Privacy policy

Privacy Policy of Zurich Assurance Ltd

This Privacy Policy explains how Zurich Assurance Ltd ("Zurich, we, us, our") will use your personal data. We will be the ‘data controller’ (i.e. we will be responsible for decisions about how your data will be processed) for the purposes of data protection legislation.

Who do you share my personal information with?

When you use this website we may need to share your personal information with other organisations, for the purposes of providing you with the goods and services you have requested; for example;

- associated companies including suppliers and service providers (for example companies who help us maintain, operate, and promote our website)
- our group companies, details of which can be found on our website https://www.zurich.co.uk/en/services/legal-business

If you decide to buy a product from us we will let you know how your personal information will be used at that time, including any other information we need to provide you with your chosen product.

What will you collect?

We will collect personal information about you (for example your name, gender, date of birth, marital status, salary or email address) when you use our online services to get a quote, buy a product, manage your account, use our pension planner or when you report a problem with our website.

If you give us personal information on other individuals this will be used to provide you with a quotation and/or contract of insurance and/or provision of financial services. By providing this information, you agree you have that person’s permission to do so. More information about this can be found in the ‘How will we use personal information’ section.

When you visit this website, we automatically collect information about your browsing session - for example your IP address and what type of device you are using (e.g. a computer, a smart phone or a tablet). We also record the pages you view during your visit. However, we will not use this information to identify you personally.

The reason we collect this information is so we can improve the way our website works for our customers and for systems administration purposes. This website also makes use of cookies (small text files which are downloaded to your device for a limited period of time). Cookies serve a variety of functions which includes sharing your usage information with carefully selected media agencies for the purpose of targeting our advertisements on other sites, including social media. We will not link information collected from the use of these cookies to personal information that we hold about you. For more information about how we use cookies, and for guidance on how you can control the operation of cookies on your device, please read our cookie policy.

How will you use personal information?

We will only collect and use your personal information:

(i) where the processing is necessary in connection with providing you with a quotation and/or contract of insurance and/or provision of financial services that you have requested;

(ii) to meet our legal or regulatory requirements; or

(iii) for our "legitimate interests". It is in our legitimate interests to collect your personal information as it provides us with the information that we need to provide our services to you more effectively including providing you with information about our products and services. We will always ensure that we keep the amount of information collected and the extent of any processing to the absolute minimum to meet this legitimate interest.

We will contact you to obtain consent prior to processing your personal information for any other purpose, where we need to do so, including for the purposes of targeted marketing unless we already have consent to do so.

Links on this website

We may include links on this website to other sites you may find useful. These websites will each have their own privacy statement. Please make sure that when you click on any of our links to other websites, you read the privacy statement located on that website - it will be different to ours and websites connected with this site are not within our control.

Transfer of Personal Information

Where we transfer your personal information to countries that are outside of the UK and the European Union (EU) we will ensure that it is protected and that the transfer is lawful. We will do this by ensuring that the personal information is given adequate safeguards by using 'standard contractual clauses' which have been adopted or approved by the EU or other solutions that are in line with the requirements of European data protection laws.

You can get a copy of our security measures for personal information transfers out of the UK and the EU from our Data Protection Officer at: Zurich Insurance Group, Tri-centre 1, Newbridge Square, Swindon, SN1 1HN, or by emailing the Data Protection Officer at GBZ.General.Data.Protection@uk.zurich.com.

How long do you retain my personal information for?

We will retain and process your personal information for as long as necessary to meet the purposes for which it was originally collected, as outlined in this notice and in our cookie policy. These periods of time are subject to legal, tax and regulatory requirements or to enable us to manage our business.

What are my data protection rights?

You have a number of rights under the data protection laws, namely:
- to access your data (by way of a subject access request);
- to have your data rectified if it is inaccurate or incomplete;
- in certain circumstances, to have your data deleted or removed;
- in certain circumstances, to restrict the processing of your data;
- a right of data portability, namely to obtain and reuse your data for your own purposes across different services;
- to object to direct marketing;
- if we use the information about you on the basis of legitimate interest for purposes other than direct marketing, you can object to our using it for those purposes, giving an       explanation of your particular situation, and we will consider your objection;
- not to be subject to automated decision making (including profiling), where it produces a legal effect or a similarly significant effect on you;
- to claim compensation for damages caused by a breach of the data protection legislation;
- if we are processing your personal information with your consent, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time.

We will, for the purposes of providing you with a contract of insurance, processing claims, reinsurance and targeted marketing, process your personal information by means of automated decision making and profiling where we have a legitimate interest, or where you have consented to this.

What happens if I fail to provide my personal information to you or withdraw consent for processing?

Quite simply, if you don’t provide the personal information we require, we won’t be able to provide you with the services you requested. Sorry!

Who can I contact for further information?

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, in the first instance you can write to our Data Protection Officer at: Zurich Insurance Group, Tri-centre 1, Newbridge Square, Swindon, SN1 1HN or via email at GBZ.General.Data.Protection@uk.zurich.com.

If you are concerned about how we process your personal information, or are not satisfied with our handling of a request you’ve made in relation to your rights, you can make a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office at this address: First Contact Team, Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, SK9 5AF.

Company Information

Zurich Group means Zurich Insurance Group Ltd, and its direct subsidiary companies (as defined by the Companies Act 2006) and branches of such subsidiary companies from time to time.

Changes to this privacy policy

We may amend this Privacy Policy from time to time for example, to keep it up to date or to comply with legal requirements. Any changes we make will be updated on this page. So that you always know what’s happening, we suggest you check this policy regularly to see any changes we have made, and that you print a copy of this policy for your records.

Zurich cookies

This cookie policy applies to our use of “cookies” in connection with this website and our other online platforms (the “Websites”).

At Zurich, protecting our customers is at the heart of everything we do - and protecting your information is important to us. We use cookies to help make your visits to our websites a better experience, and this policy explains how we do just that. Please be aware that your browser settings may automatically accept our cookies. For information about how to adjust your browser settings please see Accept or block cookies.

Remember, you are in control, and can adjust these settings at any time.

What are cookies?

Cookies are small text files which contain information that’s downloaded to your computer or mobile device when you visit a website. When you visit the website again, or visit another website which recognises a cookie you’ve previously downloaded, your device communicates with the website and the website can read the information held in that cookie.

“First party cookies” come from the site you are currently using, for example, Zurich.co.uk’. You can also enable "third party cookies", which are cookies placed by our approved business partners from a different website – for example when we use Google advertising services, their website cookies may be placed on the site you are visiting.

There are also different types of cookie, which do slightly different things;

“Session cookies” stay in place only for the duration of your visit to our website and are deleted at the end of your browsing session.

"Persistent cookies" remain on your device until the expiry date and time set by the website.

How we use cookies

We use cookies to improve your experience when you browse our websites (for example to show you information that’s relevant to you, based on the sort of web content you’ve looked at before) and to save you time by not having to re-enter your details each time you visit. We also use cookies to see how people interact with our websites, so we can make improvements to the site that make it easier to use.

We use four categories of cookie on our websites, based upon the International Chamber of Commerce UK Cookie Guide.

• Strictly necessary
• Performance
• Functionality
• Targeting

You can control the cookies that we use by following this link- Accept or block cookies. If you want to, you can block cookies from any website by activating the setting on your browser that allows you to refuse some or all cookies. However, if you block all cookies (including Strictly necessary cookies) you may not be able to access all or parts of our websites.

You can also use your browser settings to delete cookies. For more information about how to disable cookies in your browser please visit http://www.aboutcookies.org.uk/managing-cookies

Strictly necessary cookies

“Strictly necessary cookies” are named as such because these cookies are essential in order for you to move around the website and use its features; for example accessing secure areas of the website.

Without these cookies, our websites and back-end services wouldn’t work. If you remove or disable these cookies, we can’t guarantee that you will be able to use our websites.

Our use of Strictly necessary cookies includes:

• identifying you as logged in to the secure parts of our website for the duration of your visit;
• remembering information you have previously entered to complete a form; for example, to retrieve a quote; and
• your information is stored on our secure servers and the cookie contains only a unique reference number which links you to your stored information when you log into the website.

We do not use Strictly necessary cookies to:

• collect information about you for marketing purposes; or
• track your internet activity on other websites.

Performance cookies

“Performance cookies” collect information about how visitors use our websites, but they do not collect any information that could identify you. They allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our websites. It’s this type of cookie that helps us improve the way our websites work; for example by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily and to make sure error messages are being received.

The information collected by these cookies is either anonymous or ‘pseudonymised’, i.e., any fields which would show personal data are replaced by pseudonyms or artificial identifiers to protect your identity and personal data.

Our use of Performance cookies includes:

• analysing how visitors use our website;
• recording any errors that occur;
• testing different designs of our website; and
• measuring the effectiveness of our advertising

We never use Performance cookies to collect personal information.

Some Performance cookies are managed for us by third parties, for the purposes listed above. For more information see Key Third Party Providers.

You can stop Performance cookies by setting your web browser to reject/block some or all cookies. You may be able to block specific Performance cookies provided by third parties by using the tools or preferences on that third party’s website (see Further Information on Key Third Party Providers).

Functionality cookies

We use “Functionality cookies” to provide services, (for example, videos) or to remember choices you make so we can personalise our content for you (for example, by remembering your user name, choice of language or region).

Our use of Functionality cookies includes:

• remembering preferences you have chosen to customise your experience of our Website;
• providing live chat functionality to you across our websites; and
• tracking your online purchases of Zurich products made through a third party cashback provider; primarily so you can redeem cashback rewards offered by third parties.

We do not use Functionality cookies to target you with adverts on other websites.

You can block these cookies using your browser settings, but this may mean that we can’t offer you certain services and may prevent us from remembering you’ve already told us you don’t want to receive a particular service.

You must enable third party cookies when you sign up for reward schemes offered by third parties. You must also accept and acknowledge that this type of cookie is directly administered by third parties and that the purpose, your ability to change cookie settings and/or related limitations are explained in full in the cookie policy of that third party.

Targeting cookies

“Targeting cookies” record your visit to our websites, including which web pages you have visited and the links you have followed. We use segmentation for the purposes of targeted marketing and to show you content relevant to your interests. We share this information with carefully selected third parties so that they can also show you relevant Zurich content. Targeting cookies may also be placed by third parties if your browser settings allow for this.

Here are some examples of how we use targeting cookies:

• Targeting cookies may be used to trigger direct communications with you, for example, when you are using live chat;
• To deliver content and marketing communications tailored to your interests based on information from your visit to our Websites;
• To provide advertising agencies with information about your visit so that they can show you relevant adverts online; and
• To provide social networks (for example Twitter or Facebook) with information about your visit to our websites.

You can control whether or not Targeting cookies are used, however, if you block them, we may not be able to offer you certain non-essential functionality.

Accept or block cookies

You can block any cookies from any website by activating the setting on your browser that allows you to refuse the setting of some or all cookies. However, if you block all cookies (including Strictly necessary cookies) you may not be able to access all or part of our Websites. You can also use your browser settings to delete cookies. For more information about how to disable cookies in your browser please visit http://www.aboutcookies.org.uk/managing-cookies

If you share the use of a computer, accepting or rejecting the use of cookies may affect all users of that computer.

Where a cookie is provided by a third party, you may be able to use that third party’s own guidance to block that cookie.

Other technologies

Cookies within mobile applications

We only use Strictly necessary cookies on our mobile applications. These cookies are critical to the functionality of our applications, so if you do choose to block or delete these cookies you may not be able to use the application. These cookies are not shared with any other application on your mobile device. We will never use the cookies from the mobile application to store personal information about you.

Flash cookies

“Flash cookies” make it quicker and easier for you to access websites that use Flash technology if you visit them more than once. If you disable these cookies, you may have to re-enter information every time you visit the same site.

Please note that deleting cookies in your browser will not delete Flash cookies. If you want to delete Flash cookies, you’ll need to go to the Settings Manager for your Adobe Flash Player. You will be taken to the Adobe website, which lists the websites with the cookies in your browser. Just click “Delete” opposite the relevant website.

Further information

More information about cookies and managing your browser settings can be found at http://www.aboutcookies.org.uk/managing-cookies

The International Chamber of Commerce's Guide to Cookies is available at https://www.cookielaw.org/media/1096/icc_uk_cookiesguide_revnov.pdf

Key third party providers

Webtrends and Google Analytics

We use Webtrends and Google Analytics services to measure how people use our website. This may include information such as the link you followed to reach one of our web pages, your IP address, and how you interact with our adverts. Webtrends and Google Analytics use Performance and Targeting cookies.

For more information, including details of how to block Webtrends cookies specifically, please see https://www.webtrends.com/terms-policies/privacy/cookie-policy/

For more information, including details of how to block Google Analytics cookies specifically, please see https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/181881?hl=en

DoubleClick cookies

These cookies are provided by our online advertising suppliers, and are used so we can show our internet adverts on other sites. Some of our web pages may contain electronic images that help us to see how users interact with these pages. They may also provide DoubleClick with information about these interactions.

For more information please see https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/180609?hl=en&ref_topic=23390

Cookie policy changes

If we decide to change our cookies policy, we will post any changes on this page. We suggest you check back to this policy regularly to see the changes we have made, and print a copy of this policy for your records.