Privacy Charter

In this Privacy Charter “we”, “our”, and “us” refers to Insurance Australia Limited trading as SGIC, and each of its related entities.
We offer general insurance, commercial insurance, financial and retirement services and products in various states and territories in Australia.
Insurance Australia Limited and its related entities may maintain additional rules and practices, which are fully consistent with this Privacy Charter.
This Privacy Charter is current as at 21 December 2001.

We are committed to protecting the privacy of your personal information and to handling your personal information in a responsible manner in accordance with the Privacy Act.
This Privacy Charter explains how we collect, use and disclose your personal information.

The Federal Government’s Privacy Act outlines the National Privacy Principles, which set the minimum standards for how private sector organisations should handle your personal information.
We are committed to complying with the National Privacy Principles.

We collect your personal information in various ways, such as over the phone, in one of our offices, over the internet if you transact with us online, or when you fill out an application form for one of the products or services that we offer or promote.

The personal information collected and stored by us about you generally includes your name, address, date of birth, gender, and contact details, including phone, fax and email as provided by you to us.

When you apply for a specific product or service, we may also collect information from you related to that product or service.

Where practicable, we will give you the option of interacting with us anonymously.

If we collect sensitive information about you, we do so in accordance with the National Privacy Principles. If you apply for certain products and services, such as life insurance, general insurance, health insurance, or workers compensation insurance, or make a claim under one of these policies, we may need to collect sensitive information about you. Depending on the policy, this may include details such as your health information, criminal record, or sexual preferences.

Whenever possible, we collect your personal information from you. However, there may be occasions when we collect personal information about you from someone else. For example, you may apply for a product or service through a broker or financial adviser.

We may also collect information about someone else from you. This may happen where you apply for a product or service in joint names or where you want the benefit of that product or service to also apply to someone else, such as a nominated driver under your car insurance policy.

Irrespective of the source of the information, we respect and protect the privacy of personal information.

If you provide information to us about another person, then you are responsible for telling the other person that you have provided information about them to us. You should tell them who we are, that they may access their personal information, and you may also wish to refer them to this Privacy Charter.

We may also obtain information about you from other insurers if, for example, we need to confirm your no claim bonus. We may also obtain information about you from assessors, repairers, medical providers or other professional experts in order to provide you with a policy or assess a claim you make.

We will use your personal information in accordance with the National Privacy Principles, such as for the purposes for which it is collected, to provide you products and services, and (subject to your consent) for marketing purposes. For example, if you apply for insurance with us, we will collect and use your personal information to:

• assess your application
• underwrite, price and issue any policy
• process payments
• administer the policy
• calculate or offer discounts which may apply to you such as a multi-policy discount
• investigate, assess and pay any claim made by or against you under your policy, and
• contact you as necessary on issues relating to your insurance or our service.

We also need to collect, use and store your personal information so that we can answer any questions you may have regarding any products or services.

We will not disclose information about you to a company which is not a related entity unless the disclosure is required or authorised by law, or you have consented to our disclosing the information about you. On occasions, we may need to disclose your personal information to provide a product or service to you. For example, if you apply for an insurance policy, we may need to disclose your information to our related entities, our distributors such as agents and brokers, other insurers, and insurance reference bureaus in order to determine your claims history. In order to process a claim you have made, we may need to disclose your information to assessors, repairers or medical providers. We may also need to disclose your information to law enforcement agencies, investigators and lawyers.

At all times, we will respect and protect the privacy and confidentiality of personal information.

It is our aim to provide our customers with access to a range of leading products and services offered by us and any other organisations whose products and services we promote.

To do this, we use the information you provide to us for market research so we can better understand our customers’ needs. We then provide you with information on products and services that we believe will be of interest to you.

We may share your personal information on a confidential basis to our related entities so that they can also offer you products and services.

If we promote products or services from other organisations, we will not disclose your personal information to them.

Please keep in mind that if you take advantage of an offer from one of these other organisations and become their customer, they may independently send offers to you. In this case, you will need to inform them directly if you do not wish to receive future offers from them.

We provide you with a choice to opt out of our marketing activities, and will respect your request not to receive marketing material from us.

If you do not wish to receive marketing material from us, we ask you to contact us.

You should inform us if you do not want your personal information to be used and disclosed for marketing purposes.

Please note that it may take up to 60 days to fully implement your request not to receive marketing or promotional materials. We apologise if you do receive any materials during this period.

Should you change your mind at any time and would again like to receive promotions, offers and marketing materials please let us know by contacting us.

We may disclose information about you to outside contractors to carry out activities on our behalf, such as a mailing house. We impose security and confidentiality requirements on how they handle your personal information.

Outside contractors are required not to use information about you for any purpose except for those activities we have asked them to perform.

We may obtain credit information about you from, and provide it to, credit reporting agencies in accordance with the Privacy Act and Credit Reporting Code of Conduct. We will only do so with your consent.

Personal information that we hold on our systems is protected through the use of secure passwords and other security procedures. Access to personal information is limited to those who specifically need it to conduct their business responsibilities.

We also maintain physical security procedures to manage and protect the use and storage of paper records containing personal information.

Our staff are responsible for handling personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act. We educate our staff about the requirements of the National Privacy Principles and the Privacy Act.

We will keep your information so that we can continue to provide the products and services you have requested from us. We will take reasonable steps to destroy or permanently de-identify personal information when we no longer need it.

We will take reasonable steps to ensure that the information we hold about you is accurate, complete and up-to-date.

If you believe that the information we have about you is not accurate, complete or up-to-date we ask you to contact us.

You may request access to the personal information we hold about you. So that we can respond quickly and efficiently to your request, we may ask you to complete an Access Request Form and may charge you a service fee for retrieving and sending the information to you.

Please contact us if you would like more information on how to request access to this information or to confirm the applicable charges.

If we are unable to meet your request for access, we will let you know why.

If you have a complaint about the privacy of your personal information, we ask that you contact us in writing. We will promptly acknowledge and investigate complaints.

Please contact us if you would like further information regarding this Privacy Charter, or the management of your personal information. You can also email us if you have any further queries.

Please read our Online Privacy Statement, which outlines our policy on the management and security of your personal information online when you transact with us on the internet.