honcho's terms & conditions

We know that terms & conditions can often be boring, but they are very important! We’ve tried to make ours as simple and easy to read as possible so we strongly encourage you to take a look at them.

1. About

honcho is a trading name of Honcho Markets Limited. Registered office address: Sandgate House, 102 Quayside, Newcastle Upon Tyne, England, NE13DX. Our registered company number is: 9190148, and we are registered in England and Wales. Honcho Markets Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, and our firm reference number is 791467. You can check these details online using the Financial Services Register - via https://www.fca.org.uk/

2. Terms of Use

Hey! Welcome to the honcho Terms of Use. Yes, it might be bit boring but we would get into trouble if you didn’t read them. And neither of us would want that!

honcho App Terms of Use

If you want to access and use the honcho app (please note that references to the “app” hereafter will also include the honcho web journey and website) you are subject to the following terms and conditions. Please read these terms and conditions carefully before using the app. By accessing the app, you agree to be bound by the following terms and conditions, and disclaimers. Please be aware that we may update our terms and conditions from time to time and any material and content provided in the pages of this app may be changed at any time without notice. You should therefore check this page regularly for updated terms and conditions. The bottom of the page will always state the date of the last update. These Terms & Conditions and any other correspondence we have with you will be communicated in the English language. These Terms & Conditions are reviewed and updated on at least an annual basis, or when there is a material change in the day to day running of our business and product. Any updates to the T&Cs will be published to our website – https://www.gethoncho.com – and the date of the update will be present at the bottom of the T&Cs page. You have a right, whilst using/registered with the honcho app, to receive these Terms & Conditions on paper. If you would like to exercise this right please let us know.

Use of the honcho app

Our app is intended for personal, non-commercial use by residents of the United Kingdom only. We cannot guarantee that the app or the information in it complies with the laws of, or is appropriate for use in other territories. You are wholly responsible for use of the app by any person using your smartphone or computer and you must ensure that any such person complies with these terms and conditions. This app is designed to be entered from the home screen. If you access the app through another website you may not see some important information which is relevant to the products or services being offered. You may experience longer processing times when using our app if you make a large number of requests for bid in a row. This is due to our built-in security controls which may cause the app to run slower. honcho does this to protect both insurers and customers from fraudsters. Before accepting any bids on this app you will be referred to certain pages which contain additional product, regulatory, or legal information. You are advised to read these pages and should you have any questions get in touch via the contact us page.

Your honcho Account

In order for you to create a honcho account, we need you to provide a valid email address (either directly or from Facebook), and set up a password. During the course of the user journey we also capture your mobile phone number. The email and mobile phone number you provide must be one that we can reach you on. In the event we cannot get in touch with you via this email address and mobile phone number, your account may be disabled.

Your right to cancel

You have the right to cancel (stop using our app) whenever you like. There is no restriction on you to continue using the service for any longer than you see fit – but we hope you don’t want to stop using it! You will not be penalised by honcho if you stop using our app or services. To delete your account you should go into the Profile section in the app (accessed by clicking the little cog on the main screen) and select the ‘Deactivate’ option. If you select this option we will delete your data from our systems as quickly as possible, typically this will be within a matter of seconds, but please note that this is irreversible! If you want to, you’ll be able to re-register again in the future.

Your obligations

It’s your responsibility to make sure that all the information you supply to us via the honcho App is accurate. For completeness, we advise that you double check your responses to the questions asked, before requesting bids. Our question set is there to ensure that we have, and then share with our insurance panel, all the information required to provide you with bids. As is normal for insurance, the amount you pay and the type and level of your cover is determined by your responses to the questions we ask. It is vital that you answer them truthfully and fully, and to the best of your knowledge.

If the information you provide is not full, accurate and complete:

Insurance product(s) you purchase may be void (meaning you will not be able to make a claim);
You may be required to pay more money to reflect an increase in the risk of insuring you; and/or
You may be liable for damage/loss to a third party if you cause an accident. This will depend on the T&Cs you have agreed with the company that you buy the insurance from.

Social sign up and sign in.

You can register for your honcho account and subsequently access honcho through a social media site, such as Facebook. If you access honcho through social media you agree that we may access and store information and other content that you have provided and made accessible in your social media account so that it is available on and through honcho via your account and your profile page. Subject to the privacy settings that you have set with your social media site you use to access honcho, personal information that you post to that social media site may be displayed on honcho.

Availability

Whilst we take all reasonable steps to ensure that the app continues to be available there may be times when it is not available. This may be for reasons relating to the maintenance of, or alterations to, the app or for reasons beyond our control.

Privacy policy

At honcho, we look after your details carefully and are committed to protecting your privacy. Our privacy policy which sets out how we will use your information can be found https://www.gethoncho.com/privacy-policy.php

Our service – a reverse auction marketplace

honcho operates an independent reverse auction marketplace for the purpose of arranging insurance products. A reverse auction is a type of auction in which the traditional roles of buyer and seller are reversed. In the honcho reverse auction, the sellers (in our case insurers and brokers) compete to win business from the buyer (you the honcho user) and prices will typically decrease as the sellers bid against each other. The honcho marketplace is completely free for end consumers to use.

Bids

An insurer or broker will provide a “Bid” or “Bids” for your insurance policy based on your personal details, insurance requirements and any other relevant information that you have submitted via the honcho app.

A “Bid” will typically include the price, details of the policy cover and any additional features, as well as the duration of the cover. Insurers can provide multiple Bids in an effort to win your custom. You can choose the Bid that best meets your requirements.

Disclaimer (boring but important!): honcho does not provide advice based on a fair analysis of the market. The honchometer score & wording also do not represent advice (found out how the honchometer works in the FAQ section of our website). You must solely make your own decision on what policy you buy. The honchometer serves to visually show you how closely each policy meets the demands and needs that you tell us about before you request bids.

Given that honcho does not provide advice, you, the consumer, has the right to request the name of each insurer or insurance broker that honcho may and does do business with.

Bids received and accepted on the honcho app

honcho itself doesn’t sell insurance. We provide a platform that enables insurers and brokers to provide you with bids for the sale of insurance via the app (“Bids”). We are not a party to that agreement. By accepting a Bid made by an insurer through the app, you are not committing to buy the insurance offered until you have verified and accepted their policy details on their purchase completion page (which is hosted within the honcho app).

By showing a Bid to you the insurer is committing to sell you an insurance policy for that price and those terms and conditions – based on the information you have provided.

Bids are received and accepted by the following process:

You provide details on the honcho app about your requirements and preferences for your new insurance policy.
Insurers issue a Bid, or a Bid is issued on their behalf (through a Broker), which may match your requirements and preferences.
Insurers will include the price and details of your policy as part of the Bid.
You consider the Bids and if you are interested in accepting a Bid, you follow the link in the app to purchase your policy.
You and the insurer will then confirm and agree a contract for the insurance policy.
Your Bids will be valid for a period of 28 days after which time they will expire.
You can change your requirements and preferences at any time to generate a new set of Bids from insurers.
The process of receiving Bids will not cost you anything.

We cannot guarantee that you will receive any Bids, or when any Bids will be issued. We are not obliged to review Bids but may do so as part of our ongoing commitment to customer service.

If you choose to buy insurance from an insurer, you will do so by entering an agreement which does not involve honcho in any way.

Your insurance documentation

The company that you choose to take out your insurance with will usually supply with the following documents:

Statement of Demands and Needs – prior to your purchase
Insurance Product Information Document (previously known as the Key Information Document)
Information about the cover and policy itself – usually consisting of the Certificate of Insurance, Policy Schedule, Policy Summary, Policy Wording
Their Terms and Conditions – which you should read because these will cover any transaction or contract of insurance between you and them. The honcho T&Cs only cover your use of the honcho App and website(s)

How honcho makes money

honcho charges each insurer or broker £1 to bid for your business. For example; if 7 insurers bid for your insurance then we earn £7 in that bid cycle. An insurer will be charged for the bids whether they are successful or not. The bid cycle is 28 days, during which insurers won’t be charged another £1 if they are given the opportunity to re-bid for your insurance. If a new bid cycle starts and the insurer submits a bid, we will charge them another £1.

Viruses, hacking and other offences

You must not misuse our app (including the honcho website and servers) by knowingly introducing viruses, trojans, worms, logic bombs or other material which is malicious or technologically harmful. You must not attempt to gain unauthorised access to our app, the server on which our app is stored or any server, computer or database connected to our app. You must not attack our app via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of service attack. By breaching this provision, you would be committing a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. We will report any such breach to the relevant law enforcement authorities and we will co-operate with those authorities by disclosing your identity to them. In the event of such a breach, your right to use our app will cease immediately.

The following clauses exclude or limit our legal liability. You should read them carefully.

When you use honcho through the app the Bids you receive will be based on the information you have given to us. It is your responsibility to take care to give us complete and accurate information when you use honcho to receive Bids and throughout the life of your use of honcho. Failure to supply accurate and complete information may mean that your policy is invalid and that it will not operate in the event of a claim.

Nothing in these terms in any way excludes or limits our liability for negligence causing death or personal injury or for fraudulent misrepresentation. We are responsible to you for any losses you suffer to the extent that they have been caused by your reliance on any errors or omissions in our app where we have been negligent in failing to correct any such errors or omissions. Whilst we have taken reasonable steps to ensure the accuracy, correctness and completeness of the information contained on the app, we do not check, review, monitor, verify or endorse any information, content, material or data collected from or provided by third parties which is displayed on or is otherwise available from this website or any third-party websites which you can access from this app. We are not responsible to you for any loss, damage or injury you may suffer or incur in connection with such information, content, material or data. It is your responsibility to check that such information, content, material or data is accurate, current, correct and complete. No endorsement or approval of any third parties or their advice, opinions, information, products or services is expressed or implied by any information on our app. Links to downloadable software or websites are for convenience only and we are not responsible or liable for any difficulties or consequences associated with downloading the software.

Use of any downloaded software is governed by the terms of the licence agreement, if any, which accompanies or is provided with the software. We are not responsible or liable to you for any loss or damage you may suffer or incur in connection with your use of this app which is caused by any event beyond our reasonable control including the electronic transmission of information, content, material and data over the internet and the interception and decryption of it by others. We are not responsible to you for any losses or damage you may suffer caused by any distributed denial-of-service attack, or any viruses, trojans, worms, logic bombs or other material which is malicious or technologically harmful and which may infect, contaminate or damage your computer equipment or computer programs, or cause damage to software or damage to or loss of data unless caused by our negligence. You should ensure that you use appropriate virus checking software.

Internet e-mail

Messages sent over the Internet cannot be guaranteed to be completely secure as they are subject to possible interception or loss or possible alteration. We are not responsible for them and will not be liable to you or anyone else for any damages or otherwise in connection with any message sent by you to us or any message sent by us to you over the Internet.

Trademarks and copyright

The honcho app contains intellectual property and other rights and must only be used in connection with obtaining insurance in accordance with the terms set out in the app. Copyright in the pages screens, information and material included in the app is owned by or licensed to honcho unless otherwise noted. You may imprint, copy, download or temporarily store extracts from our app for your personal information or when you use our products and services. You must not alter anything.

Any other use is prohibited unless you first get our written permission. In particular no one may use a part of our app on any other website without our prior written permission. If you use our app or website in breach of these Terms your right to use our app will cease immediately and you must, at our option, return or destroy any copies of the materials you have made.

You may operate a link to the app provided you do so in a way that is fair and legal and does not damage our reputation or take advantage of it, as determined by us. You must not operate a link to the app in such a way as to suggest or imply any form of association, approval or endorsement by us. We reserve the right to require you to remove any link to the app immediately and at any time and we may withdraw any linking permission at any time

If you have any concerns about material which appears on our app please contact us via the honcho contact us page https://www.gethoncho.com/contact

Governing Law

These terms and conditions are governed by the laws of England and Wales, and you and we both agree to submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.

Contacting us

Tweet us: @behoncho
Email us: contact@honchomarkets.com

3. Accessibility

How we help everyone to use our app and website

Our app

To make sure everyone downloading our app can actually use it, we follow standards linked to the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.0

https://www.w3.org/WAI/mobile/

Our website

We aim to make our website accessible to a wide audience and to ensure a great experience for all users by conforming to World Wide Web Consortium accessibility guidelines (W3C’s WCAG)

https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/

However, if you are having trouble reading this website you can change the way it looks or disable some of its functionalities.

Here are a few of the things we do:

as well as images, we use alternative text so people who can’t see the image can read the text
we only use strong colour contrasts – luckily, we’re already purple and white brand
headings are readable through screen readers
links try to explain what to expect - we don’t use ‘click here’
tables are laid out in tabular form with headings and captions
we use style sheets to determine the presentation of our website - this helps those using assistive technologies.

We know the list shouldn’t end here - and really want to know how we can help you. If you have any comments or suggestions, or experience any problems with our app or website, tweet us at @behoncho or let us know via our contact us www.gethoncho.com/contact and we’ll do what we can to make it easier for everyone to access.

4. Complaints process

If you’re unhappy with any part of honcho’s service, including information we’ve given you, please get in touch. You should contact our Complaints honchos, quoting the email address you used when you signed up to honcho, as follows:

Tweet us: @behoncho
Email us: complaints@honchomarkets.com

Write to: Complaints @ honcho,
Salvus House,
Aykley Heads,
Durham,
DH1 5TS.

We will try to resolve your complaint within 3 working days and send you a summary resolution email. If we are unable to resolve your complaint, we will contact you within 5 working days of receiving your complaint to let you know what we are doing to fix the problem and the timeframe by which you can expect our final response.

If you’re not happy with our response to your complaint, you have the right to contact the Financial Ombudsman Service, free of charge - but you must do so within six months of the date of our final resolution letter. Referral to the Ombudsman does not affect your right to take legal action. You can contact them as follows:

You can call the Ombudsman on 0800 023 4567
Their e-mail address is: complaint.info@financial-ombudsman.org.uk
Write to: Financial Ombudsman Service,
Exchange Tower,
Harbour Exchange Square,
London,
E14 9SR.

Please note that if you don’t refer your complaint within the six months, the Ombudsman won’t have honcho’s permission to consider your complaint. Then, they’ll only look at it if they believe the delay was as a result of exceptional circumstances.

As honcho is an online only proposition, you can also make your complaint via the Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) platform at: https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/odr

If you wish to make a complaint about the company with which you are insured, you should contact them directly using their complaints details that are normally supplied with your policy documents. If you cannot find these contact details they can normally be found using a search engine.

5. honcho app permissions

5.1 iOS

After you download and open the honcho app, your mobile device will notify you when the app requests various permissions. Granting the honcho app this access supports the best possible experience. To learn more about app permissions, visit the links below.

honcho app permissions

When you use honcho on your iOS device, you’ll see contextual dialogs asking you to approve certain permissions that the app requests. Allowing these permissions will ensure you have the best possible experience with honcho but you’ll have the choice to opt out of each iOS permission on an individual basis. (If you’re an Android user, please see our Android app Permissions please see section 8.2 or this link).

To make sure you understand what features we access and what data we collect through these iOS permissions, we’ve provided a more detailed breakdown and discussion of the permissions below. You can edit your honcho permissions anytime by going into the Settings app on your device.

Push notifications

You’ll see this dialog once you’ve completed the registration process with honcho but before you request your first Bid. If you opt in, Apple Push Notification Service generates a unique token for your device and passes it to honcho; this device token is then sent to honcho’s servers and stored so that Push Notifications can be sent to you. You can read more about how Apple Push Notifications work https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/NetworkingInternet/Conceptual/RemoteNotificationsPG/APNSOverview.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40008194-CH8-SW1

If you opt out of Push Notifications, you may receive updates about your Bids by text message (these communications are not optional). Note that if you initially tapped Don’t Allow, the only way to opt into Push Notifications from honcho is to update your preferences in your phone’s Settings.

5.2 Android

When you install honcho on your Android phone, you’re shown a list of permissions that the app requests. The descriptions of these permissions are created by Google and are worded the same for every app — currently, there’s no way for honcho to customise them. So, to make sure you understand what features we access and what data we actually collect, we’ve provided a more detailed breakdown and discussion of the permissions below. Click on any of the permissions and you’ll be linked to Google’s official documentation for that permission. (If you’re an iOS user, please see our iOS App Permissions).

Identity

These permissions allow honcho to prepopulate your email address, first name, last name and phone number from your contact card during registration. If you already have a Google Sign-In or Google Wallet account on your device, honcho can also use these permissions to prepopulate your email address. These permissions are also used for signing into honcho using your Google+ account.

Device ID & Call Information

This permission is used in conjunction with your own contact information to prepopulate your mobile number during registration. You can edit these fields, and the updated values are sent to honcho once your account is created. This permission is also used to obtain your Android device ID, which is sent to honcho’s servers and used in fraud prevention efforts.

6. User generated content

You will retain ownership of any content that you submit, or otherwise make publicly available on or through our app and website (“User Content”). You grant us a perpetual, irrevocable, transferable, worldwide, royalty free and unlimited licence to use such User Content in any manner and for any purpose.

When you use honcho, you agree that you will not:

collect email addresses or other contact information of others for the purposes of sending unsolicited emails or other unsolicited communications;
promote or encourage illegal activity;
do anything that is unlawful, harmful, fraudulent, threatening, defamatory, embarrassing, distressing, infringing, abusive, inflammatory, intimidating, harassing, libellous, stalking, profane, obscene, indecent, inappropriate, hateful, discriminatory or racially, ethnically, sexually or otherwise objectionable or for the purpose of harming or attempting to harm minors in any way;
do anything which violates the rights of others (such as rights of privacy);
impersonate any other person or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent yourself;
upload, post, transmit, distribute, share, store or otherwise make publicly available any personal information of any other person including names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses;
upload, post, transmit, distribute, modify, reproduce, share, store or otherwise make publicly available any information, material, data or content that infringes any patent, trade mark, trade secret, copyright or other intellectual property right of any other person;
send any unsolicited or unauthorised advertising, promotional materials, ‘junk mail’, ‘spam’, ‘chain letters’ or any other form of such solicitation; or
post links to alternative community groups or forums except with our prior written consent.

honcho reserve the right, but have no obligation, to review or monitor any User Content. We are not responsible or liable for the review or monitoring of any User Content.

We reserve the right to close, delete, edit, refuse to post, amend, modify or remove (without notice) any User Content at our sole discretion for any reason, including but not limited to User Content that in our sole opinion breaches the terms above.

If you consider that any User Content breaches these terms or the User Content Standards, please email contact@honchomarkets.com.