A few years ago, it was commonplace to ask whether it was 'secure' to buy things online, and as a result, people buying insurance online would often set up the quote online and then phone the call centre to complete the purchase.

Over recent years it has become commonplace to buy all sorts of things online and insurance is certainly as secure as any sector on the web.

With any reasonably well known brand, people can be fairly confident that the website itself is pretty secure. These are now audited by the banks and the main brands spend large sums on ensuring their sites are reasonably safe.

That's why you rarely hear of a site like Tesco, Esure, Direct Line, Budget, Norwich Union, Admiral etc. ever having a problam.

In fact, these days, the main security risks are elsewhere, with a number of cases in the past year of call centre agents collecting personal data and selling that on to criminal organisations.

The biggest risk online, however, is something called "phishing".

Phishing is when you receive an email from a company telling you that your details are wrong or have been wrongly accessed or just asking you to update your details online and with a link to the site on the email.

These links then take the user to a site that looks and acts like that companies' site, but is in fact hosted by some hacker on a PC in Rotherham (for example, no offence to Rotherham, which is of course a fine town!).

That is why these days a lot of banks tell their customers to "never click on a link from an email sent by us". What they are telling the customers is they would never include a link in their email so if you get an email from a bank, a building society or an insurance company the best course to follow is still to go directly to the site or through a search engine, and manage your account in the normal way.