The purpose of this paper is to provide an overall picture of the current investigation of insurance cancellation in the non-life business, taking into consideration the influence of intermediaries on customers' decisions using the systematic quantitative literature review method. This article identifies the most important factors that explain switching behaviour in non-life insurance. It also highlights the impact and responsibility of insurance companies' marketing strategies and tactics on insurance policy cancellations and customer churn. This research contributes to increasing scientific knowledge on insurance cancellation in the non-life business and to the development of actions to retain customers, with a higher level of effectiveness, improving the results of insurance companies and the performance of the industry.

PurposeThe insurance industry has not been able to effectively retain its customers and struggles to establish and maintain long-lasting relationships with them. The purpose of this paper is thus to identify the main factors that explain the cancellation of motor insurance policies by individual customers, considering the influence of intermediaries on their decisions.Design/methodology/approachThe data used in this research is based on a sample of 3,500 insurance policies that lapsed during the period of analysis between January and July 2017, against another sample of 3,500 policies that did not lapse, from a major insurance company in Portugal. Binary logistic regression was used for data analysis, using IBM SPSS software.FindingsAggressive tactics by insurance companies for customer acquisition may induce the cancellation of insurance policies. More valuable customers, the policies with higher premiums and recent claims, as well as the ancillary intermediaries and agents, are determinants of insurance cancellation. Conversely, the payment of policies by direct debit and without instalments reduces the probability of cancellations.Research limitations/implicationsThe main limitation of this study is the restriction on data access. Insurance companies are significantly resistant to sharing their customer data – including with academic researchers – even in an anonymised form.Practical implicationsThe paper highlights internal and external practices of insurance companies that should be reformulated to significantly improve their performance regarding product cancellation, related to customer information management, mistrust behaviours related to stakeholders and new value propositions that deepen the relationships with intermediaries.Originality/valueThis research developed a framework with which to identify the factors that are mainly associated with motor insurance cancellation and to predict its likelihood.