Privacy policy
Data protection
Van Compare is a trading name of IISG Limited, registered in England and Wales (Registration number 07529005), with the registered address at: Centrepoint House, 2 Denmark Road, Guildford, GU1 4DA. IISG Limited complies with and is registered under the data protection laws in the United Kingdom and takes all reasonable care to prevent any unauthorised access to your personal data.
This policy has been developed because we want you to feel confident about the privacy and security of your personal information when using our website. We follow strict security procedures in the storage and disclosure of your information as required by law under the Data Protection Act 1998. Our security procedures mean that we always require proof of your identity before we will disclose information to you. Proof of identity includes your password, which is why you should never reveal it to anyone.
In order to provide our service to you, we need to collect and process personal information about you, and disclose that information to a number of third party service providers. This information is necessary to provide you with the quotations requested by you. All personal information will be held in strictest confidence and used only for the purpose of providing you with the service requested with certain caveats as described below.
By using our website and price comparison services you are giving us permission to use your data as set out in this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to this Privacy Policy, please refrain from using our website.
Information disclosure
Our information systems will disclose the information provided by you via the Van Compare website to our partner websites for the purpose of providing us with quotations on the requested product. We will also use your data for our own research and for tracking sales data.
Except as set out in this policy, we will not disclose any of your personal information to any other parties without your permission, unless we are legally required to do so. We may also use the information to keep you informed of products and services, perform market research or remind you when your renewal is due.
How we will use your data
Your personal information is used for the purpose of getting an insurance quotation. Additionally, Van Compare and other selected third parties may use your information to keep you informed by post, telephone, e-mail or SMS about current or new products and services that may be of interest to you.
Before you provide us with any information about other people, you must first get their permission. This applies to all information you provide about them, but especially to sensitive data such as health information or criminal proceedings or convictions. In submitting their details, you are confirming to us that you have their permission to do so, and that they understand how their information will be used under the terms of this Privacy Policy.
If you are not happy for your data to be used in this way, please click on the ‘unsubscribe’ link provided on each email we send to you and you will be able to remove your details from our contact list. Alternatively, you can e-mail us by using the Contact Us Form on the Van Compare website.
If you have received an SMS text message you can opt out at any time by sending an email to cs@vancompare.com, quoting your mobile number.
Please remember that by opting out, we will not be able to contact you about products or services that may benefit you.
After processing a quote, we may send you a summary of the prices received by either email or SMS. This is part of our automated service and is a condition of use of our website.
Unsolicited e-mails and phone calls
As we don't want you to be inundated with marketing mail from the provider partners that we visit with your personal quote details, wherever possible our technology will automatically opt you out of receiving their marketing material. You should therefore not receive any communication from any third parties, other than as outlined in this Privacy Policy. Although we cannot guarantee this, we do have contractual arrangements in place to prevent such communication, so please let us know if you do experience problems other than outlined above by emailing cs@vancompare.com.
If you click through to a third party website from our website, we cannot guarantee you will not be contacted by these parties. We recommend that you read their Terms & Conditions regarding your right to opt-in or out of receiving further contact from them.
Your rights to your personal data
If you want to know what personal information we hold about you, we will provide you with this data. If any information held is inaccurate, we will make the necessary amendments and confirm to you that these have been made. If you wish to make a request under the terms of the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA), for the personal information we hold about you, please write to us at:
Data Protection Officer
Van Compare,
Centrepoint House,
2 Denmark Road,
Guildford
GU1 4DA
Please enclose a cheque for the statutory administration fee of £10.00 made payable to IISG Limited. We are entitled to charge you this fee under the DPA to cover our administration costs.
IISG Limited is a data controller under the DPA in relation to your personal information. The product providers and their appointed representatives and any intermediaries, will also be data controllers in relation to your personal information, and you have the same rights to know what information they hold about you as you do about the information we hold. It is possible that some of these companies process personal data outside the European Economic Area (EEA) (e.g. if they use overseas call centres), in which case, their websites should tell you if they do.
If you have any enquiry about our data protection and privacy policy or practices, please write to the Data Protection Officer at the above address.
Help with your quotation
By agreeing to the conditions laid out in this Privacy Policy you agree that your details may be used by "us", the insurance/financial services provider or, where they are involved, their appointed representatives, or an intermediary, who provided you with the two cheapest quotes only (and in the case of a motor, home or motorbike quotation, the two cheapest quotes only before any tailoring of the cover on the results page) to contact you with a view to seeing if you are interested in purchase. We may also pass your details to a selected third party to increase your chances of obtaining the cheapest quote possible. They may also highlight any special offers or ways they might be able to help you get an even cheaper price with them. They are entitled to help you only about this particular quotation and only for a limited period of time after which they are obliged to consider your details as "off limits" i.e. opted out under the terminology of the Data Protection Act 1998.
In the case of our motor, home and bike insurance, although we pass your information to underlying insurance providers, (and, where they are involved, their appointed representatives and intermediaries), and they are also data controllers in respect of your data, we have contractual arrangements in place with them, limiting their use of your data in the ways described in this Privacy Policy.
In the case of other insurance, and other services offered through our site, it is necessary for us to pass your information to the organisations from who you will receive quotations you have requested from our site. While we remain data controllers in relation to that information, in connection with everything that those organisations do with that information, they will also be data controllers. Their privacy statement, setting out what they do with your personal data, will be available to you on their site. All you need to do is click on their Privacy Policy.
Removal of personal information
If you would like us to remove any personal information from our records, then please write to our Data Protection Officer at Van Compare, Centrepoint House, 2 Denmark Road, Guildford, Surrey GU1 4DA or email us at cs@vancompare.com. We will make all reasonable efforts to delete your information from our files if it is deemed appropriate.
Monitoring
Monitoring or recording of your calls, emails, text messages and other communications may take place in accordance with UK law, and in particular for business purposes such as: quality control and training; processing necessary for the entering into or the performance of a contract; to prevent unauthorised use of our telecommunications systems and web sites and/or services; to ensure effective systems operation; to meet any legal obligation; in your vital interests; in order to prevent or detect crime; and for the purposes of the legitimate interests of the data controller. Please visit the following websites for further information:
- www.ico.gov.uk
- www.berr.gov.uk/
Confidentiality
From time to time we will employ agents to process your information on our behalf. We may allow such agents, including providers of some of our services, access to your personal information. The same duty of confidentiality and security will apply to our agents. Should you take the decision to make a complaint about the service we have provided, we may be obliged to forward details about your complaint, including your personal information, to the Information Commissioner (who regulates data protection law in the UK) and/or the relevant ombudsman in existence at the time. You can be assured that they are similarly obliged to adhere to the Data Protection Act. If we or our business is taken over, your personal information may be passed to the new owners.
Insurance providers, intermediaries and appointed representatives pass information to the Claims Underwriting and Exchange Register, run by Insurance Database Services (IDS) and the Motor Insurance Anti-Fraud and Theft Register, run by the Association of British Insurers (ABI), to which the police, the DVLA and DVLNI (Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agencies), as well as other insurers, have access. Some insurers also participate in Insurance Hunter, a data-sharing scheme. The aim of all of these is to help insurance providers check information provided and also prevent fraudulent claims. When we deal with your request for a quotation, if applicable, the insurance provider or any intermediary or appointed representative may search these registers and databases and any other anti-fraud registers set up by or for the insurance industry to provide such services. Under the conditions of your policy, you must tell us about any incident (such as accident or theft) which may or may not give rise to a claim. When you tell us about an incident we will pass information, relating to it, to the insurance provider, intermediary or appointed representative.
When you take out a motor insurance policy, including motorbike and van cover, your insurance cover details may also be added to the Motor Insurance Database, run by the Motor Insurers' Information Centre (MIIC). This has been set up to help identify uninsured drivers and may be searched by the Police to assist them in confirming who is insured to drive. If there is an accident the database may be used by insurers, MIIC and the Motor Insurers' Bureau as well as persons making a claim for a road traffic accident, to identify the relevant policy information.
Credit searches
Many insurance and financial services providers operate a credit scoring system and will carry out checks with credit reference and fraud prevention agencies. These checks will include electoral roll and credit information. The insurance checks are registered as general insurance searches and may be viewed by other companies when you apply for credit or insurance.
Often financial services providers will only request a credit check once you have decided on a particular supplier. These credit checks are not being carried out because you are using Van Compare, nor are they conducted by Van Compare, but may be processed by any provider when using any of their services.
Cookies
At Van Compare we respect your privacy and therefore we will only use ‘cookies’ where your browser enables us to do so. A cookie is a tiny piece of code, like a tag, which websites can place on your computer when you visit them, and act as a unique identifier that can be used to retrieve your records from databases, and to track your movement within the website.
We use ‘cookies’ to help you navigate through our site and to improve security. If you do not want one of our cookies on your computer, please ensure your browser is configured to block them. You can still use our site even if you block cookies.
For more information about cookies, visit www.aboutcookies.org or www.allaboutcookies.org
Law
These terms of trading are subject to English law and to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts. You acknowledge that by providing data to us, you consent to the processing of your data in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
We reserve the right to amend or modify our Privacy Policy at any time and in response to changes in applicable data protection and privacy legislation.
Security policy
Site security
Van Compare takes security seriously as do our insurance partners, who all operate their own security policies. We use industry-standard secure sockets layer (SSL) 128-bit encryption technology to ensure that all your personal and transactional information is encrypted before transmission. To confirm that you are in a secure area of our website, you will see a closed padlock icon at the bottom of your browser. Our security policies and use of the latest technology are to safeguard your privacy from unauthorised access/improper use and we will continue to update these measures as ever-more secure technology becomes available.
Security of third party sites
We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other websites. If you access partner sites using links from our website, we recommend that you check their security policy when you visit. Wherever possible we've partnered with sites that show the same commitment to security and also offer SSL encryption throughout their quotation process.
Password protection
In order to provide you with the maximum protection, we ask you to choose a password to access your data on our site. In many instances, this password will also access the quotes we find for you on the web. Some providers might allocate you a different password, which we will send you information about. Your password is unique and helps us to protect your personal information. You must keep this password safe and must not disclose it to anyone.
If you forget your password, simply click on the Forgot Password? Link on the login page.
Be aware
Please be aware that communications over the Internet are not secure unless they have been encrypted. Your communications may route through a number of countries before being delivered - this is the nature of the World Wide Web/Internet. We cannot accept responsibility for any unauthorised access or loss of personal information that is beyond our control.
