The government’s proposed ban on cold calling does not apply to “warm calling,” but is unlikely to be reversed so the protection sector needs to work on getting consent from any existing or potential new customers.
This is according to compliance practitioners Health & Protection spoke to following the opening of HM Treasury’s consultation on banning cold calling for all consumer financial services and products, including insurance and mortgages.
Within the consultation document, Treasury confirmed: “The proposal will not apply to interactions where the customer has knowingly and freely given, clear and specific consent to be contacted for marketing purposes.”
‘Warm’ calling
Compliance consultant Branko Bjelobaba, who told Health & Protection in May that the insurance sector may need to challenge the proposed ban, said it was possible for an introduction to be ‘warm’ and the ban would not apply to such contact.
“The customer could go on a quote generation site that gathers basic contact information which is then passed to intermediaries for them to gather more information to initiate the quote,” Bjelobaba continued.
“I am not too sure how much cold calling really does take place these days as we’ve had GDPR [general data protection regulation] for five years now and people would have had to give their consent for this to happen.
“So even if you are buying a list of names and phone numbers, people should be aware that they have given prior consent for this information to be used for marketing and such.”
Getting consent
But in terms of mounting a campaign to reverse the ban, Melanie Stancliffe, partner at law firm Cripps Pemberton Greenish, warned any such challenge was unlikely to be successful.
“The ban is unlikely to be reversed, as it is consistent with similar approaches in consumer protection and the law on data protection,” Stancliffe told Health & Protection.
“Any insurance provider would be wise to re-double their efforts to get that consent to receive marketing from existing customers and new potential customers,” she added.