Your Privacy is Our Concern
When you apply to Pacific Surety Insurance Agency, Inc. for any type of insurance, you disclose information about yourself to us. The collection, use and disclosure of such personally identifying information (also referred to as Confidential Personal Information, or “CPI”) is regulated by law and regulation. Pacific Surety Insurance Agency, Inc., its agents, affiliates and subsidiaries maintain physical, electronic and procedural safeguards that comply with applicable state and federal laws and regulations to guard your personal information. We also limit employee access to certain personal information, to those with a business reason for knowing such information. Pacific Surety Insurance Agency, Inc. also instructs its employees so that they will understand the importance of the confidentiality of personal information, and take appropriate measures to enforce their privacy responsibilities.
What kind of information do we collect about you and from whom?
Pacific Surety Insurance Agency, Inc. obtains most of our information directly from you. The application you complete, as well as any additional information you provide, generally gives us most of the information we need to know. Sometimes we may contact you by phone or mail to obtain additional information.
Depending on the type of insurance protection you purchase from us, we may need additional information about you or other individuals proposed for coverage. For auto insurance, we may need information from your motor vehicle records. For property coverages, we may send someone to inspect your property and verify information about its value and condition. A photo of any property to be insured might be taken. We may review insurance claims information and other loss information reports, and we may also obtain medical or financial information to adjust some claims. We may obtain additional information from third parties, such as other insurance companies, government agencies, courts and other public records. We may receive consumer credit information from a consumer reporting agency. A report from a consumer reporting agency may contain information as to creditworthiness, credit standing, credit capacity, character, general reputation, hobbies, occupation, personal characteristics or mode of living. An investigative consumer report, containing the same type of information, may also be obtained from such an agency that will gather information through personal interviews with your neighbors, friends, associates, acquaintances, or others who may have knowledge concerning those items of information. If we order an investigative consumer report, we will notify you as required by state laws and the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). Under the FCRA, you have the right to ask to be personally interviewed if we order an investigative consumer report. Upon request, we will tell you how to get a copy of the report. The agency that prepares a consumer report for us may retain that report and disclose it to other persons as permitted by law.
The complete list of information that we may collect from you, and have collected about consumers in the past twelve months, includes the following:
- Identifiers such as a real name, alias, postal address, unique personal identifier, online identifier, Internet Protocol address, email address, account name, social security number, driver’s license number and state, passport number, or other similar identifiers.
- Any information that identifies, relates to, describes, or is capable of being associated with, a particular individual, including, but not limited to, his or her name, signature, social security number, physical characteristics or description, address, telephone number, passport number, driver’s license or state identification card number, insurance policy number, education, employment, employment history, bank account number, credit card number, debit card number, or any other financial information, medical information, or health insurance information.
- Commercial information, including records of personal property, products or services purchased, obtained, or considered, or other purchasing or consuming histories or tendencies.
- Biometric information.
- Internet or other electronic network activity information, including, but not limited to, browsing history, search history, and information regarding a consumer’s interaction with an Internet Web site, application, or advertisement.
- Geolocation data.
- Audio, electronic, visual, thermal, olfactory, or similar information.
- Professional or employment-related information.
- Education information.
- Inferences drawn from any of the information identified in this subdivision to create a profile about a consumer reflecting the consumer’s preferences, characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities, and aptitudes.
What do we do with the information collected about you?
Information that has been collected about you may be retained in both our records and in your agent’s files. We review it in evaluating your request for insurance coverage and in determining your premium rates. We will also refer to and use information in our policy records for purposes related to issuing and servicing insurance policies and adjusting and settling claims. If coverage is declined or the premium for coverage is increased because of information contained in a consumer report we obtained, we will tell you as required by state law and the FCRA, and give you the name and address of the consumer reporting agency making the report. We may also use the information you provide to us to detect, investigate, prosecute and prevent fraud, and to respond to court orders and legal investigations.
To whom do we disclose information about you?
We do not disclose any CPI about our customers or former customers, except as permitted by law. We are permitted to make disclosures to the following types of third parties without your consent: parties who perform a business, professional or insurance functions for our company including our reinsurance companies; independent claim adjusters, appraisers, investigators and attorneys who need the information to investigate, defend or settle a claim involving you; insurance support organizations which are established to collect information for the purpose of detecting and preventing insurance crimes or fraudulent claims; medical care institutions or medical professionals to verify coverage or conduct an audit of services; insurance regulatory agencies in connection with the regulation of our business; law enforcement or other governmental authorities to protect our legal interests or in cases of suspected fraud or illegal activities; certificate holders or policyholders for the purpose of providing information regarding the status of an insurance transaction; or lien holders, mortgagees, lessors, or other persons shown on our records as having a legal or beneficial interest in your policy.
During the last twelve months, we did not sell any information about our consumers, but we did disclose it for the business purposes described in this Policy.
What information do we disclose to third parties?
We may disclose any of the information we collect about you to third parties for business purposes. During the past twelve months, we disclosed the following categories of personal information for business purposes:
- Identifiers such as a real name, alias, postal address, unique personal identifier, online identifier, Internet Protocol address, email address, account name, social security number, driver’s license number, passport number, or other similar identifiers.
- Any information that identifies, relates to, describes, or is capable of being associated with, a particular individual, including, but not limited to, his or her name, signature, social security number, physical characteristics or description, address, telephone number, passport number, driver’s license or state identification card number, insurance policy number, education, employment, employment history, bank account number, credit card number, debit card number, or any other financial information, medical information, or health insurance information.
- Commercial information, including records of personal property, products or services purchased, obtained, or considered, or other purchasing or consuming histories or tendencies.
- Biometric information.
- Internet or other electronic network activity information, including, but not limited to, browsing history, search history, and information regarding a consumer’s interaction with an Internet Web site, application, or advertisement.
- Geolocation data.
- Audio, electronic, visual, thermal, olfactory, or similar information.
- Professional or employment-related information.
- Education information.
- Inferences drawn from any of the information identified in this subdivision to create a profile about a consumer reflecting the consumer’s preferences, characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities, and aptitudes.
How can you find out about information we have about you?
You may have the right to request access to certain information we have collected about you, specifically:
- The categories of CPI we have collected about you.
- The categories of sources from which the CPI is collected.
- The business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling CPI.
- The categories of third parties with whom we share CPI.
- The specific pieces of CPI we have collected about you.
- The categories of CPI that we disclosed about you for a business purpose.
In addition, you will be given the name and address of any consumer credit reporting agency that prepared a report about you so that you can contact them for a copy of that report if you wish. You may also have the further right to request deletion or correction of certain information if you feel it is inaccurate. However, there may be situations in which we may not be able to grant your requests. If this is the case, we will advise you of why, subject to any legal restrictions.
To request access to your non-public information, contact us toll-free at 1-844-372-7463 or email us at DSAR@hudsoninsgroup.com.
Within thirty (30) business days of receipt of your request, we will inform you in writing as to what, if any, information we have about you in our files, or if we reasonably require an additional time to provide the required information.