
Your privacy is important to us. We want you to understand what we do with your data
Jump to the relevant section using the links below:
1. Introduction
2. Privacy Statement
3. Who are we?
4. Personal Information we collect or obtain about you.
5. Our use of cookies
6. How we use your personal data
6.1 Contract
6.2 Legal Obligation
6.3 Legitimate Interest
6.4 Special Category Data and Criminal Offences Data
7. Who we share your data with
8. Data processed outside the European Economic Area (EEA)
9. How long do we retain your personal information?
10. Confidentiality & security of your personal information
11. Your rights as a Data Subject
11.1 Accessing your data
11.2 Updating your data
11.3 Restricting the processing of your data
11.4 How to unsubscribe from marketing
12. Complaints
1. Introduction
This Privacy Policy will help you understand what data we collect from you, why we collect it and what we do with it. This policy explains how we store and use your personal information when you interact with our website, or where we otherwise obtain or collect your personal information.
This Privacy Policy applies to all products and services offered by Policy Expert, except where otherwise noted. We reserve the right to change our Privacy Policy from time to time and without notice and encourage you to check regularly for any changes that may have taken place. If we decide to change our Privacy Policy, we will update the Privacy Policy page content and last modified date on our website.
Please note: If you give us personal information about other people such as joint policy holders on home insurance or additional drivers for motor insurance you must make sure they are aware of this privacy policy.
This Privacy Policy was last modified on 11th November 2021.
2. Privacy Statement
We are committed to keeping your personal data safe and to ensuring the integrity and security of any personal data we may process.
You should read this privacy notice carefully as it contains important information on the way in which we will process your personal data, in particular:
3. Who are we?
We are Policy Expert (which is a trading name of QMetric Group Limited). We are the controller of our customers, and prospective customers, personal data for the purposes of data protection legislation. We are committed to protecting your privacy and adhere to the relevant data protection legislation.
Our Data Protection Officer contact details are:
Mrs Audrey McDade, 110 Bishopsgate, London, EC2N 4AY.
If you have any queries or requests concerning your personal information or how we process it, please contact us either via the Data Protection Officer or at:
Customer Relations,
Policy Expert Home,
1st Floor,
Exchange House,
450 Midsummer Boulevard,
Milton Keynes,
MK9 2EA
For home insurance
For motor insurance
Please note in this Privacy Policy, 'our', 'we' and 'us' refer to QMetric Group Limited, trading as Policy Expert.
4. Personal Information we collect or obtain about you.
We collect personal data relating to you and your use of our services from a variety of sources. These are detailed below along with descriptions of what we do with this information.
We collect personal data directly from you such as your name, occupation, date of birth, address, telephone number, email address, and insurance history via:
We may also obtain your personal data, which is gained indirectly or passively in the following ways:
6. How we use your personal data
We will only process your data where we have a legal basis for doing so. We use your data to communicate with you and to offer you our services and products. We will also use your data to improve or maintain the services we offer to you. We will never share your data with any other third party, other than those stated in this policy, nor use your data for any other purpose, unless we firstly gain yourconsent to do so.
We rely on a number of legal bases for collecting and further processing your personal data. These are:
6.1 Contract
We collect personal information about you when you apply for products or services. We will ask you to provide some information about yourself for security, identification and verification purposes. When completing on-line forms, we will tell you how your information will be used in relation to the product or service you are applying for.
We may also monitor and record communications with you (such as telephone calls and emails) for quality assurance, training, fraud prevention and regulatory compliance purposes.
We will also collect personal data for the purposes of the performance of a contract with you, such as:
Automated decision-making' is where a decision is made without human involvement, such as providing an instant insurance quotation on demand without the need of human intervention. It forms a necessary part of our quote process because it is the only practical way to process your data quickly enough to give you an immediate quote. It is your choice as to whether or not to accept the quote, meaning it does not create a contract at point of quote and a quote itself carries no detriment to you. Automated decisions do not form part of our claims or complaints processes.
6.2 Legal Obligation
We may also process your personal information to allow us to comply with certain legal obligations to which we are subject. We are required to adhere to several regulatory frameworks, including that imposed by the regulatory authority, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), with whom we work openly and co-operatively. We will also work co-operatively with the national data protection authority, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), in relation to any data protection matters that may arise.
6.3 Legitimate Interest
We may use your personal data for our legitimate business interests, whilst carefully considering and balancing any potential impact on you and your rights as a data subject under the relevant data protection legislation.
This may include processing your personal data to allow us to provide the best services and customer experience and to ensure products are relevant and tailored to your needs. We will always ensure that our legitimate interests will never override your rights and freedoms under data protection legislation. As an example, we may process your personal data for the following purposes:
In addition, we may perform statistical and other analysis on the personal data we collect, to help us understand and improve on how people use our products or services.
Please note, you have the right to restrict the processing for which we rely on legitimate interest as the legal basis.
Where we rely on legitimate interest as the legal basis for sending you direct marketing you have the right to object to this processing. You can opt-out or update your marketing preferences by contacting us at:
For home insurance
home-optout@policyexpert.co.uk
For motor insurance
6.4 Special Category Data and Criminal Offences Data
We may ask you for information about medical conditions you have (considered special category data) or criminal convictions you have received. This is lawfully processed as it is required for the performance of a contract or to take steps to enter into a contract. However, due to the sensitive nature of this type of data there are additional conditions required for processing this type of data. This data is processed as it is 'necessary for reasons of substantial public interest' as set out in data protection legislation.
8. Data processed outside the European Economic Area (EEA)
Some of the third party suppliers we use may be located in countries outside of the EEA.
For example, we use third party software suppliers such as Zendesk to process data such as your email address and other contact details to help manage our customer service. Zendesk stores this in the USA.
When data is transferred outside of the EEA, it will be kept securely and only used for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy. We will ensure the data has the equivalent protection as it would be if it were processed in the UK.
This is done by requiring our prior written consent from the third party and only where that country or international organisation provides adequate safeguards, as recognised by the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) or, where an international organisation is located in the United States, that international organisation participates in and adheres to the EU-US Privacy Shield, or such other mechanism that may replace or supersede it.
Our insurance partners are the data controllers in respect of the processing they carry out, and such processing will be subject to their own Privacy Policies. We do not have any control over whether they process your personal data outside the EEA. You should refer to their Privacy Policy for this information.
9. How long do we retain your personal information?
Policy Expert will periodically review your personal information to ensure that we do not keep it for longer than is necessary and that it is being retained for the purposes it was originally gained. Personal data will be retained for the purposes specified in this Privacy Policy so long as we continue to have a legal basis for processing your data (e.g. legitimate interest or contractual purposes).
Where we have provided you with a quote (but you have not purchased a policy), we will retain your personal data for 10 years from the date we obtained it for regulatory and fraud prevention purposes, and to allow any complaints to be managed. If you do purchase a policy, Policy Expert will retain your relevant personal data in relation to that policy for the duration of your contract and for 60 years after the contract ends. This is for the purpose of policy and claims administration, as well as general accounting and audit purposes.
If the personal data is no longer necessary, or where we no longer have a legal basis for processing your data, we will delete or fully anonymise the data we hold on you. However, non personally identifiable data elements will be retained by us for statistical purposes.
10. Confidentiality & security of your personal information
Policy Expert do not sell, trade or otherwise transfer your personal information to outside parties other than those detailed in this Privacy Policy. Necessary sharing includes trusted third parties who assist us in operating our website, conducting our business or servicing you, and governmental bodies for fraud prevention, so long as those parties have adequate data protection measures in place that align with the requirements of the relevant data protection legislation. We ensure that we have appropriate technical and organisational controls in place to protect our business and our customers from unauthorised access or alteration to, disclosure or destruction of information we hold. In particular:
11. Your rights as a Data Subject
As a data subject, for whom Policy Expert processes personal data, you can exercise certain rights in relation to the processing of your personal data, under data protection legislation, as detailed below.
11.1 Accessing your data
You have the 'right of access' to the personal data we hold on you. This will include information on any data we may have sourced indirectly, for example from the Claims and Underwriting Exchange (CUE) database. We can also provide your personal data in a structured format (as a csv file) if required. This is referred to as you 'right to data portability' under the Data Protection legislation.
If you would like to receive a copy of the data we hold on your please contact us on:
For home insurance
or write to:
Customer Relations,
Policy Expert Home,
1st Floor,
Exchange House,
450 Midsummer Boulevard,
Milton Keynes,
MK9 2EA
For motor insurance
or write to:
Customer Relations,
Policy Expert Motor,
2 Parklands Avenue
Maxim 3
Eurocentral
Motherwell
ML1 4WQ
We will respond to your request as soon as possible, and at the latest within one month of receiving your request.
11.2 Updating your data
We aim to keep your data up to date and accurate. If you find we have incorrect information about you please let us know by contacting us at:
For home insurance
For motor insurance
This is referred to as you 'right to rectification' in data protection legislation.
We cannot delete the data we hold on you until the relevant data retention period has expired, at which point your data will automatically be deleted or anonymised (see section 9 above). However, if you wish to stop receiving communications from us you can do so, see '11.4 - unsubscribe from marketing communications' below.
11.3 Restricting the processing of your data
You have the right to request us to stop processing your data in certain circumstances, referred to as 'right to restriction of processing' in data protection legislation. These circumstances are:
11.4 How to unsubscribe from marketing
You may opt-out of your personal information being processed for marketing communication purposes as defined in section 6.3, by contacting us at:
For home insurance
home-optout@policyexpert.co.uk
For motor insurance
motor-optout@policyexpert.co.uk
You can unsubscribe from ongoing email at any time by following the unsubscribe instructions at the bottom of each email.
Please note that due to the advance preparation required for some types of communication, it may take up to 30 days for the communications to cease.
This is referred to as your 'right to object' under data protection legislation.
12. Complaints
Policy Expert will be more than happy to help you should you have any complaints about the processing of your personal data. Under data protection legislation, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Supervisory Authority, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), who are the national authority responsible for the protection of personal data. A complaint can be made to the ICO via their website: ico.org.uk, or through their helpline: 0303 123 1113