PRIVACY | HOMEPROTECT

You have rights to obtain and reuse your personal data for your own purposes across different services. E.g., if you decide to switch to a new provider, this enables you to move, copy or transfer your information easily between our IT systems and theirs safely and securely, without affecting its usability.

Homeprotect Privacy Policy

LAST UPDATED: 5th February 2024

Homeprotect has created this privacy policy to demonstrate our firm commitment to privacy by describing how we collect, look after, and use your personal information, your privacy rights, and how the law protects you.

About Homeprotect

Homeprotect provides home insurance for UK customers. Homeprotect is a trading name of Avantia Insurance Limited which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, firm reference number 304432. Avantia Insurance Limited is the controller and is responsible for your personal information (collectively referred to as “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy policy). Avantia Insurance Limited is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office under registration number Z7831579.

WHAT DOES THIS PRIVACY POLICY COVER?

We have created this privacy policy to demonstrate our firm commitment to data privacy by explaining how we collect, look after, and use your personal information, your privacy rights, and how the law protects you. It is important that you read this privacy policy together with any other data protection policy or fair processing notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing your personal information so that you are aware of how and why we are using your personal information. This privacy policy supplements such other notices and is not intended to override them.

This privacy policy:

  • Sets out the types of personal information we collect about you.
  • Explains how we collect your personal information.
  • Explains when, why and with who we will share your personal information.
  • Explains how we look after your personal information.
  • Explains how we use your personal information and the legal bases we have for using your personal information.
  • Explains how we use your information to make automated decisions.
  • Explains what happens if you choose not to give personal information.
  • Explains how long we keep your personal information.
  • Sets out your legal rights.
  • Explains how to get a copy of your personal information.
  • Explains how to contact us.
  • Explains our use of cookies and how you can disable such cookies.

WHAT PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU

Personal information means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person. This does not include information that has been anonymised or aggregated so that it can no longer be used to identify a specific natural person, whether in combination with other information or otherwise.

These are some of the types of personal information that we may collect use, store, and transfer:

Type of personal informationDescription
IdentityYour first name, maiden name, last name, username or similar identifier, marital status, title, date of birth and gender.
FinancialYour financial position, status and history.
ContactWhere you live, a history of where you have lived and how to contact you.
Socio-demographicDetails about your work or your profession or your employment details.
TransactionalDetails about payments and refunds with us, and insurance claims you make.
ContractualDetails about the products or services we provide to you.
TechnicalData that identifies computers or other devices that you use to connect to the internet. This includes your Internet Protocol (IP) address and cookies stored on those devices.
BehaviouralDetails about how you use our products and services.
CommunicationsWhat we learn about you from letters, emails and conversations between us.
Social relationshipYour family and other relationships such as fellow policyholders or people living at the insured address.
Open data and public recordsDetails about you that are in the public record such as the Electoral Register, and information about you that is openly available on the internet.
Usage dataOther data about how you use our products and services.
Documentary informationDetails about you that are stored in documents in different formats, or copies of them. This could include things like your driver’s licence, passport or birth certificate.
ConsentsAny permissions, consents or preferences that you give us. This includes things like how you want us to contact you, whether you get paper documents, or prefer large print formats.

We may also collect, use, store and transfer special categories of personal information about you, only where we are permitted under the law to do so, which includes details about your:

  • Racial or ethnic origin.
  • Religious or philosophical beliefs.
  • Trade union membership.
  • Genetic and bio-metric data.
  • Health data including when you disclose vulnerability to us and gender.
  • Criminal convictions and offences.

WHERE WE COLLECT PERSONAL INFORMATION FROM

We may collect personal information about you from any of these sources:

Direct interactions, which includes personal information you give to us:

  • When you apply for our products and services.
  • When you talk to us on the phone.
  • When you use our websites, mobile device apps or web chat services.
  • In emails and letters.
  • In insurance claims or other documents.
  • In customer surveys.
  • If you take part in our competitions or promotions.

Third parties or publicly available source, including personal information we receive from:

  • Companies that introduce you to us.
  • Credit, payment, and other types of card associations.
  • Credit reference agencies.
  • Insurers and reinsurers.
  • Comparison websites.
  • Social networks.
  • Fraud prevention agencies.
  • Public information sources such as Companies House.
  • Agents working on our behalf including Sales, Service and Claims activties.
  • Market researchers.
  • Government and law enforcement agencies.

If you are providing personal data of another individual to us, you must tell them you are providing their information to us and show them a copy of this notice. 

WHO WE SHARE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION WITH?

We may share your personal information with:

  • Regulators and other authorities (including the Information Commissioner’s Office).
  • UK Financial Services Compensation Scheme.
  • Credit reference agencies.
  • Fraud prevention agencies.
  • Outsourced partners including Webhelp, Davies Group, and administrative teams in India.
  • Organisations that introduce you to us.
  • Market researchers.
  • Price comparison websites and similar companies that offer ways to research and apply for financial products and services.
  • Companies with whom you ask us to share your data.
  • Insurers and reinsurers.
  • If you pay by instalments, we will share your details with Prem-Fina our premium finance system provider.
  • If you make an insurance claim, information the insurer may put on a register of claims. This will be shared with other insurers.
  • Companies who perform marketing services on our behalf such as third-party vendors including but not limited to Salesforce, Google, Microsoft and Meta Platforms, Inc.
  • Third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer, or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal information in the same way as set out in this privacy notice.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal information and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal information for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal information for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

This privacy policy addresses only our use and handling of personal information we collect from you in connection with providing our services. If you disclose your information to a third party or visit a third-party website via a link from our services (including those listed below), their privacy notices and practices will apply to any personal information you provide to them, or they collect from you. We cannot guarantee the privacy or security of your personal information once you provide it to a third party and we encourage you to review their privacy notices and practices.

IF YOU HAVE ANY ADDITIONAL COVER OPTIONS:

If you have

  • Legal Expenses Cover.
  • Home Emergency Cover.

..then cover is provided by DAS Legal Expenses Insurance Company Limited, and their Privacy Policy can be found here: www.das.co.uk/legal/privacy-statement

If you have:

  • Key Protect Cover.

..then cover is provided by Coplus, and their Privacy Policy can be found here: www.coplus.co.uk/data-privacy-notice/

INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS

We may transfer your personal information outside of the European Economic Area (‘EEA’) to:

  • Comply with your instructions.
  • Comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.
  • Work with our agents/suppliers for contractual purposes or to improve customer experience.

Whenever we transfer your personal information out of the EEA, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:

  • We will only transfer your personal information to countries that have been deemed by us to provide an adequate level of protection, this includes India for administration activities including email and webchat responses..
  • Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts approved by the European Commission which give personal information the same protection it has in Europe.
  • Where we use providers based in the US, we may transfer data to them if they are part of the Privacy Shield which requires them to provide similar protection to personal information shared between the Europe and the US.

Please contact us if you want further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal information out of the EEA.

HOW WE LOOK AFTER YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We are committed to ensuring your personal information is secure. To minimise the risk that there is unauthorised access to or disclosure of your personal information, we put in place, where practicable, appropriate physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure it.

We also limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties on a “need to know” basis. They will only process your personal information on our instructions, and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal information breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

HOW WE USE PERSONAL INFORMATION AND HOW THE LAW PROTECTS YOU

Data Protection law only allows us to use personal information if we have a proper reason to do so. The law recognises four proper reasons for using personal information:

  • To fulfil a contract, we have with you.
  • When it is our legal duty.
  • When it is in our legitimate interests.
  • When you consent to it.

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. If we rely on our legitimate interest, we will tell you what that is.

Here is a list of ways that we may use your personal information, which of the reasons we rely on to do so and our legitimate interests.

Purpose / Activity & information typeLegal basis for processing
– To manage our relationship with you
– To develop new ways to meet customers’ needs and grow our business
– Marketing activities
– Study and analyse how customers use our products and services
– Provide useful information and guidance on our products and services

Types of personal information
– Identity
– Contact
– Transactional
– Contractual
– Behavioural
– Technical
– Social Relationships
– Performance of a contract with you
– Necessary to comply with a legal obligation
– Necessary for our legitimate interests to:
– create products for certain groups of customers and informing you about them
– develop products and services, and what we charge for them
– gather feedback with the aim of improving our products and service
– Developing and manage our brands, products and services
– Testing new products
– Managing how we work with other companies that provide services to us and our customers

Types of personal information
– Identity
– Contact
– Transactional
– Contractual
– Behavioural
– Technical
– Performance of a contract with you
– Necessary to comply with a legal obligation
– Necessary for our legitimate interests to:
-develop products and services, and what we charge for them
– define types of customers for new products or services
– Delivery of our products and services
– Collecting and managing customer payments, including fees and charges
– To provide HM treasury with relevant information on our products and services

Types of personal information
– Identity
– Contact
– Transactional
– Contractual
– Behavioural
– Technical
– Performance of a contract with you
– Necessary to comply with a legal obligation
– To detect, investigate, report, and prevent financial crime
– To manage risk for us and our customers
– To obey laws and regulations that apply to us
– To respond/resolve complaints

Types of personal information
– Identity
– Contact
– Transactional
– Contractual
– Behavioural
– Technical
– Social Relationships
– Performance of a contract with you
– Necessary to comply with a legal obligation
– Necessary for our legitimate interest, to develop/improve our financial crime processes and procedures
– To exercise our rights set out in agreements or contracts

Types of personal information
– Identity
– Contact
– Transactional
– Contractual
– Performance of a contract with you

MARKETING

We may use your personal information to tell you about relevant products and offers. This is what we mean by ‘marketing’. We may use this personal information to form a view on what we think you may want or need, or what may be of interest to you, and therefore which products, services and offers may be relevant for you.

We will only:

  • Use your personal information to send you marketing messages
  • Share your personal information with any company outside our group of companies for marketing purposes

if you have given your consent for us to do so.

You can ask us to stop sending you marketing messages by visiting our website at any time.

Whatever you choose, you’ll still receive transactional messages such as renewal notifications, and other important information about your policy such as changes to terms and conditions.

We may ask you to confirm or update your choices if you take out any new products or services with us. We’ll also ask you to do this if there are changes in the law, regulation, or the structure of our business.

We do not sell your data to third parties for marketing purposes

HOW WE USE YOUR INFORMATION TO MAKE AUTOMATED DECISIONS

We sometimes use systems to make automated decisions based on personal information we have – or can collect from others – about you. This helps us to make sure our decisions are quick, fair, efficient, and correct, based on what we know. These automated decisions can affect the products, services or features we may offer you now or in the future, or the price that we charge you for them.

Here are the types of automated decision we make:

QUOTE

All the information you provide us about you, your household and your property will be used to make automatic decisions about your policy. The decisions made include calculating an appropriate price for your policy and deciding if your application needs to be referred for further review.

The information you provide might affect whether or not we can provide insurance cover or the price of the quote you receive.

TAILORING PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

When you complete a quote either direct or through a Comparison Website we place you in groups with similar customers. These are called customer segments. We use these to study and learn about our customers’ needs, and to make decisions based on what we learn. This helps us to design products appropriately for different customer segments, and to manage our relationships with them.

PAYING BY INSTALMENTS

When you enter into an Agreement with Avantia Insurance Limited, we may also use information about you, in compliance with applicable laws or regulatory rules, to process your application with credit reference agencies:

  1. We will supply your personal information to credit reference agencies, and they will give Us information about you, such as about your financial history. We do this to assess creditworthiness and product suitability, check your identity, manage your account, trace, and recover debts and prevent criminal activity.
  2. We will also continue to exchange information about you with credit reference agencies on an ongoing basis, including about your settled accounts and any debts not fully repaid on time. Credit reference agencies will share your information with other organisations. Your data will also be linked to the data of your spouse, any joint applicants, or other financial associates.

Credit scoring methods are tested regularly to make sure they are fair and unbiased.

You have the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling, which has legal consequences for you or similar significant effects. While we are confident that the technology works, we understand that not everyone is comfortable with automated decision making. That is why:

  • You can request that decisions are not based on the automated score alone.
  • You can object to an automated decision and request human intervention.

If you want to know more about these rights, please contact us.

IF YOU CHOOSE NOT TO GIVE PERSONAL INFORMATION

We may need to collect personal information by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you.

If you choose not to give us this personal information, we may not be able to fulfil our legal or contractual obligations. This may mean we cannot issue you an insurance policy and we cancel a product or service you have with us.

Any data collection that is optional would be made clear at the point of collection.

HOW LONG WE KEEP YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

The period we retain your personal information for will differ depending on the nature of the personal information and what we do with it. We typically keep quote, policy and claims records for up to ten years for one of these reasons:

  • To respond to any questions or complaints.
  • To show that we treated you fairly.
  • To maintain records according to rules that apply to us.
  • For claims purposes.

We may keep your data for longer than 10 years if we cannot delete it for legal, regulatory, or technical reasons. We may also keep it for research or statistical purposes. If we do, we will make sure that your privacy is protected and only use it for those purposes.

YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS

You have the following rights in relation to your personal information:

  1. The right to be informed

You have the right to be provided with clear, transparent, and easily understandable information about how we use your information and your rights. Therefore, we are providing you with the information in this Privacy Policy.

  1. The right of access

You have the right to obtain access to your information (if we are processing it), and certain other information (like that provided in this Privacy Policy). This is so you are aware and can check that we’re using your information in accordance with data protection law.

  1. The right to rectification

You’re entitled to have your information corrected if it’s inaccurate or incomplete, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.

  1. The right to erasure

This is also known as ‘the right to be forgotten’ and, in simple terms, enables you to request the deletion or removal of your information where there is no compelling reason for us to keep using it. This is not a general right to erasure; there are exceptions. We may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.

  1. The right to restrict processing

You have rights to ‘block’ or suppress further use of your information. When processing is restricted, we can still store your information, but may not use it further. We keep lists of people who have asked for further use of their information to be ‘blocked’ to make sure the restriction is respected in future.

  1. The right to data portability

You have rights to obtain and reuse your personal data for your own purposes across different services. E.g., if you decide to switch to a new provider, this enables you to move, copy or transfer your information easily between our IT systems and theirs safely and securely, without affecting its usability.

  1. The right to object

You have the right to object to certain types of processing, including processing for direct marketing (which we do only with your consent).

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please email [email protected] Find out more about how to access the data we have on file for you, or request for it to be erased here

HOW TO GET A COPY OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

If you wish to make a request for information we hold about you, please send us the following information:

  • Full name
  • Address
  • Telephone number
  • Email address (if applicable)
  • Details of the request: are you requesting information on yourself or on behalf of someone else? If you are requesting on someone else’s behalf we will need their details and an explanation as to why you are making the request on their behalf. Describe what information you would like and add any other information you think may be relevant
  • Please include the following declaration:   I …………………………………………..(name) certify that the information given on this application form to Avantia Insurance Limited is true. I understand that it is necessary for Avantia Insurance Limited to confirm my/the data subject’s identity and it may be necessary to obtain more detailed information in order to locate the correct personal data

You can send this to us via:

  • Email to [email protected]
  • Give us a call on 0300 660 1000
  • You could also get in touch via social media – we are on Facebook and Twitter
  • Or put your request in a letter and send it to:

Homeprotect,

CI Tower,

St George’s Square,

New Malden,

KT3 4HG

Please provide as much detail as possible to help us find the information. The more details you can provide, the more likely we are to be able to find the information you seek.

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal information (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

We may need to request specific information from you to confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month but it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

Find out more about this process here.

HOW TO WITHDRAW YOUR CONSENT

You can withdraw your marketing consent at any time. To do so visit our website or send us an email to [email protected]

HOW TO CONTACT US

Please let us know if you are unhappy with how we have used your personal information. You can write to us at:

Customer Relations Manager
Homeprotect 
CI Tower 
St George’s Square 
New Malden 
KT3 4HG

or send us an email to [email protected].

If you are not satisfied with our response to your complaint or believe our processing of your information does not comply with data protection law, you can make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Find out on their website how to report a concern.

COOKIES

We also use cookies on our website for a variety of purposes – some essential such as ensuring secure payments and others non-essential such as sharing cookie information with third parties such as Google.  to analyse website performance and collect data to display Homeprotect adverts to users on other websites and exclude some users from adverts (such as people who have purchased). When you first visit our site you will be asked whether you’d like to accept non-essential cookies. Should you wish to change your choice simply clicking the ‘Manage Privacy Settings’ or ‘Privacy’ link in the footer of our web pages. Full details on this, including how to opt out, can be found in our cookie policy.