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.