Why we sometimes freeze accounts

Opening the app to find your account frozen isn't the best experience for our customers. We know it can be annoying, so here's a little bit of background into why it happens.

Invalid vehicle photos

The most common freeze we deal with at Cuvva is for what we call "unacceptable vehicle photos".

With most temporary car insurance policies, we'll need a photo that shows the full front of the vehicle. There are a few reasons we ask for this.

For one thing, we need to make sure our customers are insuring the right vehicle. For another, our underwriters like to see the condition of the vehicle you're insuring. And finally, it helps to have that kind of evidence if someone needs to make a claim.

If the photo isn't quite right - if we can't see the front of the vehicle, or it's blurry, for example - then we'll freeze the account and ask for a new photo.

Once we've got a nice, new, crystal-clear photo, we'll unfreeze the account.

Most of the time, account freezes are temporary. But if the same person sends us loads of bad photos, we might have to freeze the account permanently.

Security

Account security is something we take really seriously. That's why we don't use passwords.

And, because each Cuvva account belongs to just one person - and nobody else is allowed to use it - we freeze the account if we think someone other than the account owner is using it.

This helps us make sure people don't break the rules. And it stops people sneaking into other people's accounts.

Payment card activity

(Update: you can now use other people's cards to buy Cuvva policies. As long as you're the one doing the driving.)

You can only use your own payment card to buy a Cuvva policy (for now). So if we see that someone's using other people's cards to buy a policy, we temporarily freeze that account.

Once a customer sends us a photo of their payment card (with the first 12 digits covered up), we'll unfreeze the account again.

We also sometimes freeze accounts that raise chargebacks. But we never do this to stop someone legitimately getting their money back. We only freeze an account for chargebacks if we think someone is doing it fraudulently.

Modified vehicle

We can't insure modified vehicles. And that's because modifications can make things tricky if someone needs to make a claim.

To make sure our customers don't get stuck if they do need to make a claim, we don't insure modified vehicles.

("Modifications" have a pretty broad definition. Pretty much any change - like changing the vehicles, or big cosmetic changes - can be called a modification.)

We usually have to freeze an account permanently if someone tries to insure a modified vehicle.

False positives

Sometimes our systems will freeze an account, but when we look into it we find out the system made a mistake.

This doesn't happen very much. But when it does, we'll unfreeze your account straight away once you get in touch with customer support.

Freezing accounts keeps Cuvva safe and secure for our customers

When we freeze an account, it's always for a good reason. We're protecting our customers (and ourselves), and it also keeps customer accounts more secure. We're regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, and we're always acting on advice from them and our very own in-house Fraud team.

We're always trying to give the best customer experience, and we understand that a frozen account is frustrating, but we're determined to keep Cuvva safe.