Emerald Life Privacy Policy
(Updated January 2023)
All of our products are available to be purchased by UK residents.
When we say ‘we’ or ‘our’ we mean Emerald Life, our underwriters, our claims handlers and anyone associated with the administration of your insurance policy.
When we say ‘you’ or ‘your’, we mean anyone whose personal information we may collect, including:
- anyone seeking an insurance quote from us, or whose details are provided during the quotation process;
- policyholders and anyone named on or covered by the policy; and
- anyone who may benefit from or be directly involved in the policy or claim, including claimants.
This policy explains how we collect and use your personal information.
When providing personal information about others, you confirm that you have the consent of these individuals to supply their personal information. We are unable to offer you any product or service unless you provide explicit consent for the collection and use of sensitive personal data as defined in data protection laws. You have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. This may limit or terminate the contract of insurance that you have arranged through us., or any services that we may provide.
As with all other insurance companies, we collect certain information that you provide in the process of buying a policy from us or if you volunteer information that enables us to keep in touch with you.
This information may include personal details that you submit including your name, address, email address, date of birth and so on.
We will only ever contact you at your request or if you have opted to receive information from us from time to time, or as part of the administration of your policy.
We also gather data that enables Emerald to track how you use this website – which pages you visit and so on. This helps us to provide you with the most relevant information when you visit the website.
We use “cookies” to collect this data. A cookie is information that any website puts on your internet-enabled device so that it can remember you at a later stage. Typically, a cookie records your preferences when using a particular site. Further details on cookies are available on our Cookie Policy page. You can disable cookies on your computer by selecting the relevant option on your browser.
How we use your information
We only use your information to administer the sale of our products to you, the consumer. The processing of information you provide is necessary for the performance of the contract, including:
- providing quotes;
- maintaining and updating your policy records;
- administering your policy and handling claims;
- the renewal of your policy;
- understanding customer’s needs and requirements;
- analysis and research regarding our products and services;
- analysing our premium and the terms and conditions we offer where automated decision-making applies;
- performing credit checks and validating information provided to us;
- dealing with complaints; and
- preventing financial crime or meeting our other legal obligations.
We will never share your information with third parties that are not directly involved in the administration of our insurance policies or analysis and research, unless you have given us specific free consent to do so, but we may share it with other Emerald companies as part of our efforts to offer you better services and products, again only if you have given us specific free consent to do so. W may also share your information in the event that we wish to sell all or part of our business.
Our partners that are involved in the administration of our insurance policies include our underwriters, claims handlers and our customer call centre provider.
Information may also be disclosed to regulatory organisations that oversee our activities as a UK regulated entity.
In addition, we may use your information for the purposes of renewing your policy, or in rare instances, for the purposes of crime prevention.
What personal information we collect
We collect the following types of personal information about you so that we can complete the activities outlined above:
- basic personal details such as name, age, address;
- family, social and life circumstances such as marital status, dependents and employment type;
- financial details such as payment card information;
- photographs and videos to help us manage and assess claims;
- background information that we need to collect in order to asses the risk to be insured including claims history, health history or any convictions;
- medical information if relevant to your policy or claim;
- accessibility details if we need to make adjustments to help you; or
- credit history or similar from various anti-fraud databases.
Marketing
From time to time, if you have freely consented for us to do so, Emerald may contact you by email, telephone, SMS or via other means, such as on social media sites, to tell you about products and services that we hope will be of interest to you.
You may opt out of receiving this type of information at any time.
Emerald takes every step possible to secure your personal data. However please note that emails are not secure unless they are encrypted and Emerald will not be held responsible for any unauthorised access or interception of emails from your computer or email-enabled device.
How long do we keep your information for?
We are only allowed to keep your personal information if we need it for one of the reasons we set out above.
As a general rule, we will keep it for 6 years from the end of your relationship with us, as it is likely that we will need the information for regulatory reasons, fraud prevention, or to defend a claim. For example, should you wish to bring some form of legal action relating to your relationship with us, this would generally need to be done within 6 years from the end of that relationship. However there may be exceptions where we need to keep your personal information for longer, such as where there was a question of fraud.
We will also retain data in an anonymous form for statistical and analytical purposes.
Your rights
You have the right to:
- object to us using your personal information. We will either agree to stop using it or explain why we are unable to;
- ask for a copy of the personal information that we hold about you, subject to certain exemptions;
- ask us to update or correct your personal information to keep it accurate;
- ask us to delete your personal information from our records if it is no longer needed for the original purpose (subject to limitations);
- ask us to restrict the use of your personal information in certain circumstances;
- ask for a copy of the personal information that you supplied to us, so you can use it for your own purposes;
- ask us to stop using your personal data if it is based only on your consent; or
- complain about how we handle your data. If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data we encourage you to come to us in the first instance but you are also entitled to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF (0303 123 1113 or 01625 545 745) or at https://ico.org.uk/concerns
You can contact us on any subject concerning your data and privacy at customerservice@emeraldlife.co.uk.