Privacy policy

Why should you read this document?

During the course of dealing with us, we will ask you to provide us with detailed personal informationrelating to your existing circumstances, your financial situation and, in some cases, your health and family health history (Your Personal Data).This document is important as it allows us to explain to you what we will need to do with Your Personal Data, and the various rights you have in relation to Your Personal Data.

What do we mean by “Your Personal Data”?

Your Personal Data means any information that describes or relates to your personal circumstances.   Your Personal Data may identify you directly, for example your name, address, date or birth, National Insurance number. Your Personal Data may also identify you indirectly, for example, your employment situation, your physical and mental health history, or any other information that could be associated with your cultural or social identity.

In the context of providing you with assistance in relation to your financial affairs, Your Personal Data may include:

  1. Title, names, date of birth, gender, nationality, civil/marital status, contact details, addresses and documents that are necessary to verify your identity
  2. Employment and remuneration information, (including salary/bonus schemes/overtime/sick pay/other benefits), employment history
  3. Bank account details, tax information, loans and credit commitments, personal credit history, sources of income and expenditure, family circumstances and details of dependents
  4. Health status and history, details of treatment and prognosis, medical reports (further details are provided below specifically with regard to the processing we may undertake in relation to this type of information)
  5. Any pre-existing products and the terms and conditions relating to these

The basis upon which our Firm will deal with Your Personal Data

When we speak with you about your financial affairs, we do so on the basis that both parties are entering a contract for the supply of services.

In order to perform that contract, and to arrange the products you require, we have the right to use Your Personal Data for the purposes detailed below.

Alternatively, either in the course of initial discussions with you or when the contract between us has come to an end for whatever reason, we have the right to use Your Personal Data provided it is in our legitimate business interest to do so and your rights are not affected.  For example, we may need to respond to requests from mortgage lenders, insurance providers and our Compliance Service Provider relating to the advice we have given to you, or to make contact with you to seek feedback on the service you received.

On occasion, we will use Your Personal data for contractual responsibilities we may owe our regulator The Financial Conduct Authority, or for wider compliance with any legal or regulatory obligation to which we might be subject. In such circumstances, we would be processing Your Personal Data in order to meet a legal, compliance or other regulatory obligation to which we are subject.

The basis upon which we will process certain parts of Your Personal Data

Where you ask us to assist you with for example your insurance, in particular life insurance and insurance that may assist you in the event of an accident or illness, we will ask you information about your ethnic origin, your health and medical history (Your Special Data). We will record and use Your Special Data in order to make enquiries of providers in relation to insurance products that may meet your needs and to provide you with advice/guidance regarding the suitability of any product that may be available to you.

If you have parental responsibility for children under the age of 13, it is also very likely that we will record information on our systems that relates to those children and potentially, to their Special Data.

The arrangement of certain types of insurance may involve disclosure by you to us of information relating to historic or current criminal convictions or offences (together “Criminal Disclosures”). This is relevant to insurance related activities such as underwriting, claims and fraud management.

We will use special Data and any Criminal Disclosures in the same way as Your Personal Data generally, as set out in this Privacy Notice.

Information on Special Category Data and Criminal Disclosures must be capable of being exchanged freely between insurance intermediaries such as our Firm, and insurance providers, to enable customers to secure the important insurance protection that their needs require.

How do we collect Your Personal Data?

We use Google Analytics on our website. This collects non-personally identifiable information about your computer hardware and software (IP address, browser type, operating system, domain name, access times and referring website address) to provide us with general information about how our website is used.

We also use cookies to collect information on our website. For more information about the cookies we use and why we use them, please see our Cookies Notice below.

We collect the above information directly from you, from third parties who refer you to us and from online sources such as Google Analytics and cookies.

We will collect and record Your Personal Data from a variety of sources, but mainly directly from you. You will usually provide information during the course of our initial meetings or conversations with you to establish your circumstances and needs and preferences in relation to your financial affairs. You will provide information to us verbally and in writing, including email.

We may also obtain some information from third parties, for example, credit checks, information from your employer, and searches of information in the public domain such as the voters roll.  If we use technology solutions to assist in the collection of Your Personal Data for example software that is able to verify your credit status. We will only do this if we have consent from you for us or our nominated processor to access your information in this manner. With regards to electronic ID checks we would not require your consent but will inform you of how such software operates and the purpose for which it is used.

What happens to Your Personal Data when it is disclosed to us?

In the course of handling Your Personal Data, we will:

  1. Record and store Your Personal Data in our paper files, mobile devices and on our computer systems for example websites, email, hard drives, and cloud facilities. This information can only be accessed by employees and consultants within our Firm and only when it is necessary to provide our service to you and to perform any administration tasks associated with or incidental to that service.
  2. Submit Your Personal Data to Product Providers and Lenders both in paper form and on-line via a secure portal. The provision of this information to a third party is essential in allowing us to progress any enquiry or application made on your behalf and to deal with any additional questions or administrative issues that lenders and providers may raise.
  3. Use Your Personal Data for the purposes of responding to any queries you may have in relation to your financial affairs, or to inform you of any developments in relation to those products and/or polices of which we might become aware.

Sharing Your Personal Data

From time to time Your Personal Data will be shared with:

  1. Product Providers/ Lenders
  2. Third parties who we believe will be able to assist us with your enquiry or application, or who are able to support your needs as identified. These third parties will include but may not be limited to, our Compliance Advisers, Product specialists, estate agents, providers of legal services such as estate planners, conveyancing, surveyors and valuers (in each case where we believe this to be required due to your particular circumstances).

In each case, your Personal Data will only be shared for the purposes set out in this customer privacy notice, i.e. to progress your enquiry and to provide you with our professional services.

Please note that this sharing of Your Personal Data does not entitle such third parties to send you marketing or promotional messages: it is shared to ensure we can adequately fulfil our responsibilities to you, and as otherwise set out in this Customer Privacy Notice.

Security and retention of Your Personal Data

Your privacy is important to us and we will keep Your Personal Data secure in accordance with our legal responsibilities. We will take reasonable steps to safeguard Your Personal Data against it being accessed unlawfully or maliciously by a third party.

We also expect you to take reasonable steps to safeguard your own privacy when transferring information to us, such as not sending confidential information over unprotected email, ensuring email attachments are password protected or encrypted and only using secure methods of postage when original documentation is being sent to us.

Your Personal Data will be retained by us either electronically or in paper format for a minimum of six years, or in instances whereby we have  legal right to such information we will retain records indefinitely.

Your rights in relation to Your Personal Data

You can:

  1. request copies of Your Personal Data that is under our control
  2. ask us to further explain how we use Your Personal Data
  3. ask us to correct, delete or require us to restrict or stop using Your Personal Data (details as to the extent to which we can do this will be provided at the time of any such request)
  4. ask us to send an electronic copy of Your Personal Data to another organisation should you wish
  5. change the basis of any consent you may have provided to enable us to market to you in the future (including withdrawing any consent in its entirety)

 How to make contact with our Firm in relation to the use of Your Personal Data

If you have any questions or comments about this document, or wish to make contact in order to exercise any of your rights set out within it please contact our firm via the contact details within this website and ask for the person responsible for data protection.

If we feel we have a legal right not to deal with your request, or to action, it in different way to how you have requested, we will inform you of this at the time.

You should also make contact with us as soon as possible on you becoming aware of any unauthorised disclosure of Your Personal Data, so that we may investigate and fulfil our own regulatory obligations.

If you have any concerns or complaints as to how we have handled Your Personal Data you may lodge a complaint with the UK’s data protection regulator, the ICO, who can be contacted through their website at https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/ or by writing to Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

Data Protection Act 1998 and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (law as of 25 May 2018)

Using your information

We will always ask you if you want to give us your personal details, and ask your permission about how we use it.  If you agree, we will use the information that you give to us;

  1. to send you information about our services
  2. to send you newsletter updates if you have given your consent
  3. to respond to any feedback you send us
  4. for cookie analysis and statistical reporting.  These are anonymous statistics and no personal records will be generated

We will endeavour to keep your information secure, up-to-date and accurate and ensure we comply with your communication preferences.  We will only keep your information for the purposes for which you have agreed we can use it. The length of time we keep your information will depend on the reason why we have been or are processing your information.

Opting out

You have the right to opt-out of marketing emails and withdraw your consent at any time, simply click unsubscribe at the bottom of our newsletter emails or contact us with the request to [email protected]

Disclosure of information

We will comply and with regulatory authorities when we are legally required to do so – in such cases personal information would be passed on in accordance with the data protection legislation.

You have the right to obtain a copy of the information that we have about you by making a subject access request in accordance with the GDPR.  Also, if any information that we have about you is wrong, you can ask us to correct it.  If your personal details change, please help us to keep those details up to date by informing us of any changes.  All of this can be done by emailing [email protected]

Third party websites

Our Privacy Policy only applies to the Phil Anderson Financial Services website and doesn’t cover other websites. We often link to other websites owned by other people. We accept no liability or responsibility for information services or content of third party websites which are linked to our website. We do not pass on any personal information about you or sell your information to any other website when you link to another website from this one. If you use a link from the Phil Anderson Financial Services website to another website you must read the privacy policy of that other website to know how they may use any personal information that you may give to them.

Where we engage a third party to deliver a service on our behalf (for example the email subscription service MailChimp), only required data will be shared. This will be in line with data protection legislation and covered by a data sharing contract. This means that they cannot retain, share, store or use personally identifiable information for any secondary purposes.. They will hold your information securely and retain it for the period we instruct.

Cookie policy

‘Cookies’ are small files from Google used to deliver its services, to personalise ads and to analyse traffic. Information about your use of this site is shared with Google. Phil Anderson Financial Services may store information about you and your activity in cookies so we can offer the best possible user experience when you visit our site. If you would rather, you can set your browser not to accept cookies; please read your internet browser’s instructions in order to do this. Otherwise, by using this website you are agreeing to cookie creation.

Changes to our policies

We seek to ensure that information on our website is up-to-date and accurate.  We may change this policy from time to time by updating this page. You should check this page from time to time to ensure that you are happy with any changes. Where appropriate, you will be advised through email notification.  This policy is effective from May 2018.


Phil Anderson Financial Services Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. FCA no.631218. Registered in Scotland No. SC409185. Our website is operated and controlled from the United Kingdom and your use of this website is governed by and construed in accordance with the law of Scotland.

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