www.directchoice.co.uk is brought to you by Direct Choice Insurance Services Limited. Direct Choice believes it is important to protect your privacy and we are committed to giving you a personalised service that meets your needs in a way that also protects your privacy. This policy explains how we may collect information about you and then use it to meet your needs. It also explains some of the security measures we take to protect your privacy, and tells you certain things we will not do. You should read this policy in conjunction with the Web Site Terms and Conditions.

When we first obtain personal information from you, or when you take a new service or product from us, we will give you the opportunity to tell us if you do or do not want to receive information from us about other services or products (as applicable), by emailing us at . You may change your mind at any time by emailing us at this address.

Some of the personal information we hold about you may be 'sensitive personal data' within the meaning of the Data Protection Act 1998 - for example, information about your health or ethnic origin.

1. Collecting Information

We may collect personal information about you from a number of sources, including the following:

from you when you agree to take a service or product from us, in which case this may include your contact details, date of birth, how you will pay for the product or service and your bank details
from you when you contact us with an enquiry or in response to a communication from us, in which case this may tell us something about how you use our services
from documents that are available to the public, such as the electoral register

2. Using Your Personal Information

2.1 Direct Choice Insurances Services Ltd and the companies in our group* ('we') will use your personal information for the following purposes:

identify you when you contact us;
help identify accounts, services and/or products which you could have from us or selected partners from time to time. We may do this by automatic means using a scoring system, which uses the information you have provided, any information we hold about you and information from third party agencies (including credit reference agencies).
help administer, and contact you about improved administration of, any accounts, services and products we have provided before, or provide now or in the future;
carry out marketing analysis and customer profiling (including with transactional information), conduct research, including creating statistical and testing information;
help to prevent and detect fraud or loss; and
contact you in any way (including mail, email, telephone, visit, text or multimedia messages) about products and services offered by us and selected partners unless you have previously asked us not to do so.

* A list of group companies of which Direct Choice Insurance Services Limited is a part is available from the Data Protection Compliance Manager at the address given below.

2.2 We may allow other people and organisations to use information we hold about you for the purpose of providing services you have asked for, as part of the process of selling one or more of our businesses, or if we have been legitimately asked to provide information for legal or regulatory purposes or as part of legal proceedings or prospective legal proceedings. From time to time, these other people and organisations may be outside the European Economic Area in countries that do not have the same standards of protection for personal data as the UK.

2.3 We may monitor and record communications with you (including phone conversations and emails) for quality assurance and compliance.

2.4 We will check your details with fraud prevention agencies. If you provide false or inaccurate information and we suspect fraud, we will record this. We and other organisations may use and search these records to:

help make decisions about credit and credit related services for you and members of your household;
help make decisions on motor, household and other insurance proposals and insurance claims for you and other members of your household;
trace debtors, recover debt, prevent fraud, and to manage your accounts or insurance policies; and
check your identity to prevent money laundering unless you give us other satisfactory proof of identity.

2.5 Where you give us information on behalf of someone else, you confirm that you have provided them with the information set out in this document, and that they have not objected to such use of their personal information. Where you give us sensitive data about yourself or another person (such as health details or details of any criminal convictions) you agree (and confirm that the other person has agreed) to our processing such information in the manner set out in this document.

2.6 In connection with this contract we, and other companies in our group, may carry out credit and fraud prevention checks with one or more licensed credit reference and fraud prevention agencies. We and they may keep a record of the search. Information held about you by these agencies may be linked to records relating to other people living at the same address with whom you are financially linked. These records will also be taken into account in credit and fraud prevention checks. Information from your application and payment details of your account will be recorded with one or more of these agencies and may be shared with other organisations to help make credit and insurance decisions about you and members of your household with whom you are financially linked and for debt collection and fraud prevention. This includes those who have moved house and who have missed payments. If you provide false or inaccurate information to us and we suspect fraud, we will record this and may share it with other people and organisations. We, and other credit and insurance organisations, may also use technology to detect and prevent fraud.

If you need details of those credit agencies and fraud prevention agencies from which we obtain and with which we record information about you, please write to our Data Protection Compliance Manager at Direct Choice Insurance Services Ltd, Enbrook Park, Sandgate, FOLKESTONE, Kent, CT20 3SE.

3. Protecting Information

We have strict security measures to protect personal information. This includes following certain procedures (for example, checking your identity when you phone us) and encrypting (encoding) data on our web sites.

4. The Internet

4.1 If you communicate with us using the Internet, we may occasionally email you about our services and products. When you first give us personal information through our web site, we will normally give you the opportunity to say whether you would prefer us not to contact you by email, by e-mailing us at . However, you can always send us an email to this address at any time if you change your mind.

4.2 Please remember that communications over the Internet, such as emails and webmails (messages sent through a web site), are not secure unless they have been encrypted. Your communications may go through a number of countries before they are delivered - this is the nature of the Internet. We cannot accept responsibility for any unauthorised access or loss of personal information that is beyond our control.

4.3 We may use 'cookies' to monitor how people use our site. This helps us to understand how our customers and potential customers use our web site so we can develop and improve the design, layout and function of the sites.

A cookie is a piece of information that is stored on your computer's hard drive, which records how you have used a web site. This means that when you go back to that web site, it can give you tailored options based on the information it has stored about your last visit. You can normally alter the settings of your browser to prevent it from accepting cookies.

4.4 If you do not want us to use cookies in your browser, you can set your browser to reject cookies or to tell you when a web site tries to put a cookie on your computer. However, you may not be able to use some of the products or services on our web site without cookies.

5. Turning Off Cookies in Different Browsers

5.1 Internet Explorer 5.0

From your browser menu, select 'Tools'.
Then select 'Internet Options'. This will bring up the 'Internet Options' Dialogue Box.
On the top of the dialogue box, select 'Security', then 'Custom Level'. This will bring up the 'Security Settings' box.
Scroll down using the scroll bar on the right hand side of the box, until you come to the section carrying the title 'allow cookies to be stored on your computer'.
Of the options available, select 'Disable', and then select the 'OK' button on the bottom of the menu box.

5.2 Internet Explorer 6.0

From your browser menu, select 'Tools', and then 'Internet Options'. This will bring up the 'Internet Options' Dialogue Box.
On the top of the dialogue box, select 'Privacy'. This will bring up the 'Privacy Settings' box.
On the Privacy tab, move the slider up for a higher level of privacy or down for a lower level of privacy.
Move the slider to the top to block cookies from all web sites.

Following these instructions will stop your computer from accepting cookies in future. You may reconfigure your computer to accept cookies again by following these instructions, but by selecting 'Enable', and the 'OK' button on the bottom of the menu box (Internet Explorer 5.0); or by selecting on 'Default' button (Internet Explorer 6.0).

5.3 Netscape 4.7

First, on your top menu, select 'Edit', and then 'Preferences'. This will bring up the 'Preferences' menu box.
From the options on the left-hand side, select 'Advanced', which will bring up another menu.
Halfway down, you will see a section on cookies, and if you wish to turn cookies off, you should select 'Disable', and then the 'OK' button on the bottom of the menu box.

You may reconfigure your computer to accept cookies again by following these instructions, but by selecting 'Accept All Cookies', and then selecting the 'OK' button on the bottom of the menu box.

5.4 Netscape 6.0

First, on your top menu, select 'Tasks', and then 'Privacy & Security'.
From here you have the option to 'block cookies from this site', 'unblock cookies from this site' or view and remove and prevent cookies from being reaccepted from selected sites.

6. Links

This web site may contain links to other sites or recommended suppliers. Please remember that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of these other sites. This privacy policy applies only to information collected on this web site.

7. Further Information

If you would like any more information or you have any comments about our privacy policy, please either write to us at Data Protection Compliance Manager, Direct Choice Insurance Services Ltd, Enbrook Park, Sandgate, FOLKESTONE, Kent, CT20 3SE or email us at

We may amend this policy from time to time, in which case we will publish the amended version on our web site, and you can ask us for a copy by writing to the above address or by emailing at .

This policy applies to personal information we hold about individuals. It does not apply to information we hold about companies and other organisations.

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