LIC Select Credit Card

Quick verdict: The LIC Select is the better of the two LIC cards, and because both are lifetime free the question is how much premium you pay rather than whether you spend enough to cover a fee. At 10 reward points per ₹125 on premium payments made the right way, ₹1 lakh of annual premium returns around ₹2,000 with no fee to offset it, and the base 5 points per ₹125 is a respectable 1% at home. The catches are familiar: the 2% applies only to premiums paid on LIC's own site and the Essentials rate is capped. Forex is no longer one of them, since IDFC removed the markup on all its cards in September 2026, but international spends earn no points from 26 October 2026. If your annual premium is small, the LIC Classic does the same job at a lower rate — and is also free.

Like its sibling, the LIC Select is a co-brand between IDFC FIRST Bank, LIC Cards and Mastercard, built to reward the one big recurring payment most policyholders make each year. Both cards are lifetime free; the Select is simply the higher tier, earning at roughly double the Classic's rate.

How it earns

The structure mirrors the Classic but at roughly double the rate.

• 10 reward points per ₹125 (~2%) on LIC premium payments — but only through LIC of India's official website.
• 5 reward points per ₹125 (~1%) on all other spends.
• The Essentials categories — groceries, utilities, railways, FASTag, education and government — also earn 5 per ₹125, but are capped at 600 points a month.

Points are worth ₹0.25 each and expire three years after they are earned. There are no points on rent, fuel, non-LIC insurance, cash withdrawals or EMIs.

Two details shape the real return. First, the 2% headline is tied to LIC's own payment page — pay the premium anywhere else and you're back to 1%. Second, the Essentials cap of 600 points a month means about ₹15,000 of that spend before the stream tops out; beyond it those spends effectively earn nothing extra. Neither is a dealbreaker, but both stop the card from being a general-purpose earner.

The Select has no fee to earn back, so premium size decides how much it returns rather than whether it is worth holding. A household paying ₹1 lakh in annual LIC premiums, routed through LIC's site, gets around ₹2,000 back for nothing. A household paying ₹15,000 gets less — but still gets it for nothing.

The perks

This is where the Select pulls clearly ahead of the Classic. You get 2 complimentary domestic airport lounge visits each quarter plus 4 railway lounge visits a quarter, a 1% fuel-surcharge waiver capped at ₹300, a complimentary insurance cover (₹5 lakh personal accident, ₹50,000 lost-card liability, purchase protection and credit shield of ₹25,000 each, travel-inconvenience cover of ₹4,000 a leg for 4 legs, ₹1 crore air-accident cover and roadside assistance), and a 2,000-point welcome bonus (worth ₹500) on ₹10,000 of spend in the first 30 days. There is no golf and no international lounge access, which is fair for the fee.

The lounge access is the standout: eight domestic and sixteen railway visits a year is genuinely useful and rare at this price. The lounges are domestic only, and the card is cheap rather than rewarding abroad: IDFC removed the forex markup on all its cards in September 2026 (Key Fact Statement dated 15 Sep 2026), so overseas spend costs nothing extra, but from 26 October 2026 it earns no points.

Select vs Classic

The decision between the two LIC cards is almost entirely about premium size.

The Select adds roughly 0.8% on premium spend and 0.4% on everything else, and since both cards are lifetime free the higher rate costs nothing extra. If your annual premium is above about ₹50,000, that difference alone makes the Select the stronger pick; below it, the LIC Classic is the sensible choice.

Who should hold it

The LIC Select suits the policyholder with large premiums who pays on LIC's official website. For that person it is a quietly efficient card that turns an unavoidable annual bill into a couple of thousand rupees back plus a useful stack of lounge visits.

It is the wrong card as your only card. For everyday earning a category rewards card beats it, for overseas spend a zero-markup card that still earns abroad does more (this one earns nothing there from 26 October 2026), and if you want a lifetime-free base card the FIRST Classic is the better foundation. Hold the Select for what it does best: making big LIC premiums pay you back.