At CoverMe123, we take our data protection obligations very seriously. It's vital to us that you understand how we handle your personal data. This Privacy Policy explains in detail the purposes for which we process your personal data, who we share it with, your rights concerning that data, and other important information we believe you should be aware of.

The primary aim of processing your personal data is to deliver the services you request from us through www.coverme123.com (the Website). We might need specific information from you regarding health or criminal convictions for our partnered expert adviser to provide accurate insurance quotes. For instance, life insurance quotes may require this data. Besides servicing your requests, we also process personal data for other purposes like marketing, market research, and fraud prevention. Rest assured, we will retain your personal data only as long as necessary for the respective purpose.

Sharing some of your personal data with third parties is essential for us to provide our services. For example, our partners and suppliers, or any third-party service providers you engage with through our platform, will have access to necessary personal data. Partners who supply quotes through our platform will conduct checks against various databases to assess your eligibility for a quote, often via wholly automated means. These partners are accountable for how they handle your personal data.

You possess various rights concerning your personal data, which can be exercised by contacting us as outlined in this Privacy Policy. Our contact details and more information on how to exercise your rights are provided within this document.

At CoverMe123, we facilitate the provision of a variety of insurance quotes, including Life Insurance, Whole of Life Insurance, Critical Illness Cover, Income Protection, and Buildings & Contents Insurance, by acting as a data processor.

This role involves processing personal data you provide on our platform on behalf of and under the instructions of insurance service providers like Lake District Mortgages and Safe & Secure, who act as data controllers. Our processing activities are aimed at efficiently transmitting your data to these partners to assist you in obtaining insurance quotes.

Lake District Mortgages:
For services related to Life Insurance, Whole of Life Insurance, Critical Illness Cover, and Income Protection, we partner with Lake District Mortgages. In this capacity, CoverMe123 processes your requests for quotes by securely transmitting your personal data to Lake District Mortgages, under their direction. Lake District Mortgages, acting as a data controller, will then share your information with their network of insurance providers to generate quotes. Subsequently, these insurance providers, as separate data controllers, manage your data according to their privacy policies. See here for Lake District Mortgage's privacy policy.

Safe & Secure:
Similarly, for Buildings & Contents Insurance quotes, we work with Safe & Secure to process your data for quote generation. Safe & Secure, serving as the data controller, receives your data from us, CoverMe123, and engages with their insurance providers to present you with quotes. These providers, upon receiving your data, become responsible for it under their privacy policies as data controllers.

By utilising our platform to obtain insurance quotes, you are engaging with these partners and the respective insurance providers they collaborate with. It's essential to understand that while we facilitate the provision of quotes by conveying your data to our partners, the ultimate handling of your data for quote generation and possibly policy issuance is managed by these partners and the insurance providers they work with.

For more information regarding how Lake District Mortgages and Safe & Secure process your data, including contact details for their Data Protection Officers, you may visit their respective privacy policies on their websites.

Info From You

When you submit a form to request an insurance quote, we collect various pieces of information, which may include:

Our partnered expert adviser will not be able to give a quote unless you answer the necessary questions.

Data From Your Use of Our Platform

We collect information on how the website is accessed and used. This may include:

This data helps us understand you better, improve our services, tailor our marketing, and deter fraud.

Cookies, Web Beacons, and Pixel Tags

We use technologies like cookies, web beacons, and pixel tags to track how you use our platform. This helps us understand your behaviour and improve your experience. You can read our cookie policy for more details.

Google Analytics and Other Third-Party Tools

We use Google Analytics to monitor platform usage. This service gathers data like your IP address, pages visited, and the time you spend on our site. We use additional features like Google Display Network Impression Reporting and Google Analytics Demographics and Interest Reporting. If you have a Google account with enabled browsing history, Google may use additional data to provide us with anonymised, aggregated information.

Hotjar

We use Hotjar to better understand our users’ needs and to optimise our service and user experience. Hotjar is a technology service that helps us understand how users interact with our website by collecting data on user behavior, such as mouse clicks, movements, and scrolling activity. It also collects information about the device you use to access our site, including device type, operating system, browser type, and screen resolution.

The information Hotjar collects is stored in a pseudonymised user profile and is used for aggregate reporting. Hotjar does not collect or store any personal data that can directly identify you. We do not use this data to identify individual users or match it with further data on an individual user.

Contacting Us Electronically

When you reach out to us through electronic means, we may collect identifiers like your IP address or device ID. This data might be shared with our partners for fraud prevention and is subject to their privacy policies.

Our Third-Party Suppliers

We sometimes work with third-party vendors to process your personal information. This is also true for our partners who need your data to offer you insurance quotes.

Data Handling by Insurance and Comparison Service Providers

To give you an insurance quote, insurance and comparison service providers might share your data with other businesses or conduct checks using various databases. This is a normal process in insurance and financial services. Each provider acts as a data controller when doing these checks, and we are not responsible for them.

Verification Using Existing Records

Some insurance providers may check the data they or their affiliates already have on you, such as existing account information or loyalty scheme data. They use this data to evaluate your application for a quote and to set your insurance rates. This data might also be shared with their insurance underwriters for similar purposes, where applicable.

Credit Checks

A lot of insurance providers run checks with credit reference agencies when making a quote for you. These checks can include:

These checks get recorded on your credit file. The company name doing the search will be listed there. If you have questions about a specific search, contact that company directly.

Data Exchanges for Claims and Underwriting

Insurance providers will also swap data with different databases and registers. This is to check the info you provided and to stop fraud or crime. It's also used to learn about your history of insurance claims. Databases they might use include the Claims and Underwriting Exchange Register, the Hunter Database, and the No Claims History Database. For policies aimed at students or graduates, additional checks might be done using higher education records to confirm your status.

Data about Other People

Sometimes you'll need to give us information about other people. This might happen if you're looking for a quote that involves another person, like a joint policyholder. You might also look for quotes for family or friends. When you give us data about someone else, you need to make sure they know about this Privacy Policy and are okay with it. When we say "your data" in this policy, we're also talking about any data you give us about other people.

Types of Data We Use

We use different kinds of personal information like your name, address, birth date, phone number, and more. This can also include your medical history or details about your home. We might also use data we get from other places, as described in the section “Where do we get the data?”

Why We Use Your Data

How Partners Use Your Data

Our partners use your information to give you the most suitable quotes. They control how they use your data for this. To know more about how they handle your data, you should read their privacy policies.

Legal Reasons for Using Your Data

We have to tell you why we're allowed to use your data. For the services we give you, the law lets us use your data because we need it to do what we promised you.

Fraud Prevention

In an effort to counteract and identify fraudulent activities, we and our partners may utilise your personal data to exchange information about you with other entities, which could extend to law enforcement agencies, when deemed necessary and proportionate.

If misinformation is provided and fraud is subsequently detected, your details will be forwarded to fraud prevention agencies. These agencies may then be accessed by law enforcement for further investigation.

Marketing

For our marketing activities, we use a range of personal data. This includes the information you provide when using our services, data we receive from third-party sources as detailed in the "Where do we get the data?" section, and insights gained from your interaction with our platform and services.

We use this personal data in multiple ways for marketing:

By utilising your data in these ways, we aim to provide a more customised and effective marketing experience for you.

Your Choices for Marketing Communications

When you provide your contact information, we'll give you an option to indicate whether you're interested in receiving marketing materials from us. If you give your consent, we may use your postal address, email, and phone number to send you promotional content. This could be through mail, email, phone calls, or text messages. Importantly, we don't share your information with other companies for their marketing activities.

Changing Your Marketing Preferences

You have the freedom to change your mind about receiving marketing materials at any time. Every marketing email from us includes an 'unsubscribe' link. Clicking on this link will remove you from the email marketing list.

Creating and Improving Marketing Efforts

We use your data along with data from other customers to better understand our audience and improve our marketing approach. For example, we'll analyse combined data to identify which customers are more likely to be interested in our services. Whenever possible, we'll make this data anonymous to protect your privacy.

Making Marketing Messages More Relevant to You

We also use your personal data to tailor the marketing messages you receive from us. By doing this, we can let you know about products, services, and offers that are more aligned with your interests or needs.

Using Algorithms for Marketing Analysis

To support these marketing activities, we may process your personal data through specialised algorithms. These algorithms help us create customer profiles that give us insights into what products or services might appeal to you. This includes data gathered from your use of our platform, as well as cookies you've approved.

Using Third-Party Data to Enhance Marketing Models

We sometimes use external data to improve these customer profiles. This third-party data is not specifically about you; rather, it offers generalised insights into characteristics of individuals, households, or geographical areas. This additional data allows us to make more accurate predictions about what may interest or benefit our customer base.

Customising Digital Ads and Making Them Relevant

If you've given us permission through your cookie settings on our platform, we'll use your data to better target the ads you see on other websites and social media platforms. We work with various tools offered by platforms like Google and Facebook to fine-tune our advertising efforts on those sites.

How We Use Your Activity to Customise Ads

The ads you see might be influenced by various actions you've taken on our platform, such as the pages you've visited, whether you've completed a quote form or viewed other products.

How We Use Quote Data

We, along with our partners, analyse the data related to the quotes you've requested. This includes the personal details you entered, your choices during the quote process, the final quote given by our partners, and any policies or contracts you've opted for. We use this data for multiple reasons:

Understanding Platform Usage for Improvement

We use the data collected from your activity on our Platform to perform further research and analysis. This helps us understand how our Platform is being used and what activities are taking place.

To do this, we analyse and profile the personal data we've collected from you through your use of our Platform. We may also combine this with pseudonymous data from other companies to get a fuller picture of your interests and the other products you might have. This thorough analysis allows us to better predict your needs and preferences, thereby enabling us to send you more relevant marketing material.

Collection and Use of Information

When you utilise our platform to inquire about life insurance, critical illness cover, whole of life insurance, income protection, and buildings & contents cover, we collect necessary personal information such as your name, email address, and other relevant details.

Sharing with Our Partners

We share the collected personal information with our partners who will use this information to compare quotes across the market, enabling them to provide you with the best available options.

Cookies and Local Storage

Our website uses local storage and cookies. These are essential for enhancing user experience and ensuring the website functions correctly.

No Login or App Usage

Our platform doesn’t offer a login feature or an app. Users interact with our services without the need for account creation or login, ensuring a straightforward user experience.

Communication and Consent

If you have agreed to receive communications from us, we may send you information or updates related to the insurance services you have shown interest in. These messages are intended to keep you informed and help in making the best insurance-related decisions.

Security

We ensure the protection of your personal information by implementing appropriate security measures. We are committed to safeguarding your data from unauthorised access and disclosure.

Participation in Competitions or Events

In case we conduct competitions, events, or similar initiatives, and you choose to participate, we will use your information for managing such activities, including reviewing entries and allocating prizes.

We are committed to ensuring the secure handling and storage of the personal data you provide. This is crucial for protecting your privacy and preventing unauthorised access or potential misuse of your information.

Retention for Comparison Services

We retain the personal information that you provide for the purpose of insurance comparisons for a period necessary to fulfill this service. Generally, this information is kept for up to 5 years from the date you requested a quote. This allows us to manage any queries, complaints, or fraud prevention activities effectively.

Data Shared with Partners

The personal information shared with our partners for quote comparison will be held by them for periods according to their own retention policies. We advise checking with the respective partners to understand their data retention periods and practices, especially if you decide to purchase a policy.

Deletion of Data

When the retention period expires, we ensure that your personal data is securely deleted from our systems. This is to protect your information and maintain privacy as per regulatory and best practice standards.

Participation in Competitions or Events

If you participate in any competitions or events that we organise, the data you provide for such participation will be retained for the necessary duration to manage the event, review entries, select winners, and allocate prizes. After the completion of the event and the necessary administration, the data will be securely deleted.

Data protection law provides you with various rights concerning your personal data. You can exercise these rights by contacting us as detailed in the "Contacting Us" section below. We can process requests that relate to the personal data we handle as a data processor.

Data Subject Access Request (DSAR)

You have the right to request a copy of the personal data we hold about you. To make this request, please provide us with full details, including your name, date of birth, email used, and specific information you seek. For security, your provided details should match our records, and further verification might be necessary. If there are changes in your contact details or if you require information to be sent to a different address, it's crucial for us to verify your identity to maintain the security and integrity of the data. To facilitate this, you might need to provide identity verification documents such as a copy of your passport or driving license, and proof of address, like a recent utility bill. This helps us ensure that we are interacting with the rightful owner of the data. There might be cases where we require additional information from you to locate the specific data you seek or to process your Data Subject Access Request (DSAR). After receiving all necessary information and documents, we aim to respond to your DSAR within one month. However, in cases where the DSAR is particularly complex or extensive, we might require additional time. We will inform you if such an extension is necessary. For DSARs relating to data held by our insurance partners, it would be best to contact them directly. They have their own procedures and timelines for responding to such requests.

Correction of Inaccurate Data

If you believe that any of your personal data we hold is inaccurate, you have the right to ask us to correct it. Please contact us with the correct information, and after verification, necessary corrections will be made promptly.

Data Portability

You have the right to request a copy of your personal data in a machine-readable format or ask us to send your personal data to another company. This applies to electronic personal data that you have provided us, such as details entered while requesting a quote.

Objection to Processing

You can object to the processing of certain personal data about you. However, if we need to continue processing the data for reasons such as fraud prevention, we might not be obliged to stop processing it.

Automated Decision-Making

You have the right to request a review of significant automated decisions made about you. However, as we do not make legal or significant decisions wholly by automated means, this might be more relevant to our partners who use such methods for quote assessments.

Partner’s Data Handling

For requests involving data processed by our partners as data controllers, it might be necessary to contact them directly to exercise your rights related to their handling of your personal data.

If you have any questions, concerns, or would like to exercise one of your data rights as outlined in the "Your Rights" section above, you can reach out to us through various means. Below are our contact details:

Description of Information in Your Request

When reaching out, please ensure you provide sufficient details to facilitate your request's processing. Include information such as:

This will help us in tracing all relevant information to address your queries or concerns effectively.

Contacting Our Partners

For data-related inquiries regarding our partners, please visit the specific partner’s website and review their privacy policy for contact details and guidance on addressing data matters.

If you have a complaint regarding how your personal data has been processed by us, please contact us first, and we will do our best to resolve your issue promptly and fairly. You can reach out to us using the contact information provided in the "Contacting Us" section of this policy or the Contact Us page.

Additionally, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK’s independent body set up to uphold information rights, which regulates data protection compliance. For more information on how to make a complaint to the ICO, you may visit their website at www.ico.org.uk.