Car insurance price rise in Belgium: three months to say no

Yes, you can refuse. When the company raises its tariff, you have in principle three months from being informed to cancel, and it cannot bill you the new price during that period. Everything depends on the cause of the increase: only the first of the three cases below opens that right.

My car insurance has gone up: can I refuse it?

It depends on who decided the increase. A premium that climbs does not always have the same legal status, and the sites that explain "why my insurance went up" almost all stop at the causes and never reach the rights that follow.

The table sorts the three situations I meet most often. It describes common practice on the Belgian market, not your contract: only your own terms prevail.

These deadlines come from the dossier Test-Achats devotes to cancellation, consulted in October 2026. The Act of 4 April 2014 on insurance frames the whole, but the detail depends on the date your contract was taken out.

Why are premiums rising so much?

Because claims cost more to settle. According to a May 2024 RTBF report, the average premium rose 11.7% in five years according to HelloSafe, the average cost of a claim by more than 17% between 2018 and 2023, and a garage's hourly rate by 21% between 2019 and 2023. Parts gained nearly 16%.

None of this obliges your insurer to pass it on. Assuralia, the Belgian insurers' federation, points out that each company sets its own tariffs in a competitive market. A rise at one, a freeze at another: that is exactly what makes comparison worthwhile.

How do you refuse an increase without ending up uninsured?

This is the sequence I follow with my clients, in order.

1. Date the information. The deadline runs from the notification, often the renewal notice or the bank statement if the contract goes through a bank. Photograph the envelope or save the email.
2. Identify the cause. Company tariff, change in your profile, or change in the terms: reread the table above. Ask in writing if the notice does not say.
3. Reread the tariff-change clause in your general conditions, then your specific conditions.
4. Ask for two complete offers, not two premiums. Demand the general conditions of each.
5. Read the exclusions of the replacement offer before the amount. A premium 80 euros lower is sometimes explained by an exclusion of headlight units or an exclusive-driver clause.
6. Have the new contract's cover confirmed in writing, with its start date, and only then send the cancellation letter by registered mail, stating that you refuse the new tariff.

The full cancellation procedure is in our guide to cancelling car insurance.

Is a 64-euro increase worth leaving for?

Not always. Take a premium of 640 euros going up to 704 euros, 10%. You receive the notice on 12 October 2026 for a renewal on 1 December. If the three-month period applies to your contract, you can act until mid-January 2027, without waiting for the renewal.

A competing offer at 590 euros looks appealing: 114 euros saved. But if it raises the excess from 250 to 500 euros and drops the assistance, the first breakdown or the first scrape wipes out much of the gain. The right calculation compares the whole contract. Our piece on renegotiating car insurance details the levers, and the one on the English excess shows how one clause changes what you pay out of pocket.

Sometimes a phone call is enough. A broker can obtain an amendment, and the duty of advice obliges the broker to justify the choices made.

What if the increase comes from your 0-22 level?

An at-fault claim moves your level back on the Belgian 0-22 bonus-malus scale (the no-claims ladder), and the premium follows the company's grid. That is not a tariff rise decided for everyone.

Here the lever lies elsewhere: ask for your recorded level, check that it matches your claims history certificate, and compare grids. Our article on the bonus-malus explains how the scale goes up and down.

The cover gap: the costliest mistake

Cancel first, compare later: that is the classic error. Without liability cover in force, the car cannot be driven, and a future insurer is not bound to cover you retroactively.

If a victim is compensated by the Fonds commun de garantie because you were uninsured, the fund can turn against you. The amount far exceeds any premium saving.

Another trap: a cancellation motivated by the increase should state that you refuse the new tariff. Without that wording, the insurer may treat your letter as an ordinary cancellation, with its own deadlines.

Points to check on the renewal notice

Before deciding, note these elements:

• The sending date of the notice, which is the starting point of the deadline.
• The reason for the increase, or its absence, which justifies a written request.
• The mention of the right to cancel, which recent contracts must repeat on every notice.
• The covers and excesses listed, compared with last year's.
• The 0-22 level applied, when it appears on the document.

If disagreement persists, a written complaint to the company comes before the free recourse to the Insurance Ombudsman, and the FSMA, the Belgian financial services and markets authority, supervises the conduct rules of insurers and intermediaries.

To place the companies on their formulas, our ranking of the best car insurers is the starting point. The comparison tool lines up two offers side by side, and the quiz frames in two minutes the cover you need. The cancellation rules are detailed in the Test-Achats dossier, market context in the RTBF report and the legal framework in the Act of 4 April 2014.

This site informs and compares. It is not an insurance intermediary and gives no individual recommendation: your specific conditions, and only they, decide.