Insurance cancellation (Aviva)

bugbabe1970

Sorry if this has been answered before but I have tried to find a thread on it without success!

Does anyone know if I can cancel car insurance that is paid by direct debit and what the penalties are? I have paid a months worth on a car insurance policy and now need to cancel. Will I have to pay what is owing on the policy or will it just be an admin fee? The policy is with Aviva.

Thanks all.

mattymoo

Cancellation terms are normally stated in the policy booklet.
There will be an admin charge.
The policy will also be calculated on short term rates. This means the premium is NOT pro-rata to the length of time the policy has run. In other words, it will not be 1/12 of the annual premium.
For 1 months cover you could be asked to pay as much as 25% of the overall cost (3 months premium) as all of the insurers costs are incurred at the outset and these need to be covered.
I'll have a little look and see if I can find it on the Aviva site.

EDIT - found some info on page 36 of this policy booklet - http://www.aviva.co.uk/library/pdfs/car/NMDOC5616.pdf (check to see if it is the same as yours).

It looks like Aviva will in fact work out the cost pro-rata (so roughly 1/12th) and then add an admin charge of up to £39.90.

Incidentally, I also noticed that Aviva do short term cover for 1 to 28 days. This may have been better for you if you knew you only needed cover for a few weeks. It's not clear from the original post whether this was your plan or you've had a change of circumstances.

bugbabe1970

Thanks so much for your reply.

It is due to a change in circumstances that i need to cancel the insurance.

Thanks again!