Insight 5% APY Prepaid Card on up to $5,000

Update 5/22/18: Insight card no longer comes with a 5% account – DEAD.

Originally posted on 3/31/16. Updated and reposted on 5/15/17: Insight card has changed over their backing bank from Axiom to Republic Bank. The 5% savings account is still live and kicking. But you’ll have open a new account since all accounts under Axiom Bank will stop earning 5% at the end of June. They aren’t automatically transferring the funds – you have to get the funds out of your old Axiom Insight account and separately put funds in your new Republic Insight account.

  • Interest Rate: 5% APY
  • Minimum Balance: $10
  • Maximum Balance: $5,000
  • Payments: Issued quarterly
  • Availability: Nationwide
  • Direct deposit required: No
  • Additional Requirements: None
  • Hard/soft pull: Soft
  • Credit card funding: No
  • Monthly fees: None (use pay-as-you-go plan)
  • Insured: FDIC
  • Length of promotion: Unknown (it’s been ongoing at least since the beginning of 2014)

The Offer

Direct Link

  • Open an Insight prepaid card and you’ll be eligible to open a connected Savings account with 5% APY interest rate
  • Max of $5,000 can be added to the Savings account
  • Interest is paid out quarterly

The Insight prepaid card is a Green Dot product and operated by Republic Bank of Chicago. You can read the official terms of the 5% account here (pdf). No hard pull is being done when opening the card, as is the case with most/all prepaid cards.

According to this Reddit thread, any money above $5k in the account will earn 5%, just the system doesn’t allow you to add more than $5k. If you earn interest, leave the interest in the account and you’ll earn 5%, despite it being more than $5k in the account.

Loading the Card

Load the card by sending money via ACH-push from your regular checking account or Paypal account. Simply add the prepaid card to your bank or to Paypal, same as attaching any bank account, and push money from there into the Insight account.

The routing number for Insight (the new version with Republic Bank of Chicago) is: 071025797. And your account number can be found in the login (Add Money > Direct Deposit).

Note: Often when pushing money from your bank or Paypal, they’ll do trial deposits and then pull those out. Insight won’t necessarily allow that pullback which might cause your bank not to allow you to complete the linking of that account. Best is if you can find a way to push funds without the trial deposit, e.g. real direct deposit, tax refund, maybe investment account (?), or similar.

Unloading the Card

Some people are nervous to put emergency savings in a prepaid card without know how they’ll get the money out. There are a few options for unloading including: bill pay, ACH-pull, buying money orders, and convenience check.

Before we dive into the details, remember that all unloading is done through the prepaid card; first transfer the money from the Savings to the Prepaid and then you can use one of these options to unload. Also, bear in mind that there may be some limits as to how much you withdraw per day, e.g. you might have to do $2,500 one day and $2,500 another day. Prepaid card often have these kinds of limits, though reports indicate that with Insight you can pull out the entire $5k at once (savings > checking > bank).

Bill Pay: There is a bill-pay option in the login, but I wasn’t able to easily find regular credit cards as payees. They may be lurking there somewhere, though.

ACH-Pull: The easiest option would be to use the routing and account numbers to ACH-pull money out of the account, either to your regular bank account or to pay a bill, e.g. a credit card bill. The card comes with a routing/account number and it should be possible to ACH-pull money out of the account. I’ve had success doing ACH-pulls multiple times.

Buy Money Orders: We can always unload by purchasing money orders from Walmart or wherever else they allow PIN-based debit cards to buy money orders. Some Insight transactions (e.g. bill pay) are limited to $2,500 per day and there may be such a limit on purchases as well.

Convenience Checks: For a small fee, you can unload through convenience checks. Looks like it will cost $7 to unload a full $5k from the account using convenience check; $5 to order the checks, and $1 per check (you’ll probably have to split it up into two $2,500 checks). It will also take time to execute.

Avoiding Fees

Like all similar prepaid cards, there are lots of fees if you use the card for purchases, transfers, or even a $1 fee for speaking to a live customer service agent.

Stick with the pay-as-you-go plan and there is no monthly fee.

If you don’t use the card for purchases or ATM withdrawals, and you manage your account online without calling up customer service, you should be able to keep it completely fee-free. Direct deposit, bill pay, and managing your account online are all free.

Inactivity Fee (90 Days)

One fee to be aware of is an inactivity fee of $3.95 when no purchases, cash withdrawals, or load transactions were made for 90-days. Automate a $1 transfer from your regular bank account to keep it fee-free.

The Fine Print

  • Interest is compounded daily and paid quarterly; if you close your Insight Savings before interest is credited, you will not receive the accrued interest
  • Interest rate is 4.88%, with an APY of 5%
  • When creating the savings account, the minimum amount to open the account is $10

Our Verdict

The Insight card is the best high-interest prepaid card now that Netspend limits us to just $1,000 in 5% earnings. The card also stacks up nicely among high-yield checking and savings accounts. See a full list of options and analysis in our post on Best High-Interest Savings Account.

 

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Jay
Jay (@guest_1208970)
June 18, 2021 17:31

Heads up, Just got an email from insight stating that they have closed my insight visa account, generated and mailed out a check reflecting my current savings balance plus a bonus check containing what would have been accrued interest through Sept 30th, 2021. I guess this ride is over for me now. Time to find something else.

Mike
Mike (@guest_1117184)
December 26, 2020 00:17

It’s becoming 1% since August statement.

kozak
kozak (@guest_965624)
April 27, 2020 09:09

I opened an insight account online at the start of the year, and it’s paying 5%

Himi
Himi (@guest_987243)
May 27, 2020 01:13

Hi kozak, can you please confirm if its still working?

Melissa Vega
Melissa Vega (@guest_806284)
September 4, 2019 20:30

This bank is the shittiest bank I ever have in my whole life I work for my money very hard so they a****** can take my money away whenever they want they have too many fees two meaning I do not recommend this bank to nobody you’ll regret this bank if you do apply good luck on your fees they charge a lot of fees

Tag234
Tag234 (@guest_747225)
April 11, 2019 10:43

For those who still have their Insight accounts and have maybe stopped using it: I did receive my 5% for January through March. This is after they removed all mention of the interest rate on the Savings eStatement page.

schola
schola (@guest_963484)
April 24, 2020 00:32

Does anyone see any way to get their savings transferred back to the card? It looks like the option to transfer from prepaid card to savings (and back to card) are no longer on the website. 5% did credit for Jan. to March 2020 though.

storm
storm (@guest_964273)
April 25, 2020 01:38

After you login, use this link: https://www.insightvisa.com/savings/transfer
Please do NOT contact customer support unless necessary as we don’t want to kill this golden goose.

Bear
Bear (@guest_966027)
April 27, 2020 17:08

I called customer support before seeing this information, was told that savings account still works and earns the 5% APY, but any transfers should be done over the phone with a rep. I will try using the link also, but it seems the account is not officially dead at least not according to this one rep.

Bear
Bear (@guest_966031)
April 27, 2020 17:09

Oh, I also have a second insight card account which still have the Savings link displayed in the website after I log-in. That account was opened locally instead of online, maybe only the ones opened online have the link hidden.

schola
schola (@guest_967916)
April 30, 2020 00:30

Thank you! Only 1 of my accounts remains enrolled in savings; the others say the account is not enrolled in savings, even when using the link.

Andre
Andre (@guest_724729)
February 20, 2019 12:13

Anyone get their 2018 1099s from Insight?

Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes (@guest_724736)
February 20, 2019 12:21

Yes,a combined 1099 covering the 3 accounts I had with Insight last year. Comes from Republic Bank of Chicago and received in January.

Andre
Andre (@guest_724741)
February 20, 2019 12:28

Thanks. Didn’t receive mine or my spouses. Trying to get a hold of someone. Anyone have a phone number for Inisght that doesn’t require a card number?

jz
jz (@guest_732678)
March 9, 2019 19:22

called and I was able to find the interest earned in 2018. That’s pretty much what you need to file your tax. I aslo asked them to mail me the 1099R tax form.

QCP
QCP (@guest_709564)
January 21, 2019 19:12

Still going strong on the account I opened online with them before this ended. They’ve updated their website though and no longer allow you to download/print monthly savings statements. It’s just a rudimentary transaction register in the browser as far as I can tell, with no indication of whether or not interest is still accruing.

Tristan Jones
Tristan Jones (@guest_718990)
February 7, 2019 17:20

If you click Savings Terms and Conditions at the bottom of the page, the downloaded PDF document states “SECTION 3: ANNUAL PERCENTAGE YIELD AND INTEREST RATE. The interest rate for your Insight Savings is 4.88% with an Annual Percentage Yield of 5.00%.”

Looks like it was last updated 1/29/2018

Sam
Sam (@guest_650941)
October 3, 2018 15:45

For accounts that weren’t closed, has anyone got the interest to post for Q3’18 at the end of September?

Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes (@guest_650978)
October 3, 2018 16:41

Yes, my interest posted for the months of July, August and Sept.

lm
lm (@guest_613150)
July 5, 2018 10:39

Just a data point. I wasn’t making time to call Insight…which I always have to do to log in if I haven’t logged in recently (and I have to ask them to refund the $1 for calling). Today I got a text saying my $10 card load was received (I had it set automatically to push and pull $10 from Citi every so often to avoid fee) and my card balance was 5324 so since I knew my exact balance and it no longer had to be transferred from savings to the card I just scheduled my bank to pull it out. I scheduled Chase to pull $10 in my 2nd Insight so hopefully it will text me the balance of that account.

I’ve been pouring over the other list of high interest options and nothing really works for me with all that spend. So disappointing. Where is everyone moving the funds?

Eric
Eric (@guest_611565)
July 2, 2018 09:14

So, it appears all the money in my Insight account has been moved to my Insight card. What’s the best way to transfer that money from the card back into one of my bank accounts?

Ann
Ann (@guest_611590)
July 2, 2018 10:12

You can use your external bank website’s ACH that you used to push the money into Insight in the first place, to pull it back out now.

I recommend using the newer post https://www.doctorofcredit.com/insight-5-apy-account-will-officially-end-on-july-1st-your-best-alternatives/ for any further questions, this thread isn’t being paid much attention to anymore, you’re lucky I saw your reply here in the sitewide recent comments before it got pushed down.