Cuvva doesn’t currently allow the use of third-party cards in any circumstance.

The definition of a third party card is any payment card that does not belong to you and is not in your name ie; a friend or family member’s card.

So why don’t we currently allow people to use them, even if you know the person? Mainly, because it carries a risk of chargebacks.

Chargebacks are when someone sees ‘Cuvva’ on their bank statement and then get in contact with their bank to dispute the payment. Some situations where this might happen:

• A friend lends you their card to purchase a policy but forget about it when they check their bank balance.
• You use a friend/family member’s card to purchase a policy. The next time you use Cuvva you forget it’s their card on your account and purchase another policy without realising it.

The above examples are technically fine but end up in causing an issue for our customers as they will no longer be able to purchase another policy with us until the issue is resolved. Which due to how some bank systems work, can be a number of weeks.

Most importantly, there are some people who use third-party card without the card holder’s permission - these are the people who we want to prevent. We have a handy fraud system in place to catch these people out, although there are some people that slip through the net.

We do completely understand that sometimes you might need to use a friend or family member’s card, especially as a younger user of our services. However, as is the nature of insurance companies, we have to be extra careful that we catch the genuine rule-breakers on our app who are using cards that they really shouldn’t be. We are working very hard to build a smooth and painless process that would allow our users to use a friend or family member’s card and show that they have permission. We’re not quite sure how that will work yet exactly, but hope to roll it out within the next year.