Guaranteed Conveyancing Solutions Limited ("GCS") is committed to ensuring your privacy is protected. This Privacy Policy sets out details of the information that we may collect from you and how we may use that information. Please take your time to read this Privacy Policy carefully. When using our website, this Privacy Policy should be read alongside the website terms and conditions and (where appropriate) the Terms & Conditions: Status Requirements and Policy Issue Authority.
In this Privacy Policy references to "we" or "us" or "GCS" are to Guaranteed Conveyancing Solutions Limited, who are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. GCS are registered in England under company number 03623950, Registered Office: 42 Trinity Square, London, EC3N 4DJ.
We are the data controller of any personal information you provide to us. This means that we are responsible for complying with data protection laws. This Privacy Policy describes what personal information we may collect from you, why we use your personal information and more generally the practices we maintain and ways in which we use your personal information.
If you have any questions about how we collect, store or use your information, you may contact us using the details set out in section 12.
Please note that if you are unable to provide us with all of the necessary information, we may be unable to provide services to you or offer or administer a policy of insurance.
We collect information about:
- Previous, current and prospective policyholders
- Previous, current and prospective parties covered or to whom any benefit is payable under policies
- Users of the GCS website
- Experts instructed in relation to claims
- Brokers
- Solicitors, licensed conveyancers or legal executives who are authorised to issue legal indemnity insurance for their clients
We collect information about you:
- When you apply for a policy on behalf of a client (or a policy under which you are insured is taken out)
- When a claim is made under a policy
- When you use the GCS website
- When you respond to a customer survey as a Solicitor, licensed conveyancer or legal executive who is authorised to issue legal indemnity insurance for their clients
- When you contact us to make a complaint
- When you contact us with a query
The personal information that we collect will depend on your relationship with us. We will collect different information depending on whether you are a policyholder, covered party or beneficiary under a policy, website user, expert, solicitor, licensed conveyancer or legal executive who is authorised to issue legal indemnity insurance for their clients or other third party.
If you provide personal information to us about other individuals you agree: (a) to inform the individual about the content of this Privacy Policy; and (b) to obtain any consent where we indicate that it is required for the processing of that individual’s personal data in accordance with this Privacy Policy. Please click on the relevant section below for detailed information regarding the types of personal information we are likely to collect and use.
- General information such as your title, full name and address, contact details and relationship to the policyholder (where you are not the policyholder).
- Your professional work address and details if you are authorised to issue legal indemnity insurance to your own clients
- Bank details in respect of payments sent and received in connection with the policy
- Information relevant to your insurance policy. This will depend on the nature of the policy but will usually include details of your property if you are the policy holder or the details of your clients' properly where you are authorised to issue legal indemnity insurance for your clients
- Information relevant to a claim, or your involvement in the matter giving rise to a claim, in relation to legal indemnity insurance
- Information relating to previous policies or claims
- Information obtained through our use of cookies - you can find more information about this in our cookies policy
- Information captured during our telephone calls
- Your IP address
- Your marketing preferences - for more information on our marketing activities see section 8 below
- We do not collect or use sensitive personal information
We collect personal information from a number of different sources including:
- Directly from you or from someone else on your behalf. For example, if you are a policyholder, your conveyancer will provide details of your name and address to enable GCS to provide appropriate legal indemnity insurance under the policy (please see section 2)
- From other third parties involved in your insurance policy or claim such as the solicitor, licensed conveyancer or legal executive you have engaged
- From other third parties who provide a service in relation to your insurance policy or claim such as surveyors, claims handlers, experts, witnesses and other service providers
- From expert's reports and counsel's opinions
- From claims services providers
- Via publicly available sources such as internet search engines and social media sites
- Through customer surveys completed by solicitors, licensed conveyancers or legal executives
- From credit reference agencies
- Via insurance industry fraud prevention and detection databases and sanctions screening tools
- From government agencies such as the Financial Conduct Authority and from professional regulators and other professional bodies such as The Law Society or Council of Licensed Conveyancers
We may process your information for a number of different purposes. For each purpose we must have a legal ground for such processing.
Generally we will rely on the following legal grounds:
- That it is necessary in order for us to provide and administer insurance policies
- Where we have an appropriate business need such as maintaining our business records or developing and improving our products and services where such business need does not cause harm to you
- Where we have a legal or regulatory obligation to use such personal information
- Where the use is necessary to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights
You will find details of our legal grounds for each of our processing purposes below:
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Legal grounds:
- Our having an appropriate business need to use your data in order to be able to offer insurance contracts which does not overly prejudice you
- Our having an appropriate business need to use your information to prevent fraud which does not overly prejudice you
- Our providing your insurance contract
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Legal grounds:
- Our having an appropriate business need to use your information to provide insurance policies which does not overly prejudice you
- Our providing your insurance contract
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Legal grounds:
- Our having an appropriate business need to use your information to administer insurance claims which does not overly prejudice you
- Our providing your insurance contract
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Legal grounds:
- Our providing your insurance contract
- Our having an appropriate business need to use your information to prevent fraud which does not overly prejudice you
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Legal grounds:
- Our providing your insurance contract
- Our having an appropriate business need to use your information to prevent fraud which does not overly prejudice you
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Legal grounds:
- The use is necessary in order for us to comply with our legal obligations
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Legal grounds:
- Our having an appropriate business need to use your information to maintain good business practices which does not overly prejudice you
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Legal grounds:
- Our having an appropriate business need to use your information which does not overly prejudice you or your clients
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Legal grounds:
- Our having an appropriate business need to use your or your clients' information to market our products which does not overly prejudice you
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Legal grounds:
- Our having an appropriate business need to use your information to review and improve our offering which does not overly prejudice you or your clients
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Legal grounds:
- Our having an appropriate business need to use your information to manage our finances and collect debt which does not overly prejudice you
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Legal grounds:
- Our having an appropriate business need to use your information to manage our systems which does not overly prejudice you
From time to time, we may share your personal information with third parties. If you would like further information regarding the disclosures of your personal information, please see section 12 below for our contact details.
We disclose your information to the third parties listed below for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy. This might include:
- the insurer that underwrites your policy. The relevant insurer will be set out in your policy documentation
- other third parties who assist in the administration of insurance policies or such as surveyors, claims handlers, accountants, auditors, lawyers and other experts
- fraud detection agencies and other third parties who operate and maintain fraud detection registers
- investigative firms we ask to look into claims on our behalf in relation to suspected fraud
- our regulators
- the police and other third parties or law enforcement agencies where reasonably necessary for the prevention or detection of crime
- other insurers who provide our own insurance
- industry bodies
- Government bodies
- debt collection agencies
- our third party services providers such as IT suppliers, actuaries, auditors, lawyers, marketing agencies, document management providers and tax advisers
- third parties who undertake analysis for the purposes of product improvement
- selected third parties in connection with the sale, transfer or disposal of our business
Certain of the third parties with which we may share your personal information are based outside the UK. On occasions we may transfer your personal information to third countries for administration or insurance/reinsurance purposed. Where we make such a transfer we will take the required steps to ensure your information is protected, which may include placing the party we are transferring personal information to under contractual obligation to protect it to adequate standards, or ensuring that the party we are transferring personal information to is located in a jurisdiction which has been designated as having an adequate level of protection of personal data by the European Commission.
We may also use your personal information to provide you with information about our products or services which may be of interest to you.
We are committed to only sending you marketing communications that we believe you have clearly expressed an interest in receiving. If you wish to unsubscribe from emails sent by us, you may do so at any time by clicking on the "unsubscribe" link that appears in all emails. Otherwise you can always contact us using the details set out in section 12 to update your contact preferences. In such circumstances, we will continue to send you service related (non-marketing) communications where necessary.
Many of our policies are issued in perpetuity (without an end date). As such in order to provide these policies we need to also retain your personal information in respect of those policies in perpetuity.
Where we issue a policy with an end date your personal information will be kept for the term of the policy and a set period after the policy has ended.
If you would like further information regarding the periods for which your personal information will be stored, please see section 12 below for our contact details.
Under data protection law you have certain rights in relation to the personal information that we hold about you, which depend on the reason for collecting your data and the uses made of your data. For all uses you have the right to be informed about how we use your data, and this Privacy Policy discharges that obligation. You may exercise these rights at any time by contacting us using the details set out in section 12.
Please note:
- in some cases we may not be able to comply with your request (e.g. we might not be able to delete your personal information) for reasons such as our own obligations to comply with other legal or regulatory requirements or because the information relates to an ongoing policy that does not have an end date. However, we will always respond to any request you make and if we can't comply with your request, we will tell you why.
- in some circumstances exercising some of these rights (including the right to erasure, the right to restriction of processing and the right to withdraw consent) will mean we are unable to continue providing you with cover under the policy and may therefore result in the cancellation of the policy. You will therefore lose the right to bring any claim or receive any benefit under the policy, including in relation to any event that occurred before you exercised your rights of erasure, if our ability to handle the claim has been prejudiced. Your policy terms and conditions set out what will happen in the event your policy is cancelled. For some policies no refunds will be payable on cancellation, for other products a refund may be payable.
Your rights include:
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You are entitled to a copy of the personal information we hold about you and certain details of how we use it. There will not usually be a charge for dealing with these requests.
This information will usually be provided in writing, unless otherwise requested, or where you or your client have made the request by electronic means, in which case the information will be provided by electronic means where possible.
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We take reasonable steps to ensure that the information we hold about you or your client is accurate and complete. However, if you do not believe this is the case, you can ask us to update or amend it.
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In certain circumstances, you have the right to ask us to erase your personal information.
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In certain circumstances, you are entitled to ask us to stop using your personal information.
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In certain circumstances, you have the right to ask that we transfer any personal information that you have provided to us to another third party of your choice.
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You can ask us to stop sending you marketing messages at any time.
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You have a right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated means. However, please note that we do not currently undertake any automated decision making.
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For certain uses of your personal information, we will ask for your consent. Where we do this, you have the right to withdraw your consent to further use of your personal information.
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You have a right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) if you believe that any use of your personal information by us is in breach of applicable data protection laws and regulations. The ICO will normally expect that we have been given the opportunity to respond to your complaint within 30 days in the first instance.
You can write to the ICO at Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, SK9 5AF. More information can be found on the Information Commissioner’s Office website: www.ico.org.uk or via their helpline on 0303 123 1113.
Making a complaint will not affect any other legal rights or remedies that you have.
We use a range of organisational and technical security measures to protect your information.
These include the use of passwords and secure logins which are changed at regular intervals, limiting access to files to necessary personal use, anti-virus software and firewalls and cloud back up of our information.
If you have any questions about how we collect, store or use your personal information or you wish to make a complaint about how your personal data is being processed, you may contact us at:
Data Protection Officer, 42 Trinity Square, London, EC3N 4DJ
info@gcs-title.co.uk
From time to time we may need to make changes to this Privacy Policy, for example, as the result of government regulation, new technologies, or other developments in data protection laws or privacy generally.
This Privacy Policy was last updated on: 03/04/2023