Cookie policy
What are cookies?
Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer or device by websites that you visit. They are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site.
Like most financial services organisations, we use cookies for a range of tasks. These include allowing you to browse between pages effectively, recording and storing your preferences and generally improving your online experience. They can also help to ensure that adverts you see online are more relevant to you. We also use similar technologies such as pixel tags and JavaScript to undertake these jobs.
If you visit our websites, we may deploy these technologies to provide an online service more suited to the device you visit on, as well as to prevent and detect fraud, and so keep you secure. When you visit our website, we collect information about your use of the site, such as information about the device or browser you use to access the site (including device type, operating system, screen resolution and so forth), the way you interact with it, 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.
Some of the cookies we set are ‘session cookies’, which remain only for the duration of your browser session and are deleted when you exit your web browser. Others are ‘persistent cookies’, which remain on your device or computer for a period of time after you have exited your web browser.
First party and third party cookies
There are two ways in which cookies are set. First party cookies are those set by, or on behalf of, the web site you are visiting at that moment. Third party cookies are cookies that are set by another domain (that is, one other than the web site you are looking at).
Over the course of your visit to the Legal & General digital estate, you may visit different domains (for example, legalandgeneral.com and landg.com) on which we host different content or applications. These domains are owned by us, but may share cookies between them; this means that we use both first and third party cookies to maintain security and ensure we can provide you with the best service across our digital estate. We may also use third party cookies provided by our authorised third parties.
Anonymous and pseudonymous cookie data
The vast majority of data stored in the cookies placed by our web sites record anonymous information - that is, information that cannot be associated with an individual person. There are some occasions, like when we need to record your preferences, when we do need to record information in cookies that relate to you. However, whenever we do this, the cookie information is stored in a way that the data cannot be attributed to you, without linking it to additional information that is separately and securely stored on Legal & General systems. This is called pseudonymous data.
Cookies in emails
In addition to the cookies we use on this website, we also use cookies and similar technologies in some emails and push notifications. These help us to understand whether you have opened the email and how you have engaged with it; knowing which articles are most popular with our customers helps us to improve and optimise our content for the future. Cookies will also be set if you click on any link within the email.
Types of cookies
The cookies used by us are based on the International Chamber of Commerce guide for cookie categories:
- Strictly necessary
- Performance
- Functionality
- Targeting
What do cookies do for me?
‘Strictly necessary’ cookies are essential in order to enable you to move around our website and use its features safely, such as accessing secure areas of our website (eg My Account). Without these essential cookies, services you have specifically asked for cannot be provided, such as asking for a quote or applying for one of our products. These cookies do not gather information about you that could be used for marketing or retargeting purposes, nor do they remember where you have been on the internet.
This category of cookies cannot be disabled.
Some examples of strictly necessary cookies used on our websites are:
| Name of Cookie | Description |
|---|---|
| SERVERID | To provide an improved and faster server time, this cookie identifies the server that delivered the last page to the browser and therefore remembers which server should handle the user’s requests. |
| JSESSIONID | General purpose platform session cookie, used by sites written in JSP. Used to maintain an anonymous user session by the server. |
| viewed_cookie_policy | This cookie is intended to remember the user’s preference regarding the information provided on the acceptance of cookies policy. |
‘Performance cookies’ collect information about how you use our website eg which pages you visit, and if you experience any errors. These cookies don't collect any information that could identify you directly - all the information collected is anonymous or pseudonymous. Performance cookies are not used to target you with online advertising; without these cookies, we can’t learn how our websites and applications are performing, and so help us improve your digital browsing experience.
In limited cases for online application issues, these cookies enable us to identify specific issues you may have had.
Some examples of performance cookies used on our websites are:
| Name of vendor | Description |
|---|---|
| Adobe Analytics | Adobe Analytics provides us with the ability to understand how visitors use our website. Data such as navigation around the site, duration and frequency of sessions and popularity of content are a few examples of information we analyse to make website improvements to better consumer experiences. |
| Google Analytics and Google Universal Analytics | Using Google Analytics cookies we are able to analyse user sessions on our website, such as traffic source, session duration, number of visits etc. Google Universal Analytics enables us to collect information about how visitors use our website, allowing us to make improvements where necessary. Using cookies, a randomly generated number is assigned on page requests on our website; with these we can analyse both visitor and campaign data. |
| Qubit | Qubit captures anonymous visitor data such as number of page views and landing pages which we use to analyse a visitors entire journey. From this we're able to determine trends relating to online user behaviour and test the effectiveness of our content, making website improvements to deliver even better consumer experiences. |
| Yahoo Analytics | Yahoo Analytics collects data that will allow us to not only improve our products and services, but also provide advertisements about goods and services and content that are of interest to users |
‘Functionality’ cookies are used to provide other services such as our online calculators and certain navigation elements of the website which enhance your browsing experience, for example, directing you back to a promotion that might have attracted your attention on your first visit. They can also enable us to remember setting choices you make to improve your visit. These cookies may be used to ensure that all our services and communications are relevant to you. The information these cookies collect cannot track your browsing activity on other websites. Without these cookies, our web sites may not be able to remember choices you've previously made or personalise your browsing experience.
Some examples of Functionality Cookies used on our websites are:
| Name of vendor | Description |
|---|---|
| AddThis | AddThis provides us with the tools to assign a randomly generated ID to each web browser and thus collect visitor sharing data. By that we mean we'll be able to see statistics such as how many people shared our content, but also we can then use aggregated browsing data to uncover whether visitors with a certain interest are more likely to share our content. This allows us to better understand our visitors and tailor our website and its content for their needs and interests. |
'Targeting’ cookies are used to collect information in order to deliver adverts more relevant to you and your interests. These cookies also allow you to ‘like’ and ‘share’ our pages via social networking sites such as Facebook.
These cookies and similar technologies gather information about your browsing habits. They remember that you've visited a website and share this information with other organisations, such as advertisers and platforms on which we advertise. Although these cookies and similar technologies can track your visits to other websites, they don't usually know who you are.
Some examples of Targeting Cookies used on our websites are:
| Name of vendor | Description |
|---|---|
| Google Remarketing | Remarketing facilitates post-visit advertising with those who have visited or interacted with our website to encourage return visits. |
| Bing Event Ads | We use Bing to build lists of visitors who have searched for certain terms and clicked on results using their search engines. By doing this we can create a more customised online experience, tailoring our advertising to user interest. |
| Facebook Conversion | We use Facebook pixels on certain pages of our website for conversion tracking. This lets us to optimize our Facebook advertising accordingly to show ads to people who it would be of more interest to. |
What do I need to do?
The cookie settings on this website are set to ‘allow all cookies’ to improve the overall performance of our website and give you the best user experience.
If you click on ‘OK’, you consent to this and you do not need to do anything further. These settings can be changed at any time through our Cookie Policy at the bottom of our website.
What if I don't want cookies?
If you want to disable all cookies, please be aware this will make browsing our websites much slower and some of the features described above when using strictly necessary, performance and functionality cookies will not be available to you.
However, we understand that this is your decision and you can find more information on how to control your cookies via your browser settings at: http://www.allaboutcookies.org/manage-cookies/ and http://www.youronlinechoices.eu/
To make it easier for you to manage your cookie settings with us, we have provided you with the ability to disable some of the cookies we use.