HomeServe Group Privacy Notice

Here at the HomeServe Group we know how important it is to keep your personal data safe, that’s why we’re committed to making sure that you receive the service you’d expect and that your privacy is protected every step of the way.

In this notice you’ll discover exactly what information we collect from you and how we then use this to deliver our services, as well as your rights. It might not be something you’re interested in, but it’s really important you have a read and of course, let us know if you have any questions.

The HomeServe Group (‘we’ and ‘us’) means HomeServe Ltd, together with any entity in which HomeServe Ltd directly or indirectly has at least a 50% shareholding. HomeServe Ltd uses a variety of well-known brand and trading names including (but not limited to): HomeServe Membership Ltd, Checkatrade, HomeServe Connect and Boxt Limited. We may transfer your personal information among the members of the HomeServe Group for the purposes contemplated in this privacy notice.

What information do we collect?

When you buy a product or service through us, we’ll collect some of your personal details, to make sure you have everything you need to make the most of our services. Please rest assured that we’ll only use this for administering your contract and to support the delivery of the services or products you’ve asked for.

Examples of the types of personal information we usually collect are:

• Name
• Address
• Telephone number (including mobile)
• Email address
• Date of birth and age
• Payment details (Direct Debit, credit/debit card number)
• Property type (flat, house etc.)
• Information about whether you own your property
• Boiler details (make and model)
• Any additional requirements such as large print or Braille documentation
• Details of any additional authorised parties who can manage your requirements on your behalf
• I.P. address for your device (if visiting our website or using our app)
• Once you are a customer of ours, we record information about the types of services and products we provide to you
• Where you opt-out of receiving marketing information from us, we will keep a record of this

The information requested during the application process is required to complete the sale of the product on offer and forms part of your contract with us.. If any of the data is missing from the application form or is incorrect, we may not be able to process your request.

Collection of additional information.

To help us fulfil our obligations with the Financial Conduct Authority’s guidance on vulnerable customers and consumer duty, with your explicit consent, we will collect additional information relating to your personal circumstances, i.e. disability, mobility and health care that may impact how you access our services. You can request to have this information removed at any time and we will not hold it for any longer than 12 months after your policy ends.

Our legal basis for using your data.

In most circumstances, we use the personal data you provide to us in order to perform our contract with you and to provide you with the products and/or services that you have decided to purchase from us.

We also have a legitimate interest in telling you about our products and services where we think that you may benefit from them. To do this, we may use your personal data to send you information about our products and services which is based on your individual needs and requirements based on the information we hold about you. More information about this is set out in the "We’ll always keep you in the loop" section below.

We have a legitimate interest to make sure our products are used properly and we are providing the service Customers expect of us. In order to help us understand this, we may contact you for research purposes to gain insight on a recent interaction with us, and we may use open source data to check whether policy usage is in line with terms and conditions.

Using information provided by third parties

We may receive personal data about you from our partners, which may include your name, address, telephone number and property type. A list of our partners can be found at www.homeserve.co.uk/partners. We use this data to contact you by post with information about our products and services. We will not contact you where you are on the Mail Preference Service, or where you have otherwise told us you do not want to be contacted by us.

We sometimes use data from other third parties or publicly available sources such as Experian, the edited electoral roll or the deceased preference service. Using this data helps us to ensure that our records are accurate and up to date by filling in any gaps on an address or clarifying vanity addresses and house numbers. It also allows us to remove anyone from our mailing lists that has passed away.

We also use data for other marketing purposes. Any data we use in this way is thoroughly checked by both the supplier and our own internal teams to ensure that the correct marketing permissions are in place and that the data is being used fairly.

Keeping and storing your data

We maintain a record retention policy and schedule to make sure we keep a copy of your personal details for no longer than is necessary. We will process your data while you hold a product in order to be able to service it, in line with the purposes explained in this notice. We may also retain your data after your relationship has ended with us, in order to keep accurate records for tax, regulatory purposes and to handle any future complaints.

Some of the data that we collect may be transferred to and stored at a destination outside the UK or the European Economic Area, for example some of our IT systems are run on servers hosted in the USA. We take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated in accordance with this privacy notice and applicable privacy laws.

Sharing your data with third parties

We often work with a number of carefully selected third parties – including water and utility companies who introduce us to their customers, so we can promote the products and services we offer.

If you’ve been introduced to us through one of our partners, we may share details of the products and services you’ve purchased from us with them. Sharing data in this way helps us resolve individual complaints and helps us ensure that we’re offering the right products, to the right people.

We respect your privacy and that’s why we don’t generally give your data to any third parties for marketing purposes. However, on occasion and in addition to the above, we may pass your information to a limited number of third parties for the following reasons:

• To deliver the services you’ve asked for, which might include providing information to sub-contracted engineers to complete a repair, to suppliers who print and send policy documents on our behalf, or to a member of your family, household, or other people who have an interest in the property
• If you contact us using social media, we use a social media management platform to help us manage questions and queries
• For legal or regulatory purposes including fraud prevention
• If we buy or sell any business or company assets
• We may also share your personal information in order to create “lookalikes” on carefully selected platforms (such as Facebook and Google). This information is matched on a pseudonymised basis and the data we share is limited to only what is necessary. Data is not held by the relevant platform. This activity, along with the use of Google services such as Signals, will ensure that we keep our marketing communications relevant and useful to you.

Customer profiles

We carry out something called ‘profiling’ so we can understand the needs, behaviours and sociodemographic characteristics of our customers. This helps us make sure that we’re offer the right products and services to the right people, for example, not offering gas products to people without a gas supply or products to people living in sheltered accommodation, who don’t need our services. Profiling also means we can tailor our offerings to current customers, enhancing the potential benefits of being a customer.

We’ll always keep you in the loop

Whenever we collect your personal information we’ll give you the opportunity to let us know how you’d like us to get in touch in the future. We promise not to inundate you with marketing messages, but we also understand if you’d prefer not to receive anything from us.

If you’ve asked us to send you marketing material, you can change your mind at any time by contacting us using the details in the Contact Us section. You’ll also find an unsubscribe link at the bottom of every marketing email we send to you.

If you’ve given us an email address you may receive messages related to the management of your policy via email, which include policy and renewal documents. If you’d prefer not to receive these messages in this way, just let us know and we’ll be happy to provide them in paper form instead.

Your rights matter

If you’d like to see the personal information that we hold about you, you can request a copy any time. If you find that this information is incorrect you can ask for it to be updated. Or, if you believe the information is being processed without a legal basis, you can ask us to stop or request that it’s deleted from our systems.

To action any of the above, send an email to Privacy@homeserve.co.uk

or alternatively you can write to us at:

We won’t ever charge you for a copy of your personal data but we may ask you for proof of your identity before we disclose any information. Once we’ve seen this, we’ll send you a copy of the personal data we hold within one month. In addition, if you decide to move away from us for any reason, you can also request for your personal data to be transferred to a new provider on your behalf.

Contact us

General Enquiries/Data Controller

Data Protection Officer

Got any worries?

If, at any time, you feel that we haven’t processed your data fairly or you’re not satisfied with how we’ve handled your personal information, you can contact the Information Commissioners Office, who will look into this for you. For full details about how to share any concerns you may have, visit www.ico.org.uk/concerns/

Links to other Websites

Any links to other websites are provided solely as pointers to information on topics that may be useful to the users of our website. Please remember that when you use a link to go from our website to another website, this privacy notice will no longer apply. Your browsing and interaction on any other website, including those which have a link on our website, are subject to that site’s own rules and policies. We recommend that you read the rules and policies relation to that website before submitting any personal information.

Updates

This notice will be updated from time to time and we recommend that you check back regularly but we will notify you of any changes through our website. The version number and date released will always be listed below:

Version number: 7

Date released: January 2024