We want you to understand the different types of cookies that are used on our Websites and Apps. We use a variety of types of cookies for the following purposes:
Strictly Necessary Cookies: these cookies are essential in order to enable a user to move around our Websites and Apps and use their features, such as accessing secure areas of our Websites and Apps. Without these cookies, a user could not perform basic functions or services they have asked for. These cookies may be set automatically when pages load, or as a result of a user request that cannot be fulfilled without the use of the cookie.
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 (e.g. “Select Basic, Regular or Premium cover”)
- Authentication cookies: these are used to keep a user logged in during a browser session (e.g. on MyAviva)
- 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 detect repeated failed login attempts on a website, or other similar mechanisms designed to protect the login system from abuse
- Load balancing session cookies: these cookies enable distribution of the processing of web server requests over a pool of machines instead of just one. The information in the cookie has the sole purpose of identifying one of the communication endpoints (one of the servers in the pool) and is thus necessary to carry out the communication over the network
- Multimedia player cookies: these cookies are used to store technical data needed to play back video or audio content, such as image quality, network link speed and buffering parameters
- User interface customization cookies: these cookies are used to store a user’s preference regarding a service across web pages and are not linked to other persistent identifiers such as a username. They are only set if the user has explicitly requested the service to remember a certain piece of information, e.g. the user selects a language preference on a multilingual website by using a button.
Performance Cookies: also called ‘analytics’ cookies, these cookies collect information about how users in general use a website, for instance which pages users go to most often, and if they get error messages from web pages. These cookies may provide website owners with statistical information about the website which can be used for performance measurement and improvement.
This includes activities like counting page visits, dwell time, bounce rates, technologies used to access the site, and page load speeds.
We may also use cookies to generate anonymous reports which we share with the bank or building society which is selling our products.
Functionality Cookies: these cookies allow our Websites and Apps to remember choices users make (such as username, language or the region the user is in) and provide enhanced, more personal features. They are generally there to support site functionality that is visible or advantageous to the user or their experience of the site.
This includes elements of remembering a user on subsequent visits to a website and personalising what they see, and enhanced functionality like surveys, commenting and rating systems, and user preferences.
Advertising/Targeting Cookies: these cookies are used by the bank or building society which is selling our products and are set by digital advertising businesses for the purposes of managing the performance of offers and 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 the bank or building society.
Use of cookies by third parties: Please note that the following third parties may also use the cookies for the purposes referred to in this cookie policy. These named third parties may include, for example, advertising networks and providers of external services like web traffic analysis services.
You can control the placement of these cookies at a category level via our Cookie Preference Centre which you can access via the Manage Cookies link in the website footer.
