How to get 2 free insurance benefits with SMBC NL and Olive cards

I’ve been using SMBC NL (三井住友カード NL) for more than a year, but only recently did I notice a pretty big benefit I’d been overlooking: you can choose free insurance (選べる無料保険).

To add a bit of context, SMBC NL is a credit card with no annual fee, so this insurance bonus is honestly quite valuable.

You can choose 1 of the following 7 insurance plans:

1. Travel

2. Phone (cracked, broken, lost)

3. Daily liability (e.g., bicycle collision / 自転車保険)

4. Lawyer

5. Golf

6. Traffic accidents

7. Personal belongings

You can check the coverage details and benefit amounts for each plan here:
https://www.smbc-card.com/mem/service/hoken/eraberu-hoken.jsp

Default isn’t always the best

When you apply for the card, the Travel insurance is enabled by default.

But here’s a small catch: to use this insurance, you need to pay with your SMBC NL card for an expense related to getting around during your trip (for example, train, bus, plane tickets…).

For me:

• these kinds of payments don’t earn particularly good cashback with SMBC

• and I don’t travel that often

→ so in reality, Travel insurance wasn’t that useful for me.

So what did I choose?

Instead, I switched to plan number 3—liability insurance (bicycle).

Recently, Japan has tightened its rules on bicycles. And if you end up causing an accident, the compensation costs can be extremely high.
Having this insurance available makes me feel much more at ease.

One more great point is:
👉 this plan can also cover family members (depending on the applicable conditions).

Up your game: add an Olive card

This is where it gets really interesting.

You can additionally apply for an Olive card (Olive フレキシブルペイ)—which is also part of the SMBC ecosystem.
The benefits are quite similar to SMBC NL, and most importantly:

👉 you can also choose 1 of the same 7 insurance types

So if you have both cards:

• SMBC NL → choose 1 insurance plan

• Olive → choose another insurance plan

👉 you’ll effectively have 2 insurance types at the same time, and both are free of an annual fee.

This isn’t some “loophole”—it’s simply making the most of the way the SMBC system is designed: each card comes with its own selection.

Even without counting the insurance, SMBC NL is still worth keeping

Even if I ignore the insurance benefit, I still think this is one of the best no-annual-fee credit cards in Japan.

Simply put, it’s great for:
👉 cashback for dining out and convenience stores—using it day to day makes the difference very clear.

I wrote the details here:
https://dealjp.com/blog/best-free-credit-cards-in-japan-no-annual-fee

Bottom line

In Japan, free credit cards usually have very limited insurance benefits.
But with this combo, you can build two truly useful insurance types for yourself—without paying any extra cost.

If you’re using SMBC and still leaving Travel insurance on the default setting, there’s a good chance you’re missing out on valuable benefits.

P.S. 1,000-yen bonus when you apply for Olive

If you register in the order below, you’ll receive 1,000 points (~1,000 yen) from the referral program:

[Olive Account Referral Program – SMBC]

Follow these steps:

Step 1: Enter the referral code and apply
Referral code: FF00681-4689124
Link:
https://www.smbc.co.jp/kojin/redirect/referral04/index.html

Step 2: After opening your Olive account, deposit funds so that your balance reaches at least 10,000 yen by the end of the following month

Olive application link:
https://www.smbc.co.jp/kojin/cmn/dl/smbcapp_01.html

See the program details:
https://www.smbc.co.jp/kojin/redirect/referral/entry04/index.html

After you apply, you can also refer friends to earn additional points 👍