Privacy policy

“We”, “us” or “our” refers to Confused.com, a trading name of the data controller Inspop.com Limited, 2nd Floor, Greyfriars House, Greyfriars Road, Cardiff CF10 3AL, United Kingdom (Registered Number 03857130). Inspop.com Limited is part of the ZPG Limited group of companies, comprising ZPG Limited and its subsidiaries (the “ZPG Companies”).

Processing your data

The personal data you provide us will be passed to our insurer partners and third-party providers as part of providing our services to you and providing you with quotes. Where you decide to proceed with one of our insurer partners or third-party providers you'll also become subject to the privacy policy displayed on their website, and we encourage you to read this. The categories of insurer partners and third party providers are set out below.

• Motor-related insurers/providers
• Household insurers/providers
• Car finance providers
• Other third-party insurers

Certain insurers/providers may compare your personal data against data they, or the company behind the brand they represent or their group of companies, already hold on you from existing products or services. They may share this with their underwriters for the purpose of analysing market trends or to assess membership and transactions against certain loyalty schemes and apply a discount if applicable.

Some insurance providers who offer products designed for students or graduates may also make checks against higher education sources to verify your student or graduate status.

Some of our service providers may also process your personal data in other countries. Where this is the case, we have contractual agreements with them to ensure it's kept securely at all times and that UK standards are met.

We collect personal data, and may collect special category personal data, as part of providing services to you and operating our business.

The following are examples of the types of personal data that we may collect directly from you, about you, and/or from other sources, including third parties, business partners, our affiliates, or publicly available sources.

Personal data you give to us

Personal data

Examples of personal data we may collect include:

• Names and titles
• Physical address and address history
• Contact details including telephone numbers and email addresses
• Date of birth
• Gender
• Lifestyle and other information

Special category personal data

Examples of special category personal data we may collect include:

• Medical history
• Claims history
• Criminal convictions and CCJs

We may also indirectly collect other special category personal data during the course of any fraud investigations.

Driving licence number

Where you provide your driving licence number, insurance providers may use this to confirm your licence entitlement and driving history with the DVLA. Insurance providers can only confirm licence entitlement in England, Scotland and Wales. The information provided by the DVLA is:

• Type of licence held
• Length of time the licence has been held for
• Entitlements to drive
• Penalty points
• Convictions
• Conviction details
• Disqualifications

The information provided by the DVLA may be used alongside other data you've provided:

• To calculate a motor insurance quote
• For anti-fraud purposes

It's important that you check that the personal data you provide is correct, complete, accurate and not misleading. Failure to do so may affect the products and services we can provide.

Data we collect about you

Online behaviour

When you use our websites or apps, we automatically collect data about your device, including your IP address, data about your visit (including how you got to our websites) and how you use our services. We may combine this data with other data you have provided to us or which we have received from other sources.

Call recording and monitoring

In accordance with UK law, we may monitor or record calls, emails, SMS messages or other communications for:

• Business purposes such as quality control and training
• Processing necessary for entering into or performance of a contract
• Prevention of unauthorised use of our telecommunication systems and websites
• Ensuring effective systems’ operation
• Meeting any legal obligation
• Protecting your vital interests
• Prevention or detection of crime
• For the legitimate interests of the data controller

Data we receive from other sources

We work closely with third parties (for example, business partners, advertising networks, analytics providers and search information providers) and may receive information about you from them. This could include socio-demographic information and information about your likely interests based on your previous web browsing and purchases. We may combine this information with other information you have provided to us or which we collected about you.

If you use any of the other websites or services provided by the ZPG Companies, we may receive information about you or your device in relation to that use, including your name, email address, identifiers, IP address, information about your visits, and how you use the services of the ZPG Companies.

We'll use your data in the following ways:

Providing our services to you and fulfilling your requests

• As part of our price comparison service, data collected will be passed to our partners (e.g. insurers and third-party providers), and other third-parties (e.g. credit reference agencies for credit card smart search), to improve pricing accuracy for products you have expressed an interest in, as noted in the 'Processing your data' section above.
• Automatic renewal cancellation service - where you have requested us to pass on your instruction to cancel the automatic renewal of your existing policy, data collected will be passed to the product provider that you identified as due to renew your policy.
• Verifying your identity when required.
• Tracking and verifying sales with our partners and third-party providers.
• Van customers- If you use our service to complete a van insurance quote and we are unable to return any, or very few quotes, or indeed have a very high premium returned, we may pass your details to our partner, Commercial Vehicle Direct Insurance Services so they may call you to discuss your requirements.

Service improvement and account management

• Ensuring that our content is presented in the most effective manner for you and your device.
• Processing and administering your Confused.com Rewards.
• Undertaking market research, statistical analysis and product development, which includes our insight services that are available to our partners and subscribers to help them understand customer behaviours and improve their products and services for your benefit.
• Creating, managing and operating your account with us, including sending associated service messages.
• For business administration like troubleshooting, data analysis, testing and survey purposes.
• Protecting our interests and those of third parties and as part of our efforts to keep our services safe and secure.
• We may use your personal data to make decisions about you using computerised technology to profile you, such as assessing which products and services might be of interest to you.

Marketing

• Keeping you informed about promotions and new developments. This could be by email or social media, where we're legally permitted to do so and you've not asked us to stop keeping you up to date. 
• To provide you with personalised advertising about our products and services based on your online activity. We use the data we have to improve our advertising systems so we can show you relevant interest-based advertising. For example, we may share your hashed email address with Facebook, which is why you may see Confused.com advertisements on Facebook after you have used our services.
• Measuring and understanding the effectiveness of advertising we serve to you and others, and ensure you don’t see the same ads too frequently.
• Delivering relevant advertising to you on websites operated by ZPG Companies or third parties or in direct communications from us, which may use inferences about your likely interests based on your activity on websites operated by ZPG Companies or third parties.

For more information about our marketing please read “Marketing and your preferences” and our “Cookie policy”.

Confused.com is part of ZPG, comprising ZPG Limited and its subsidiaries (the “ZPG Companies”). We share IT infrastructure with other ZPG Companies, and so we may share your personal data with those ZPG Companies to help store your data efficiently and securely. Other ZPG Companies may use your personal data to help provide you with services that you request from those ZPG Companies (for example, to help you manage your home) and to provide you with relevant recommendations of other ZPG services and products. These recommendations may use inferences about your interests based on your activity on our websites and apps and on other websites and apps operated by other ZPG Companies.

We may also share your personal data with third parties for the following reasons:

If we sell or buy any business or assets

If we sell or buy any business or assets, we may disclose your personal data to the prospective seller or buyer of that business or those assets, along with its professional advisers. If Inspop.com Limited (or substantially all of its assets) is acquired, personal data held by it about its users will be one of the transferred assets.

To obtain professional advice

We may disclose your personal data to obtain professional advice (for example, from lawyers or financial advisors).

Legal basis for processing

Our legal basis for processing your personal data for the purposes described above will typically be one of the following:

Contract

It is necessary for us to process your personal data to perform a contract to which you are a party, or to take steps at your request prior to you entering into a contract.

Consent

You have consented to us using your personal data for this purpose (for example, when you agree to our use of cookies for particular purposes). You can withdraw your consent at any time by deleting the data from your account or updating your preferences.

Legitimate interests

There are certain circumstances where we process your personal data for our legitimate business interests. These can be for commercial or societal reasons. In order for us to process your data, we'll always balance our interests against your own to ensure it's fair.

Examples of processes where we rely on legitimate interest include:

• Sharing data with our suppliers and service providers in order to generate a quote.
• Delivering our Confused.com Rewards scheme when you get insurance from our Car, Home, Van or, separately, Life Insurance which is provided by Direct Life & Pension Services Ltd. Your data will be shared with The Marketing Lounge Partnership Limited (MLP) to enable them to verify qualifying insurance purchases and deliver the Confused.com Rewards you have chosen. For more information, please read MLP’s Privacy Policy.
• Fraud detection and prevention.
• Engaging and contacting you throughout the lifecycle of your Confused.com account to ensure you have a good experience as a valued customer.
• Engaging you and contacting you at renewal to remind you of our service and to provide renewal quotes.
• Internally auditing our processes to maintain our high standards.
• Providing a summary of your quote results.
• Market research, statistical analysis, product development, and sharing data with selected third parties to add value to our products and services and those provided by our partners.

Sometimes, we may process your personal data when it is in the legitimate interests of another company, such as another ZPG Company.

Legal obligations

It is necessary for us to use your personal data for us or another ZPG Company to comply with a legal obligation.

Where you provide us with special category data (for example, information about your health or any previous criminal convictions, such as driving offences), we will seek your explicit consent to process this data.

If you have any further questions, don’t hesitate to contact us. You can email us communications@confused.com, or write to us at:

Confused.com,
2nd Floor Greyfriars House,
Greyfriars Road,
Cardiff,
CF10 3AL.

Surveys and Reviews

If you've opted in to take part in surveys, Confused.com may contact you from time to time to ask you to complete a survey. This is so we can review, develop and improve our products and services. We use SmartSurvey’s website to host our surveys. In providing its services to us, Smart Surveys act as a data processor. For more information, please read SmartSurvey’s privacy policy. At all times, as the account holder we will remain the data controller.

If you are opted in to reviews and you engage with one of our customer journeys we will share your email address with Reviews.co.uk. Reviews.co.uk will email you asking you to carry out a review so we can look at your feedback and improve our service. Reviews.co.uk act as a data processor. For more information, please read Reviews.co.uk’s privacy statement.

Your responses, including any personal data provided, will only be used by Confused.com for the purposes stated within this privacy policy. Personal data can include (but isn't restricted to) your name, age and email address. We may also collect special category personal data, depending on the survey.

Marketing

Confused.com has various offerings and from time to time we'd like to keep you informed of our news, products or services.. This could be by email or social media channels.

If you'd rather we didn't contact you for this purpose, or to confirm the types of products and services that would be of most interest to you, then you can update your preferences or let us know by emailing us at communications@confused.com.

Your details may be used by the product or service provider or, where they're involved, their appointed representatives, or an intermediary, who provided you with the two cheapest quotes. They may contact you to see if you're interested in buying a policy, highlighting any special offers or ways they might be able to help you get an even cheaper price with them. It's possible they may use an overseas call centre to do so. If you're unhappy with this condition of use then don't tick the box when asked as you're getting a quote.

If you're subscribed to our renewal reminder service, our systems may re-submit your quote details when your renewal is due (this will be based on the cover start date you entered for your last quote, or if you have run multiple quotes, the quote our system thinks is the most applicable). The quote data will be sent to our panel of providers to calculate their quotes. Credit checks may be carried out as part of this process (as detailed within this privacy policy). The cheapest quotes returned will be sent to you by email. If you’re subscribed to our home renewal reminder service and have quoted for car insurance but haven’t quoted for home insurance, our systems will attempt to match your home purchase date using third-party data. We use details from your last car insurance quote to submit quote details when your home purchase anniversary date approaches. The quotes are based on being claim free. You’ll need to check your details before buying. If you don't want to hear from us about your renewal quote, please let us know by updating your preferences in your account settings or email us at communications@confused.com.

We also use online advertising, to keep you aware of what we’re up to and to help you see and find our services.

We target Confused.com banners and ads to you when you're on other websites and apps. We do this using a variety of digital marketing networks and ad exchanges. We also use a range of advertising technologies like web beacons, pixels, ad tags, cookies, and mobile identifiers, as well as specific services offered by some sites and social networks, such as Facebook’s Custom Audience service.

We collect data about you through the use of technology such as cookies and device fingerprinting. For more information, view our Cookie Policy.

Managing, disabling and enabling cookies

We use cookies and similar technologies to distinguish you from other users of our websites and apps (including when you browse third party websites). This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you use our services (for example, to remember your login details and improve our services). We also use cookies and similar technologies to show you more personalised advertising, including Confused.com advertisements on other websites. You may adjust the settings on your browser to refuse cookies but some of our services may not work if you do so. For detailed information on the cookies we use and why we use them, please read our Cookie Policy.

We endeavour to treat your personal data as private and confidential. From time to time we may employ agents and subcontractors to process your personal data on our behalf. The same duty of confidentiality and security will apply to them and all processing will be carried out under our instruction.

We would like to bring to your attention our obligations to disclose your personal data in the following four exceptional cases permitted by law, and the other situations set out below. These are:

• Where we are legally compelled to do so
• Where there is a duty to the public to disclose
• Where disclosure is required to protect our interest
• Where disclosure is made at your request or with your consent

If you make a complaint about the service we have provided, we may be obliged to forward details about your complaint, including your personal data, to the relevant ombudsman. Be assured that they are similarly obliged to adhere to the requirements of the GDPR and keep your personal data strictly confidential.

Please note that we and our suppliers may make a number of checks to assess an application for car finance or verifying identities to prevent and detect crime and money laundering. We may also share data at any time for the purposes of fraud prevention. 

We keep your personal data for as long as is necessary for the purposes for which it is processed, and in accordance with legal and regulatory requirements. These periods vary depending on the nature of the data and your interactions with us.

You have a number of rights as a data subject. We will handle your request in accordance with the law. Please note that these rights do not apply in all circumstances and means there may be legal reasons why we cannot fulfil all requests.

Request your personal data

In order to access the personal data we hold about you, you need to make a ‘Subject Access Request’, or SAR. To make a SAR please email us at:

communications@confused.com

or write to:

Privacy Team
Confused.com
Subject Access Request
2nd Floor, Greyfriars House
Greyfriars Road
Cardiff CF10 3AL

Please provide:

1. Your name, address, and date of birth and what information you would like.
2. Identification documents - one that shows your name and signature (e.g. a copy of your passport) and one that shows your name and address (e.g. a copy of a recent bill or bank statement or other official document). We'll accept just one identification document if it shows your name, address and signature such as a copy of your driving licence (this is to take reasonable steps to confirm your identity before providing you with details of any personal information we may hold about you).

If your SAR involves the personal data of other people, or you're making a request on behalf of someone else (e.g. on behalf of your child if you're a parent), we may need identification from these people. We'll also need a signed letter of authority from them confirming that they're happy for you to act on their behalf and for us to release their data to you.

Once we have your written request and identification documents, we'll have 30 calendar days to fulfil your request. Where for some reason this won't be possible, for instance due to large volumes of data being involved, we're permitted by law to take up to an additional 60 days to fulfil your request. Where any delay is anticipated we'll let you know as soon as possible along with details of when we expect to be able to provide you with the requested documentation.

Other rights

Your other rights as a data subject, where applicable, include:

• The right to be informed about our processing of your personal data
• The right to have your personal data corrected if it is inaccurate, and to have incomplete personal data completed
• The right to object to the processing of your personal data
• The right to have your personal data erased (“right to be forgotten”)
• The right to move, copy, or transfer your personal data (“data portability”)
• Rights regarding automated decision making, including profiling

For more details on these rights and how to exercise them, please contact:

communications@confused.com

If you have any queries about your rights, or believe that they have not been met by Confused.com, please contact our Data Protection Officer at:

communications@confused.com

or by writing to:

Data Protection Officer
Confused.com
2nd Floor, Greyfriars House
Greyfriars Road
Cardiff CF10 3AL

Complain to the Supervisory Authority

We hope that we will be able to resolve any questions or concerns you have. However, if you have any complaints relating to the processing of your personal data, you also have the right to complain to the relevant Supervisory Authority. In the UK this is the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). They can be contacted at:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Credit reference

When you apply for an insurance or car finance quote through our website, a number of credit checks or other searches may be made through credit reference agencies, fraud prevention agencies or other public or privately available sources of information. For insurance products these checks may be processed by any provider at any stage of a quote, a policy renewal or in certain circumstances where an amendment to your agreement is requested. For car finance products the credit check will be processed by Confused.com and the results may be shared with any lender on our panel. Further credit checks may be made by your selected provider when you apply.

Credit checks are made to ensure providers have the necessary facts to assess your insurance and financial profile, verify your identity, to help prevent fraud and to provide you with their best premium and payment options. This is normally a ‘soft’ credit check from a credit referencing agency. Soft credit checks allow you to get quotes without affecting your credit rating. They're visible on your credit report but don't show up in the same way as a 'hard' check. If you apply for a loan or other form of credit, a ‘hard’ check will then be recorded against your credit file. This may affect your credit score, so you may wish to keep full applications to a minimum to protect your credit rating.

Your full credit report won't be provided to you directly, and won't be made available to ourselves. If you want to access your credit report, you can contact the credit reference agencies currently operating in the UK. The information they hold may not be the same so it's worth contacting them all. They'll charge you a small fee.

• Transunion: Consumer Services Team, PO Box 491, Leeds, LS3 1WZ or call 0330 024 7574 or log on to www.transunion.co.uk.
• Equifax: Customer Service Centre, PO Box 10036, Leicester, LE3 4FS or call 0800 014 2955 or log on to www.equifax.co.uk.
• Experian: Consumer Help Service, PO Box 9000, Nottingham, NG80 7WF or call 0800 013 8888 or log on to www.experian.co.uk.

In order to prevent and detect fraud, other parties including insurance providers, aggregators, financial institutions, fraud prevention agencies, our Rewards partner, and other ZPG Companies may at any time share information about you with members of Confused.com.

Also, Confused.com actively monitor information entered into our website and pass on intelligence of suspected fraud to the group named above.

Data may be shared for the following purposes:

1. checking details on applications for credit and credit related or other facilities
2. managing credit and credit related accounts or facilities
3. recovering debt
4. checking details on proposals and claims for all types of Insurance
5. checking details on applications for Confused.com Rewards
6. checking details of job applicants and employees

This may result in Confused.com not being able to offer a product or Confused.com Reward, or insurers not being able to offer a product or offering a product on different terms.

In addition, Insurance providers exchange information through various databases to help check information provided and to prevent fraudulent claims. Specifically, Insurance Database Services Limited (IDSL) hosts the Claims and Underwriting Exchange (CUE), which holds a record of incidents reported to insurance companies by policyholders and third-party claimants. Insurers may validate the information provided by you, both about yourself and about any other person named on the application, against the information held on CUE and against other databases hosted by IDSL. Insurers may use this information to consider whether to accept the risk.

Insurance providers may also use the Motor Insurance Anti-Fraud and Theft Register, run by the Association of British Insurers (ABI). This is accessed by the police, the DVLA and DVLNI (Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agencies), as well as other insurers. Some insurers also participate in other data-sharing schemes.

When you get a motor insurance policy, including motorbike or van cover, your insurance cover details may also be added to the Motor Insurance Database, run by the Motor Insurers' Information Centre (MIIC). This has been set up to help identify uninsured drivers and may be searched by the police to help them confirm who's insured to drive. If there's an accident the database may be used by insurers, MIIC and the Motor Insurers' Bureau as well as those making a claim for a road traffic accident, to identify the relevant policy information.

The aim of all of this is to help Confused.com, our product providers and our Rewards partner to decide if they can offer a product, offer a product on different terms and to prevent fraudulent claims. When we deal with your request for a quote, if applicable, the insurance provider or any intermediary or appointed representative may search these registers, databases and any other anti-fraud registers to provide such services. Under the conditions of your policy, you must tell us about any incident (such as accident, damage, loss or theft) which may or may not give rise to a claim. When you tell us about an incident we'll pass information relating to it, to the insurance provider, intermediary or appointed representative.

Failure to answer all questions honestly, accurately and to the best of your knowledge may result in any policy or product being invalid, receiving extra charges from your chosen provider, or seeing any future claim being affected. You may also be liable for any third party costs in the event of an accident.

This privacy policy was last updated on 5 December 2022. We reserve the right to make changes to this policy and will post any changes on this page, so please check back frequently.

From time to time we may need to change the way we use your personal data. Where we believe you may not reasonably expect such a change we will write to you, giving you reasonable notice of our intended changes.