Information Practices

 

In addition to the information supplied by you in connection with this insurance transaction, we may get personal information about our applicants and policyholders from others. You have a right to get access to and correct personal information about you in our files. Although it is not our usual practice, in certain circumstances we may disclose information on our policyholders in our underwriting or claims files to third parties without prior authorization, as permitted by law.

All Electric Insurance Company agents are licensed insurance producers. Their role is to confer with you about insurance products and coverage options. They may receive additional incentive compensation based in part on the number of policies that they issue.

 

What kind of information is collected about you?

We get most of our information directly from you. We may obtain additional information from outside sources at our own expense. For example, with auto insurance, we routinely obtain a record of accidents, violations and convictions from your State Motor Vehicle Department. Similarly, we may ask a doctor who has treated you to confirm or give us more details about medical information that you have given us.

It is common for an insurance company to ask a consumer-reporting agency to verify and add to information given on an application. Other examples of information gathered from consumer reporting agencies may include: credit scores, current insurer data, previous claims history, undeclared drivers, verification of customer supplied information, registered vehicle owner(s), etc.

Any agency we choose will be discreet and impartial. We may only ask that agency to verify the address, marital status or other information you have given us in your application. If we need more details than you have given us, we may ask the agency to prepare a consumer or investigative report.

The agency may get information by personal or telephone interviews or by writing members of your family, friends, neighbors or other insurance companies with whom you have applied for a policy, and others who you know.

A report may deal with your mode of living, character, general reputation and personal characteristics, such as your health, job and finances. When it is applicable, such a report could also have information on your marital status, driving record, drug or alcohol use, dangerous sport activities or any official record or criminal activity.

If such a report is prepared on you, you have the right to request a personal interview. If you wish to be interviewed, please tell us how the agency can contact you, and every effort will be made to interview you. You have the further right to request a copy of the report by writing to us.

The information we receive about you from a consumer reporting agency may be retained by them and later shared with others to the extent permitted by federal and state law.

 

Access to information in our files

For access to personal information about you in our file, send us a written request indicating your full name, address, telephone number, policy number and account number. Within thirty business days after receiving your request, we will contact you and tell you the nature and substance of the recorded personal information in our files. If you wish, we will mail copies of our records to you, or you may visit your EIC service office to see and copy the records in person.

Also, we will tell you if we have disclosed items of recorded personal information within the last two years and to whom such information was disclosed during that time or would normally have been disclosed.

 

Limitations on Access

We will identify institutional sources of information such as hospitals, clinics, doctors, employers, or insurance-support organizations, but cannot identify sources of information that were obtained from individuals such as friends or neighbors. Also, we are not obligated to provide access to information that we have obtained in connection with or in anticipation of a claim for policy benefits or a civil or criminal proceeding.

In some cases, we may choose to provide medically-related information through a doctor or other medical professional, selected by you, who is licensed to provide medical care relevant to the nature of the information, in order to inform you of a physical condition of which you may not be aware.

 

Correction, Amendment or Deletion of information

After reviewing information about you in our files, you may request in writing that we correct, amend or delete any item of personal information that you believe is incorrect. Within thirty business days after receipt of your request, we will get back in touch with you.

If we agree that certain items should be corrected, amended or deleted, we will send notification of the change to any person specifically designated by you who may have, within the preceding two years, received such recorded personal information.

We will also notify any insurance-support organization who received the incorrect information or whose primary source of personal information is insurers and has received information within the past 7 years; provided that the organization still maintains personal information about you. We will also notify any insurance-support organization that furnished the personal information that has been corrected, amended or deleted.

If we do not agree to make the correction, amendment or deletion, we will notify you of our refusal, including the reasons. You may file with us a brief statement setting forth what you believe to be the correct, relevant or fair information and the reasons why you disagree with our decision not to correct, amend or delete the original information. Your statement will become a permanent part of our file and will be made part of any future disclosure of the original information. In addition, copies of your statement will be sent to any person or insurance-support organization to which the original information was disclosed.

 

Circumstances of Disclosure

Information we collect about you will not generally be given to anyone without your consent, except when the disclosure is necessary for us to conduct our business. In that case, we may share information about you without your prior consent to the extent permitted by state privacy laws. Generally, information may be disclosed without your prior consent only to persons or organizations having a business interest in an insurance transaction involving you.

We may disclose information about you without your prior consent:

1. to a person other than an insurance institution, agent or insurance-support organization, provided such disclosure is reasonably necessary to perform a business function. These persons may be involved in processing your application, servicing your policy or processing any claims you may make, such as investigators, appraisers, and attorneys.
    
2. to an insurance institution, agent or insurance-support organization in order to detect or prevent criminal activity, fraud, material misrepresentation or material nondisclosure in connection with insurance transactions.
    
3. to a medical-care institution or medical professional for the purpose of verifying insurance coverage or benefits, informing you of a medical problem of which you may not be aware, or when it is reasonably necessary to conduct a company audit of operations and services.
    
4. to an insurance regulatory authority.
    
5. to a law enforcement or government authority in order to prevent or prosecute fraud perpetrated against the company or if we reasonably believe that an individual conducted illegal activities.
    
6. for the purpose of conducting actuarial or research studies.
    
7. in connection with the marketing of an insurance product or service, provided that no medical record information, privileged information or personal information relating to an individuals' character, personal habits, mode of living or general reputation is disclosed. In addition, we must afford you the opportunity to indicate that you do not wish us to disclose personal information for marketing purposes. We will not disclose any such information if we receive an indication from you.
    
8. to an affiliate whose only use of the information will be in connection with an audit of an insurance institution, or agent or the marketing of an insurance product or service.
    
9. to a group policyholder for the purpose of reporting claims experience or conducting an audit of the company's or agent's operations or services.

 

Your Privacy is our Concern

At Electric Insurance, we gather information about our customers only in the interest of providing them with quality services at fair and accurate prices. We're committed to the careful and confidential handling of personal information. If, after reading this notice, you have any questions, please contact us. If you have any questions, please email us at Insure@ElectricInsurance.com, or you may contact us at 800.342.5342, Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. ET.