German cards: Amex insurance is a separate product per issuing country, with its own insurers, deadlines and filing routes.

• United States: for Trip Cancellation and Interruption Insurance the group policy is issued by New Hampshire Insurance Company, an AIG company. The official Guide to Benefits requires you to notify the administrator within sixty days of the event, and gives a dedicated number for opening a claim.
• United Kingdom: travel insurance on the UK Platinum Card is underwritten, per the UK insurance documentation, by Europ Assistance S.A. UK Branch, with its own British claim centre.

Applying the German 30-day deadline to a US card would be an expensive mistake — and the reverse just as much. What governs is the documentation for your card's country of issue.

Conclusion

The Amex claims process is not secret knowledge, but it is unforgiving about delay. Three things decide it: report the circumstance within the deadline even if not every document is in yet; obtain the reports you can only get on the spot — police, airline, rental company — within 48 hours; and when you fall ill abroad, call the assistance service before costs arise, not afterwards.

Everything else is paperwork. The deadlines are the real opponent.

Sources: American Express Germany, "Schadensmeldung — Versicherungsfall melden" (americanexpress.com/de/versicherungen/schadenfall.html); American Express Germany, FAQ "Wo finde ich die Versicherungsbedingungen für meine Kreditkarte?" and the insurance portal; American Express, "Die Platinum Card — Informationen und Versicherungsbedingungen", version CAM 7254 dated 1 January 2025 (policy number IB2500424DECO8); American Express US, "Guide to Benefits — Trip Cancellation and Interruption Insurance"; American Express UK, "Your Insurance Documentation — The Platinum Card".