Manage your life cover policy

How can I find out more about my policy?

If you’d like to know more about your policy, you can go to MyAviva and register or log in. This is where you’ll find:

• Policy information, including terms and conditions
• Policy documents
• Payment details, including amounts and collection dates
• Cover amount and term
• Policy start and end date

If you can't find what you need in MyAviva – which can depend on things like when you took your policy out - you can get in touch online or by phone.

When's my policy due to finish, and what happens when it ends?

You can find the policy end date by logging in to MyAviva. When the policy ends, your cover stops, and we won’t collect any more premiums.

Some of my personal details have changed. How do I let you know?

If you’d like to change your home address, email address or phone number, you may be able to make that update in MyAviva. If not – maybe because you have a few policies with us, it’s a joint policy, or it’s in a Trust – just contact us, and we’ll make that change for you.

Protecting your personal details is important to us. Here’s how we use your information.

How can I change my payments?

If you’d like to change your payment details, including when you pay it, or make a payment you missed, just get in touch with us.

I’m struggling with my monthly payments, can I pay a lower amount?

The cost-of-living crisis continues to cause everyday struggles with covering household bills. If paying your monthly premiums is a challenge right now, we'll support you as best we can. 

The cost of most of our policies can be reduced. For example, you could lower the amount of cover you have or shorten how long the policy runs for. However, this depends on the type of cover you have. You can always contact us to discuss your options.

For more help with managing your finances, you can speak to a financial adviser. There’s also free and impartial support, guides and tools on the Money Helper website.

What if I’m having a short-term financial worries?

This can happen from time to time, for example if you’re:

• in between jobs with a known start date
• having to pay more on bills for a certain time, such as heating costs over the winter
• on temporary unpaid leave to provide short-term care for a family member.

You may be able to take a three month break from paying your payments (a payment deferral) while keeping all your current benefits and level of cover in place. You'd then make up any payments later. If you want to see if we can arrange this for you, get in touch.

How often should I review my cover?

When big changes happen in life, it’s worth making sure your life insurance keeps up by still protecting you and your loved ones to the level you need. You might decide you need to adjust how much cover you have, perhaps to reflect:

• higher or lower mortgage or rent payments
• getting married or forming a civil partnership
• becoming a parent or having more children
• changes to how much you earn
• ending a marriage, civil partnership or other long-term relationship

You may be able to take a three month break on your payment(s) and make up the payment(s) later. This is called a 'payment deferral'. If you’re able to take a payment deferral, you would remain covered ⁠– keeping your current benefits and level of cover.

You can usually make changes to your policy without having to cancel and take out a new one. This includes:

•  increasing or decreasing how much you’re covered for
• changing how long your cover lasts

You can always get in touch to understand your options.

I’m struggling to pay my monthly payments. What can I do?

If you’re finding it tough to keep up with your monthly payments (sometimes known as premiums) we’re here to offer a helping hand.

Reducing your payments

You can tweak most of our policies to help lower your monthly payments. What changes you can make depends on the type of cover you have. It might involve reducing the amount of cover you’ve got or shortening how long you’re protected for. You can contact us to discuss your options or you can fill in our policy change form to tell us what you’d like to change.

Our cost of living support scheme

Our cost of living scheme can help shrink your monthly payments by reducing your cover amount (which is how much your policy pays out for a successful claim). This scheme is open to most customers who bought their policy after 14th November 2016 and whose policy number starts with the prefix 'BPL'.

If you took out your policy before this date, have an Over 50 Life Insurance policy, or your policy number has a different prefix, you can contact us to discuss your options and how we can help you. How the scheme works:

1. If you're looking at your finances due to the cost of living squeeze, we can chat about the changes you can make to lower your payments, and the things you might want to consider first. To start this off you can give us a call on 0800 285 1098 or complete our online quote request. We'll then send you a quote and details of the support available to you.
2. Should you decide to go ahead straight away, or after taking financial advice, we’ll sort everything out and confirm the changes to you.
   
3. After around a year, we’ll remind you of the cover you have in place. You’ll then have the chance to buy a top-up policy to take your total cover closer to or back up to your previous level. Topping up is a simple process with just a few medical questions. If you don’t want to top up at this point, we’ll contact you a second time around two years after you first reduced your cover.
4. You can increase your cover at any time, or extend it beyond your original cover level, by going through our standard cover application.

When you top up your cover, we can only offer an equivalent policy that’s available at the time. Whilst this will be broadly similar, it might be different in price, eligibility and terms and conditions to the policy you have at the moment.

For all the details, find out more about our cost of living scheme.

Taking a payment break

If you're experiencing a short-term financial blip, you may be able to pause your payments for three months and pay that money back later whilst still keeping your policy in place. This is called a payment deferral and is available to all customers.

Examples of a short-term financial difficulty are: 

•  You’re in-between jobs with a known future start-date
•  You’re on temporary unpaid leave to provide short-term care for a family member
• If you’re able to take a three month payment deferral, your benefits and level of cover won’t change. 

Permanent policy changes

If you want to make a permanent change to your policy to reduce your monthly payments, you can alter most of our policies in some way to help do this. What changes you can make depends on the type of cover you have, but most policies will allow you decrease your cover (and monthly payments) or apply for more cover. It’s likely that you’ll also be able to shorten how long you’re protected for. If you’d like to request a permanent policy change you can complete our online form or speak to one of our helpful advisers.

Thinking of leaving us?

You can cancel your policy by speaking to us or by completing our online form, but it’s important to make sure you’ve explored all the other options at your fingertips first. It’s worth noting that the biggest factor impacting the cost of most Life, Critical Illness and Income Protection policies is your age at taking out the policy, so cancelling a policy now to help to save some money and then buying another policy later may mean that you end up paying more for the same level of cover. Speaking to a financial adviser can help arm you with the information you need to make an informed decision. If you don’t already have an adviser, you can find one online at unbiased.co.uk.

Contact us

Get in touch with us to talk about the support available to you. To discuss your particular situation and how we may be able to help, please contact us.

More money help

You can find free and impartial support, guides, and tools on the Money Helper website

Do I need to let you know if my health changes?

If you have a life insurance or critical illness cover policy, you don’t need to let us know about any changes to your health after your policy’s started.

As long as you answered the application questions truthfully and correctly when you applied for the policy, and told us about any changes that happened before we confirmed cover would start, that's all we need to know.

I've changed how much I smoke. Will this affect my policy?

Usually, if you've stopped or started smoking since you took out your policy, you don’t need to tell us about it, as it won’t affect your policy, or what you pay. That’s provided you answered the application questions accurately when you first took the policy out. But you should still check your policy conditions, as they’ll mention if it’s something your particular policy requires.

Can I cancel my cover?

You can – but before you do, it’s important to know that cancelling completely isn’t your only option. There are a few other things you can do to make sure your cover works for you.

You should explore all your options before you cancel, because if you need to take out a new policy later on, the cover could be more expensive as you age or your health has changed.

If you're thinking of cancelling because you’re experiencing short term financial difficulty, for example:

• You’re in-between jobs with a known future start-date, or
• You’re on temporary unpaid leave to provide short-term care for a family member

You may be able to take a three month break on your payment(s) and make up the payment(s) later. This is called a 'payment deferral'. If you’re able to take a payment deferral, you would remain covered ⁠– keeping your current benefits and level of cover.

It’s a good idea to speak to your financial adviser first to double check it’s the right thing to do – and if you don’t have one, it’s easy to find one online. They’ll be able to help you get the details you need to make an informed decision and can talk you through your other options so that whatever happens, you’re protected.

If you’ve thought about your options and definitely want to cancel, fill out our online form or give us a call and let us know. We’ll get the ball rolling, and if you change your mind afterwards and want to keep your cover, that’s totally fine. As long as you let us know within 30 days, we should be able to restore it in most instances. We won’t charge you anything to do this, as long as you pay any outstanding premiums, and nothing’s happened during that time that you could have made a claim for.

My policy’s been cancelled. Can I restart it?

We can restart most policies if it’s no more than 30 days after it was cancelled, and we won’t charge a fee – as long as you pay any outstanding premiums, and nothing’s happened during that time that you’d have made a claim for.

If you’d like to restart your policy, just contact us and we’ll do our best to get things back up and running for you.

Its easy to make a claim on a life cover policy — and we’re here to help every step of the way.

Need to make a claim? You can make a claim online.

Got a question around an existing claim? Contact us online.

Haven’t found the answers you need here? Contact us online or call us, and we’ll be happy to help.

We’re committed to treating our customers fairly, so if you have any concerns you’d like to tell us about, here’s how you can make a complaint.