Privacy Policy

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Privacy Policy

What is car insurance?

Having car insurance ensures you are covered financially if the worst were to happen to your car. Such incidents could involve damage from an accident, theft, vandalisation and fire damage. Car insurance means you won't have to dig into your pocket to pay for potentially huge repair or replacement costs.

Car insurance is a legal requirement for cars driving on public roads. You will be heavily penalised if you are found to be driving without insurance. The minimum level of coverage you must legally have is third-party car insurance. Third-party insurance covers the damage to another person's car, for example, in a collision accident, but provides limited cover for your vehicle.

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How much does car insurance cost?

Car insurance is either made up of an annual or monthly premium. Annual premiums are paid in a single lump sum when a policy is purchased; monthly premiums require a deposit and a monthly direct debit. Many factors come into play that will affect the cost of your car insurance. It needn't cost the earth when you take the time to compare premiums.

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About this Privacy Policy

Our privacy policy is reflective of our partner, Quotezone.

Quotezone is a trading name of Seopa Limited, registered in Northern Ireland with company number NI046322 and registered at 5th Floor Link Building, Adelaide Exchange, 24-26 Adelaide Street, Belfast, BT2 8GD. We respect the privacy of visitors to our website. Seopa Limited is registered as a data controller with the Information Commissioner’s Office; its registration number is Z8733752. When we refer to we, us, Quotezone, or Seopa, we refer to this company.

This policy applies to all users of our website and our comparison services.

1 What this Privacy Policy applies to

This policy applies to the information which we may hold about you. This includes:

2 Our obligations

We are a data controller concerning the information we collect and hold about you. As a result, we are legally responsible for how we handle that information. The nature of our services means that we may transfer information (including personal data) about you to third parties (who will also be acting as controllers regarding that data). This policy only deals with how we handle personal data relating to you. We will comply with data protection laws in using and sharing your data. Among other things, this means that we will only use your data:

We will take every reasonable precaution to safeguard the personal information that you supply.

If you have any queries relating to our use of your personal information or any other related data protection questions, please get in touch with us at [email protected]”>[email protected]

3 Our services and the personal information we collect

For instance, please provide us with your information through this website by filling in one of the forms requesting us to compare insurance quotes. We shall use your information as set out in this Privacy Policy and in the notices we provide when you submit your information. By submitting your personal information, you consent to our use of the information in this Privacy Policy and such statements. You can withdraw that consent at any time by the methods described in this Privacy Policy. In particular, we may need to collect your special categories data to allow us to provide you with quotes, as set out below. If you give us your personal information, we will use it to provide you with the quote comparison information you request (including the annual renewal service – see section 4). If you request a quote comparison through our website, we will forward the personal information you submit to providers to enable us to obtain a quote for you. The providers may use your data, as set out further below. We cannot provide a quote comparison to you unless we can share your personal information this way. Please note that we can offer online and offline insurance comparison services depending on the product for which you wish to receive a quote.

The Privacy Policy also applies to our energy comparison service and any other available service on our website, www.quotezone.co.uk.

Note that it is your responsibility to check and ensure that all information, content, material, or data you provide on our website is correct, complete, accurate, and not misleading and that you disclose all relevant facts.

Concerning our insurance estimator tool (which, for clarity, is different from our standard complete insurance comparison system), we will process any personal information only to provide the estimate and for no other purpose. We may engage sub-processor (s)/Introducer websites (as described in section 6 below) to help facilitate the provision of an estimate, and all relevant legislation will be complied with regarding such engagement.

We ensure we have appropriate security measures to protect your information (see section 14 Security below). We will periodically review your personal information to ensure that we do not keep it for longer than is permitted by law (see section 9 below, which details how long we keep it).

Special Categories Data

To provide you with a quote, we may need to collect personal information, which data protection legislation defines as special categories of data, such as medical history or criminal convictions; we may also need to share this data with providers to enable them to generate quotes for you. We may process this data because it is in the substantial public interest to do so to arrange and advise on contracts of insurance.

Providing data about other people

If you provide us with another person’s information, you should first ask them to read this Privacy Policy and our Terms and Conditions. By giving us information about another person, you confirm that they have given you consent to provide the information to us and that they understand how their details will be used.

4 How we use your data and communications from us

We will use your data in the following ways:

  1. Use of our services – we will use your data to provide you with the service you request. See Section 3 above in relation to our services;
  2. for research, such as analysing market trends and gathering information on how you use our website and pages you have viewed;
  3. To process a transaction between you and a third party (where applicable);
  4. To track sales, we may share data with your provider relating to the product(s) you have purchased. Your provider may also send us information they hold relating to the product(s) you have purchased for this purpose;
  5. In relation to our rewards scheme;
    We run certain reward schemes to reward our customers for requesting quotes and/or buying policies and other products (whichever is applicable) through our website.
    We may use your personal information in this respect to: validate your eligibility to participate in our reward schemes; to administer the schemes; to contact you in relation to our reward schemes including sending you information on how to claim the reward and/or reminders about claiming the rewards and/or sending you information about your use of the rewards (where applicable); and to deal with any complaints or queries you have in relation to the rewards schemes.
    On some occasions, we may use third parties to administer or provide the reward scheme and when this arises we may have to share some of your personal information with this third party in order to facilitate the reward. We process your data because we have a legitimate interest in processing the data in order to effectively administer our rewards scheme and provide you with the rewards.
  6. to communicate with you as follows:
Quote Confirmation
When you obtain (or request) a quote with us, you will automatically be sent confirmation of your quote (or confirmation of your quote request when using our offline insurance comparison service) by email so that you have a record of it and can easily retrieve your quote (where applicable) in the future. This is a standard part of the service that we offer. Please note that you cannot unsubscribe from this email contact. If you do not wish to receive this email, then please do not carry out a quote.

Offline Insurance Comparison Service
When you request a quotation via our offline insurance comparison service, as well as telephone contact from third-party providers (as set out in section 8), Quotezone may also contact you by telephone in order to help with your quotation. This is a standard part of the service that we offer. If you do not wish to receive telephone contact, then please do not carry out a quotation via our offline insurance comparison service.

Being kept up to date by us

Where you tell us you are happy to receive information from us, we may send you communications which may include the following:

Depending on the contact preferences you select, we may communicate with you by email, SMS, post, and telephone.

Annual renewal service
As part of our service, we may also contact you by email and/or SMS and/or telephone around the anniversary of when you completed your quote in order to remind you to carry out a new quote for the forthcoming year. We believe that this is an important part of the service to help ensure you do not forget to renew your insurance. As part of this service, we may also resubmit your quote details to give you an idea of what your quotes could be for your next renewal. In order to provide this service to you, we may send that information to our insurance providers so that they can calculate their quotes. When they do this, our insurance providers may carry out “soft” credit checks on you with credit reference agencies, and these checks may be performed ahead of the renewal date. You may see these “soft” credit checks on your credit report, but they will have no impact on your credit rating (please see section 7 for more details on soft credit checks).

We may contact you about our rewards schemes; please see the Rewards Schemes section above for more information. If you don’t want to receive communications from us, you can let us know at any time by unsubscribing via our opt-out centre or through our contact us page. You can use this unsubscribe option at any time. Also, if you initially decided to receive updates from us but then changed your mind, you can always use the unsubscribe link in our e-mail communications. You can also opt out of SMS contact (in addition to the above-mentioned opt-out options) by following the instructions on the SMS you receive – please note that you may be charged at your standard network rate for opting out in this way.

Data protection law says that we are allowed to use personal information only if we have a proper reason to do so, such as consent or legitimate interests.

Our grounds for processing your personal information are as follows:

1. Consent – Where we rely on this legal basis, we will collect and process your personal information only if you have given your consent for us to do so. For example, we will only send you certain marketing emails where you have agreed to this.

You can withdraw your consent at any time. Please contact us if you want to do so.

2. Legitimate Interests – A legitimate interest is when we have a business or commercial reason to use your information. But even then, it must not unfairly go against what is right and best for you. We may use and process some of your personal information where we have legitimate business grounds for doing so. We have carried out a legitimate interest assessment in respect of each processing activity for which legitimate interest is our lawful basis. Our legitimate interests for processing your personal information are:

You have a right to object to our use of your personal information for these legitimate interests (please see section 13 below).

3. Contract – It may be necessary for us to process your personal information to perform a contract to which you are a party (e.g. providing you with a service), or to take steps at your request to enter into a contract.

6 Who do we share your personal information with

When you use any of our services, we may disclose your personal information to the following parties:

Where permitted by data protection and privacy law, we may also disclose information about you (including electronic identifiers such as IP addresses):

If we reasonably believe false or inaccurate information has been provided and fraud is suspected, details may be passed to fraud prevention agencies to prevent fraud and money laundering.

7 How do providers use your personal data

If we transfer personal data about you to providers, it will be solely to enable them to provide a quote for you (or in the case of the energy comparison service, to switch energy providers). Providers will be acting as data controllers in respect of any use by them of personal data transferred by us to them. You should read your chosen provider’s privacy policy when given the opportunity to do so. To ensure providers have the necessary facts to assess your insurance risk, verify your identity, help prevent fraud, and provide you with their best premium and payment options, they may obtain information from third parties at quotation and renewal and in certain circumstances where policy amendments are requested. The checks may be against both public data (such as information from the electoral roll) and private data (such as your credit history). This information may include a quotation search from a credit referencing agency. This search will appear on your credit report and will be visible to other credit providers. It will be clear that this is a quotation rather than a credit application by you to pay by monthly instalments. This may happen regardless of whether you get a quote via the internet or phone for any of these services.

Some providers may use the personal data you provide to obtain a quote for their own internal purposes such as fraud prevention or for internal analysis (such as monitoring customer demographics, market trends or pricing analysis). Some of the providers may also use personal data they hold about you (or which is held by other members of their group or in some instances the company whose brand is administered by them) from loyalty schemes and other account information.

Some providers may pass this personal data to their insurance underwriters. Providers may also exchange information about you through various databases, such as the Claims and Underwriting Exchange (CUE), which holds a record of incidents reported to providers by policyholders and third-party claimants, as a way to help prevent fraud. Providers may also exchange information with other databases such as the No Claims Discount Database, the Motor Insurance Anti-Fraud and Theft Register, run by the Association of British Insurers (ABI), and the Hunter Database (a central insurance and claims checking system). Providers may also share information with insurance underwriters. As mentioned above, the exchange of your information in this way allows providers to verify the information that is provided during the quote process and also helps detect fraudulent claims. If you provide us with your driving licence number (‘DLN’) via our quote form, the providers may pass this information to the DVLA in order for a search to be carried out to confirm your (or any named driver’s) licence status, entitlement and relevant restriction information, and endorsement/conviction data. Carrying out these searches helps providers to validate your information, preventing fraud and reducing incidents of negligent misrepresentation and non-disclosure. DLN searches may be carried out as part of your quote or at any point throughout the duration of your insurance policy. These searches will not appear on your (or the named driver’s) driving licence record information. For details of the information about you that the DVLA may hold, please see https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/driver-and-vehicle-licensing-agency or http://www.mylicence.org.uk/.

Some providers who offer products designed for students or graduates may also undertake additional checks against higher education sources to verify your student or graduate status.

If you decide to enter into a contract with a provider through this website, the information you have provided to us, together with any further information requested by, and supplied by you or us to the provider, will be held by the provider for the purposes set out in that provider’s privacy policy. Therefore, you are strongly advised to read your chosen provider’s privacy policy and satisfy yourself as to the purposes for which the provider will use your personal information before entering into the contract. We have no responsibility for the uses to which a provider puts your personal information.

8 Contact from Providers

In relation to our online insurance comparison service, if during the quote process you tell us that you are happy to be contacted by providers, you agree that your personal data may be used by the top three competing providers who provided you with the cheapest quotes to contact you with a view to seeing if you are interested in purchasing the quoted product. Please note that the companies contacting you are solely based on the cheapest price retrieved, not exclusively based on the cover you selected. Where our offline insurance comparison service is used, up to 5 providers will contact you directly to provide a quote by telephone and, where you have provided consent, by email and/or SMS.

If you click through to a third-party website from our website (or confirm a switch with an energy provider), we cannot guarantee you will not be contacted by those parties. We are not responsible for the privacy policies and practises of other websites. Whenever possible, we will only partner with other websites that maintain the same standards as are present on our own website, but we cannot guarantee this. If you click through to any providers’ own websites, you will be subject to that provider’s website terms and conditions and privacy policy, which we would recommend you read carefully. Our business energy comparison system is provided by Love Energy Savings.com Limited, registered office at Unit 2 Springfield Court, Summerfield Road, Bolton, England, BL3 2NT. By using that service we will need to review and agree to their own Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions.

If you no longer wish to be contacted by providers for marketing purposes, please follow the instructions in their marketing communications, or consult their privacy policies for further information about unsubscribing.

9 How long do we retain your personal information

Unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law, we will only hold your personal information on our systems for the period necessary to fulfil the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy or until you request it be deleted. Even if we delete your personal information, it may persist on backup or archival media for legal, tax, or regulatory purposes.

Seopa Limited is regulated and authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for non-investment insurance mediation and credit broking. We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for data protection. As part of our FCA authorisation, we have to comply with certain requirements in respect of the Financial Ombudsman Service and the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. All these obligations place certain record keeping requirements and the need to co-operate and share information with these legal entities where requested to do so. We also handle the above data for our own legitimate business interests including but not limited to the keeping of records and accounts, staff training and monitoring, recording sales or quotation requests generated, communicating with providers and in marketing out other similar services to you or reminding you if a renewal comes up.

10. Do we pass data to third parties

Except as set out in this Privacy Policy, we will not disclose any of your personal data to other parties without your permission unless we are legally required to do so by, for example, a court order, for the purposes of preventing fraud or other crime, or by a regulator.

11. Transferring your data outside of the European Economic Area (EEA)

From time to time, there may be a requirement to process your personal data in other countries outside of the UK area where data protection safeguards differ from those of the UK. Where this is necessary, we will ensure that your data is kept securely and only processed in accordance with the data protection legislation and is afforded equivalent protection as it would be if it were processed in the UK. We do this through various mechanisms, for example, making sure that European Commission-approved contractual clauses are in place with the supplier. If you are concerned about our use of third-party suppliers to process personal data outside the UK, or if you would like any further information about any of these suppliers, don’t hesitate to contact us using the details below. Your use of our services will be considered to be an indication of your consent to this transfer.

Please note that some providers may carry out some of their administrative services from outside the UK. Where this is the case, it will be set out in their terms and conditions and privacy policy.

12. Cookies and IP logging

cookie policy for more information including how you can stop or manage cookies.

Advertisements

The advertisements that you see displayed on our website are delivered by certain third-party advertising companies. No information that identifies you, for example your name, address, email address, or telephone number, is used to provide this advertising. Sometimes we may use cookies to show you Quotezone adverts while you are online. You can find more about this and how to turn off cookies by reading our cookie policy.

13. Privacy Rights

We respect the fact that your personal information is your information, so we want to be clear about what rights you have under data protection legislation and how you can exercise them.

14. Security

We do our best to keep the information you disclose to us secure. We place a high priority on protecting and managing data in accordance with accepted standards, including ISO 27001.

Where appropriate, we will also ensure that our website uses HTTPS to help keep information about you secure.

However, we can’t guarantee or warrant the security of any information you send us, and you do so at your own risk. By using our website, you accept the inherent risks of providing information online and will not hold us responsible for any security breach.

15. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to change this Privacy Policy from time to time. You should therefore check this Privacy Policy each time you visit our website. Where required by law, we will obtain your consent to make these changes. If you do not agree with any changes, please do not continue to use this website.

Updated October 2021

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