How to cancel Royal London life insurance depends on the plan: under the Personal Menu Plan you contact Royal London and can end a single cover or the whole plan it sits under. Its plan details say there is no cash-in value "at any time", and premiums come back only if you cancel within 30 days of receiving your cover summary and plan details.

Ending the Royal London cover to move elsewhere? An FCA-authorised broker can set a replacement beside your Royal London plan on a free call; request that conversation via the form on this page.

Personal Menu Plan or ex-Aegon policy: which rules apply?

Royal London's rules depend on the plan. This guide follows two customer booklets: the July 2025 plan details for the Personal Menu Plan Life or Critical Illness Cover, and the May 2025 policy conditions for a Whole of Life policy that Royal London took over from Scottish Equitable (Aegon). The two disagree on some points, so find your own plan name on your cover summary or policy schedule before relying on either.

Royal London lists the businesses it has bought or rebranded, from Friends Provident to Scottish Provident, and its page for existing customers sends each to its own enquiry route. An older policy from one of those names may carry its own wording, and a broker can go through your paperwork with you free of charge.

If you are asking because someone has died, you are probably not cancelling anything: see what a family does after a Royal London policyholder dies.

What happens between asking and the cover ending?

Under the Personal Menu Plan the sequence runs like this:

  1. You contact Royal London. The booklet's opening summary mentions writing to the address on page 4, while its general terms say you can cancel "by contacting us".
  2. Royal London tells you the date the cover will end and whether you need to pay a final premium.
  3. If you cancel after the first 30 days, the cover continues until the day your next premium would be due, so you stay covered until then.

The booklet gives a worked example. A plan started on 1 February, with the premium collected on the 15th of each month, is cancelled on 10 April. Royal London still collects the premium due on 1 April, because it became payable before the request, takes it on 15 April because that is the collection day chosen, and then ends the cover on 1 May. If you do not pay the final premium, the cover is cancelled from the date that premium was due, and no claim is paid.

The booklet's page 4 lists a phone number, an email address and a postal address, with a second Edinburgh address that took over from September 15th 2025. Check the current details on your own paperwork before you write or ring. Whether your plan also accepts a request through your online account, or by phone alone, is something Royal London can confirm, and the broker rings you back to help with that question.

Will you get money back, and is there a surrender value?

When you cancelWhat the Personal Menu Plan booklet says
Within 30 days of receiving your cover summary and plan detailsRoyal London refunds the premiums you have paid.
After 30 daysThe cover ends and you get nothing back.

As for cashing in, the same booklet puts it in one sentence: "Your cover, and the plan that it is under, have no cash-in value at any time." Royal London's Whole of Life product page makes the same point for its current Whole of Life plan. The ex-Aegon Whole of Life conditions agree on the result: after the 30 days, "If you cancel your policy we will not pay out the sum insured and you will not get anything back."

So for these plans, ending the cover means cancelling it; there is no surrender value to claim. For the wider picture, read whether any life policy can be cashed in and what cancelling does in general.

Who has to sign for a joint, trust or assigned plan?

The Personal Menu Plan booklet says: "If the plan that your cover is under is jointly owned, both owners must give us notice." For a plan under trust, or one whose rights were assigned, the trustees or assignee must give written notice.

So the person who wrote the plan into trust may not be the one who can end it. Trustee rules are in cancelling a policy held in trust, and separating couples can start with joint life insurance after divorce.

What about the direct debit and cancelling only one cover?

You may want to tell your bank to stop the direct debit, but the booklet says only to do that "if you intend to cancel all of the covers under your plan". If you cancel only some covers, Royal London says it will "automatically reduce the amount we collect once those covers have been cancelled."

The ex-Aegon conditions add that where a contract holds more than one policy, "you may be able to cancel one or more of those policies without having to cancel all of them." Which of your covers can be separated depends on your own schedule.

What if you simply stop paying?

The two booklets set different limits, so do not assume yours matches a friend's.

  • Personal Menu Plan: if a premium is five weeks overdue, Royal London cancels the plan. It writes to tell you, and you can ask it to restart the plan.
  • Ex-Aegon Whole of Life: you have 30 days from the due date. After that Royal London cancels the policy, and it "might agree to restart the insurance, although we do not have to do this."

In both, a restart can involve questions about the health of the person covered; the Personal Menu Plan booklet says there "may be times when we can't restart your plan". The ex-Aegon conditions add that a restart means paying all the missed payments, and that it might cost more if the insured person's circumstances have changed.

How do you cancel a policy that came from Aegon?

Royal London's Whole of Life conditions say it acquired this business from Scottish Equitable (Aegon) on 4 April 2023 and that the transfer was finalised on 1 July 2024; its Aegon page warns that "your policy records aren't available online." Its page for these policies has a form for "a claim or general enquiry", with options for a claims query or a general query. Your own policy conditions list the contact details for your policy, so start there.

Those May 2025 conditions say that after the first 30 days you can cancel at any time by contacting Royal London, and they give a phone line, an email address and a Sunderland postal address for questions about the policy.

The documents side of this is in finding Royal London policy documents.

Are you cancelling to replace the cover?

Whether to end a policy turns on why it was taken out and what, if anything, would take its place. A replacement means a new application; Royal London's Whole of Life page, for example, tells applicants to expect medical questions and possibly a medical examination before cover starts. If replacing the cover is the aim, how to switch life insurance companies covers the steps.

To compare a replacement against your Royal London cover, a broker will do that on the call-back requested through this page's form, free of charge.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to pay one last premium when I cancel?

Under the Personal Menu Plan, Royal London says it will tell you "whether you need to pay a final premium", and unpaid, the cover is cancelled from the date that premium was due. Whether anything else is charged on your plan is one for Royal London.

Can I get my premiums back after a year?

Under both booklets, refunds apply only inside the first 30 days. After that, cancelling stops future premiums and returns nothing.

Will cancelling one cover on my plan end the lot?

Not necessarily. The Personal Menu Plan booklet lets you cancel "your cover or the plan that it is under", so say which you mean when you contact Royal London.

Can the policy be revived once cancelled?

If Royal London cancelled it for a missed premium, you can ask it to restart, subject to the points above. If you chose to cancel yourself, whether a restart is possible is a question for Royal London, and the broker can ask it for you.

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