insurance.com.au information to make insurance decisions

Insurance.com.au Privacy and Security Policy

We may collect the following personal financial information:

• Information that you submit when you register with our site in order to receive newsletters or other announcements by e-mail or to request an insurance application;
• Information that you submit on our online form when you request an insurance application, such as your name, address and, depending on the coverage you seek, auto ownership, income or asset information;
• Information collected by the insurance companies, insurance agents or authorised representatives that respond to your on-line or telephone requests, including application information described above, credit information if requested, and information about the insurance policies you purchase; and
• Information about your transactions with us, or with insurance companies, insurance agents or authorised representatives accessible through this site.

We may disclose the information described above to:

• Authorised representatives, insurance agents or insurance companies as needed to fulfil your requests;
• Companies that perform technology or marketing services for us;
• To others only if you consent or as permitted/required by law.

We restrict access to personal information about you to employees of insurance.com or of our service providers that have agreed to maintain its confidentiality. We maintain physical, electronic and procedural safeguards that comply with government regulations to guard your personal information.

For more detailed information, please see Privacy Statement and Q & A below.

Privacy statement and Q & A

1. Introduction

   Insurance.com.au has created this Privacy Statement in order to further demonstrate our commitment to your privacy. The following discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices for this website (insurance.com.au). The statement also discloses how your information may be used by other companies we do business with. It is created as per the national guidelines for privacy and information distribution.

2. What organisations have access to my personally identifiable information?

   1. Insurance.com.au

      On the insurance.com.au website, we have a variety of areas where you can input information: for storage, to calculate insurance premiums or quotes, to register with insurance.com.au and to process insurance purchase requests. We also gather information about your Internet address to help understand site usage. In addition, we receive information collected by insurance companies or authorised representatives that respond to your on-line requests, including application information and information about the insurance policies you purchase. Insurance.com.au may have access to this information, and insurance.com.au shares this information from time to time with its affiliates in financial services businesses.

   2. Quoting Providers

      In some cases, the quoting process may be anonymous; that is, you do not have to identify yourself or provide information by which you could be identified in order to obtain quote information. Should you wish to gain quotes for a particular line of insurance, information will be collected (for example car model, coverage amount, etc.) that is shared by Insurance.com.au with a third-party quoting provider in order to match your information to a list of quotes. Each quoting provider has agreed with us that this information will be used by them only in connection with services you request.

   3. Insurance Agencies and Insurance Underwriters - In General

      Should you decide to apply for a particular insurance policy after obtaining a quote through one of our quoting providers, you will be asked to provide additional information needed to complete an insurance application. With your authorisation, this information will be forwarded either (1) to a licensed independent insurance broker that is an authorised representative of the insurer you select and which has agreed to use the information only for the purposes of completing your transaction with the insurer, or (2) directly to the insurer that you have chosen or its affiliated insurance agency. Underwriters use personally identifiable information (such as name and address) in combination with other information you provide about your insurance needs to provide an insurance premium estimate. However, the criteria for ratings may vary between participating insurance companies, with each underwriter placing a different emphasis on particular items of information you provide. Where permitted by law, your personally identifiable information may be used to verify information that you have provided, to review your claims history from a third party. As your application proceeds, insurance.com.au may be updated of your progress. PLEASE NOTE: The insurance companies are required by law to have their own privacy policies, which likely differ from those of Insurance.com.au. You may wish to obtain and review the insurers' policies.

   4. Health Insurance

      If you require health insurance, please see the individual Health Insurer's Privacy Statements.

   5. Motor Vehicle Insurance - Referral to Insurer's Hotline

      Where a Comparative Market for Insurance is available, requests for certain personal information during the quote process in an effort to provide more accurate quote information. You should read the Insurer's Hotline Privacy Policy, or the individual insurers' privacy policy.

   6. Travel Insurance

      If you require travel insurance, please see the Travel Insurance Provider's Privacy Policy.

   7. Links to Third Party Insurance Sites

      In some areas, or for some lines of coverage (e.g., homeowners or occupiers coverage and pet health coverage), we may provide direct links to insurance company or insurance agency sites, usually because comparative information is unavailable. If you provide information on a referral web site or purchase insurance from a referral site as a result of visiting Insurance.com.au, the referrer may share that information with Insurance.com.au, but in most cases no personally identifiable information is given to insurance.com.au. Insurance.com.au will not share it's information with unaffiliated third parties. Insurance.com.au is not responsible for the privacy practices of these third party insurance companies or the content of their web sites. We recommend that you read the privacy statements on the sites of each insurance company or third party agent with whom you interact.

   8. Other Third Party Links

      Insurance.com.au is not responsible for the privacy practices on these third party sites. We recommend that you read the privacy statements on these sites.

3. How is my personally identifiable information used?

   1. Providing Services You Request

      Information that you provide during the quoting process is used to fulfil your requests for insurance quotes or applications. Information you provide during the registration or application process is:

      • used to facilitate your requests for insurance quotes or applications;
      • used to distribute newsletters, optional user experience surveys or other marketing and promotional materials, unless you opt not to receive this information; and
      • stored by our service providers or within the Insurance.com.au site in order to enable you to access the information at your convenience.

   2. Site Usage - Cookies

      Insurance.com also gathers anonymous information and aggregate demographic information, which does not personally identify you. We use this information to better understand our site usage patterns, and we may share this information with third parties for marketing or technology purposes. Generally this information is collected through "traffic data" and the use of "Cookies," "Internet Protocol" addresses or other numeric codes or tags used to identify a computer. Again, any disclosure of anonymous information and/or aggregate demographic information will not reveal any personally identifiable information about specific users.

      A 'cookie' is a message given to a Web browser by a Web server. The browser stores the message in a small text file on the same drive that the browser is installed on. The message is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. It will not be used to help track user's aggregate data from sites other than our own. The only cookie-based data that we track is activity on our own site concerning demographics and site usage analysis. The user needs to have cookies enabled in order to use restricted features of the site.

   3. Quoting

      Except as noted in the next paragraph, we offer you the ability to request quotes anonymously, unless required by those parties providing the quote. There is no requirement to register or login prior to requesting a quote. As noted above, we share this information with third party quote providers in order to obtain the quote information you request. Insurance.com.au does not utilize the information obtained during the quoting process for any other purposes and it is not possible for insurance.com.au or others to identify you personally based on the inputs you give. Additional information may be requested in an effort to provide you with more accurate quote information.

   4. No Other Disclosure to Unaffiliated Third Parties

      Unless you expressly give us permission to do so, or unless required by law, we do not wilfully disclose your personally identifiable information to unaffiliated third parties, other than the above-described parties with which we contract to make certain services available through our web site and which have agreed that they will keep your information confidential. However, we may share aggregated statistical information about the use of our web site with quoting aggregators, participating insurance companies or other companies we do business with; in this case, your personally identifiable information is not disclosed.

4. What choices are available to me regarding the collection, use and distribution of my non-public personally identifiable information?

   All information provided in connection with the use of my.insurance is optional. During the registration process you are given the option to opt-in to an email distribution list that will provide you with information concerning promotions and updates to the insurance.com.au site. You can also choose to opt-out if you no longer wish to receive emails regarding site updates and insurance related information by going to 'Your Profile' in the my.insurance and un-checking the opt-in box which changing changes the 'Receive Emails' option to No.

   We work with insurers and their authorised representatives to provide insurance quotes and other services for residents of all Australian states. You may be asked for certain personal information in relation to your quote request. This additional information is requested in an effort to provide you with more accurate quote information.

   With respect to third party sites to which you may link through insurance.com.au, any choices regarding the handling of your personal information will be described on such parties' web sites. You should refer to the privacy statements for those sites for more information.

5. What security measures are in place to protect my personally identifiable information?

   This site uses strong security measures to protect the personal data you provide. Your personal data is stored on a system not directly connected to the Internet. We use a variety of security systems and control measures to restrict access to your data. We use authentication methods to confirm the identity of trusted parties. We support encryption technologies to protect the transmission of your data when you are supplying it, or if we are passing it to other companies we do business with.

6. How can I correct any inaccuracies in my personally identifiable information?

   Personal information that you input into the my.insurance, including policy information and home inventory details can be altered using the 'Your Profile' and then the 'Edit' button. You can also update your email address and password by clicking on the link in the 'Your Profile' section of my.insurance. Within the quoting process, you are able to change your information by returning to the previous page via the back button of the browser, or by verifying and editing the information prior to submission.

7. Changes to the privacy statement.

   Insurance.com.au may change its privacy practices in the future. If we change the way we treat any personally identifiable information, we will:

   • Post a revised privacy policy at this location; and
   • In the event the change could affect your personally identifiable information already in our database, we will email you to notify you of the change and include an option for you to opt-out of the process.

8. Contacting Us:

   If you have any questions about this privacy statement, the practices of this site, or your dealings with this Web site, please contact:

   Privacy Coordinator
   Insurance.com.au Pty Ltd
   P.O. Box 10 HURSTVILLE BC NSW 1481
   privacy@insurance.com.au

This Privacy Statement was last updated on 23rd April, 2008