Aviva said its chief executive Andrew Moss had bowed to shareholder pressure and waived a pay rise that would have taken his salary above £1m sterling.
Moss was last month awarded a 4.6% increase on his annual salary of €960,000 but Aviva said that he had decided to decline the hike.
"The remuneration committee has accepted Mr Moss's decision not to accept the salary increase granted to him in 2012," said Aviva, Britain's second biggest insurer after Prudential.
The move came after investor group Pensions Investment Research Consultants (Pirc) had called on Aviva shareholders to vote against the group's executive pay report at an annual general meeting this Thursday.
Just last week, British bank Barclays revealed that almost one third of its shareholders had chosen not to back its annual executive pay awards amid controversy over chief executive Bob Diamond's huge wage package.
Barclays on Friday said that 32% of shareholders had either voted against or withheld support for the bank's 2011 remuneration report.
