Overview

This website is owned by the Guardian Group of Companies. This Cookies Policy sets out how we use cookies on our websites.

The Guardian Group of Companies includes insurance, health and wellbeing as well as asset management companies. We are all committed to ensuring your privacy and personal information is protected. If you were referred to this Cookies Policy from a Guardian Group company website, you can find more information and manage your cookie preferences used by that website by clicking on the link labelled ‘Manage Cookies’ which appears as a popup when you first visit the website.

For the purposes of this Cookies Policy, references to ‘we’ or ‘us’ shall refer to the Guardian Group of Companies and the cookies placed by that company on its website.

What are cookies?

Cookies are small data files saved to your computer (or any other device capable of browsing the internet) as part of your interactions with a website.

These cookies remain stored on your device until such a time that the cookie expires or is manually deleted. This allows for the information stored within the cookie to be sent back as part of any subsequent interactions you have with the issuing website. This exchange of information allows websites to remember basic information about you, such as whether you have visited the website before or whether you are ‘logged in’.

Different types of cookies are used to do different things. These include letting you navigate between different pages on a website efficiently, remembering your preferences and helping us to identify ways to improve your overall website experience. Others are used to measure the number of website visits and the most popular pages users visit, or to provide you with advertising more tailored to your interests.

This policy sets out the types of cookies that we use and what we use them for.

How we use cookies

If you visit our website, we will deploy these technologies to provide an online service more suited to the device you connect from, as well as to prevent and detect fraud, keeping you secure. When you visit our website from any device (mobile, tablet or PC), we collect information about your use of this site, such as information about the device or browser you use to access the site (including device type, operating system, screen resolution etc.), the way you interact with this site, and the IP address your device connects from. You may not be able to initiate or complete some activities within our secure online services unless these cookies or similar technologies are installed. Please note, we may not be able to process certain transactions if you are physically located in certain countries.

We use cookies to:

• Ensure your security and privacy when in our secure sites
• Store login details for our secure sites
• Temporarily store input information in our calculators, tools, illustrations and demonstrations
• Provide you with ads that are more relevant to you and your interests, and improve our targeting and enhance your journey through our sites and partner sites
• Improve our understanding of how you navigate through our sites so we can identify improvements
• Evaluate our sites' advertising and promotional effectiveness; and
• We use both our own (first-party) and partner companies' (third-party) cookies to support these activities

We do not store personal information, such as your name, telephone number or email address as part of the cookies that we set on our websites.

Cookies we use

We have classified the cookies into the following categories:

• Strictly necessary cookies
• Functional Cookies
• Performance Cookies
• Advertising Cookies

Strictly necessary cookies

Strictly necessary cookies are functional cookies that are necessary for the website to work, enhance how the website operates and ensure that the website displays information relevant to you. Strictly necessary cookies cannot be switched off in our systems. Without these cookies you wouldn’t be able to use the website normally.

Examples:

• User input cookies: These first party user input session cookies are typically used to keep track of the user’s inputs when completing online forms over several pages of a website, such as adding items to a shopping cart to keep track of the items the user has selected.
• Authentication cookies: these are used to keep a user logged in during a browser session.
• User centric security cookies: these cookies are used to increase the security of the service that has been explicitly requested by the user. For example, cookies used to remember the user’s devices, to detect repeated failed login attempts on a website, or other similar mechanisms designed to protect the login system from abuse.
• providing live chat functionality to you across our Websites.

Functional Cookies

These cookies allow the website to remember choices you make (such as your user name, language or the region you are in) and provide enhanced, more personal features. 

Our Functionality Cookies includes:

• remembering preferences you have chosen, to customise your experience of our Website such as country, language, and theme selection.

We do not use Functionality Cookies to target you with adverts on other websites.

You can block these cookies using your browser settings, but this may mean that we cannot offer you certain services and may prevent us from remembering that you have chosen not to receive a certain service.

Performance Cookies

Also called Analytics cookies, these cookies collect information about how visitors use a website, for instance which pages visitors go to most often, and if they get error messages from web pages. These cookies don’t collect information that identifies a visitor. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. They are only used to improve how a website works or the effectiveness of a marketing campaign.

Targeting cookies

These cookies are set by digital advertising businesses for the purposes of managing the performance of adverts, displaying adverts, and/or building user profiles to determine the display of adverts elsewhere. They may be used to limit the number of times a user sees an advertisement as well as help measure the effectiveness of an advertising campaign. 

These cookies may also be used to tailor direct communications with you, for example, to send you automated emails relevant to your interests, unless you have opted out of receiving marketing materials from us.

We do not control the placing of cookies by third parties and we are not responsible for third parties' use of cookies.

Opting out, managing & deleting cookies

How can I opt out of cookies used by the Guardian Group?

You can opt-out of each cookie category (except strictly necessary cookies) by clicking on the link labelled ‘Manage Cookies’ which appears at the bottom of the page.

Please note that opting out of different types of cookie may impact the functionality of the website – as set out in the above sections.

Note: We're changing the way we set cookies on the websites we manage. This means that some of our websites may ask you to accept cookies again, or they may not yet be able to fully reflect your preferences. Please contact us on the details below if you have any questions.

More information

Information on deleting and managing cookies is typically available in the ‘Help’ menu of your web browser or the instruction manual for your device. Further information can also be found at allaboutcookies.org.

Users can find out more about behavioural advertising, including remarketing, as well as opt out of interest-based ads at youronlinechoices.eu and adssettings.google.com.

Changes to this Cookie Policy

If this Cookie Policy changes, the revised policy will include a new effective date and will be posted on this page. Please check back regularly to keep informed of updates. If we make major changes to this Cookie Policy, we will take additional steps to ensure you are informed of such changes.