At Western General Insurance Company, our policy is to maintain appropriate confidentiality with regard to all personal information obtained in the course of doing business with you. Our pledge to protect your privacy is reflected in this Privacy Statement which outlines our principles in collecting, using and safeguarding your personal information and information about your relationship with us.
Personal Information Western General Insurance Company Collects
Western
General Insurance Company only collects personal information about you when it
is necessary to conduct the business of insurance. We limit the collection of
personal information to what we reasonably believe is needed to administer your
account. As a result, we collect personal information from the following
sources:
• Personal information you share with us either directly or through
your agent or broker, such as the information on your insurance application,
requested policy change information or other forms you may complete.
•
Personal information you provide or which is obtained through the process of
handling a claim, including medical information, such as from an accident
report.
• Personal information about you from your transactions with us, our
affiliates or others such as the types of coverage you purchase.
• Personal
information about you from a consumer reporting agency, such as a Motor Vehicle
Report. The information in these reports may be retained by the consumer
reporting agency and disclosed to others.
If you visit or use Western General Insurance Company’s website, we may use “cookies” (small text files transferred from our website to your hard drive) to recognize repeat users, track usage and facilitate your access to and use of the site. We do not use “cookies” to gather personal information and we do not link cookies to identifiable information, such as your policy number. The “cookies” only enable you to use our website more easily.
Personal Information Western General Insurance Company Discloses
Western
General Insurance Company does not disclose any personal information about
current or former customers to anyone, except as permitted by law. We may
disclose the personal information we collect as follows:
• To consumer
reporting agencies for the purposes of obtaining a Motor Vehicle Report in order
to determine eligibility for coverage or to process your requested
transaction.
• To your insurance agent or broker to allow them to perform
their normal insurance related services for you.
• To medical professionals
in order to process your claim.
• To an insurance regulatory authority
pursuant to an examination of our records or business practices.
• To law
enforcement or other government agency as required by law or to report suspected
fraud activities.
• To our actuaries to conduct studies regarding claims
results provided that no individual is identified in any study or report.
•
To our affiliates for processing or marketing of our insurance related products
or services.
• To group policyholders for the purpose of reporting claims
experience or conducting an audit of our operations.
When possible, we advise our vendors and other nonaffiliated third parties, to whom we legally provide your personal information in the course of conducting our insurance business, of our privacy policy. We make every effort to use vendors whose approach to customer privacy reflects our own.
Western General Insurance Company Policies and Practices with Respect to
Security of Personal Information
Western General Insurance Company maintains
physical, electronic and procedural safeguards that comply with applicable
federal and state regulations to guard your personal information. We restrict
access to personal information about you to only those employees who need that
information to provide products or services to you.
Your Ability to Access and Correct Your Personal Information
If you wish
to review your personal information, please write to the address below and
provide your full name, address and policy number(s). To better protect you,
please have your request notarized so that we can ensure the identity of the
person requesting the information.
Within 30 business days we will honor your request by allowing you to see and copy your information in person or, if you prefer, provide you a copy of your information. You will not be given access to information collected or in connection with a claim, or a civil or criminal proceeding involving you. If medical information is contained in your file, we may request you to designate a medical professional to whom we will send the information.
If you believe any of our information about you is incorrect, please notify us in writing at the address below. We will review your request and, within 30 business days, let you know if our investigation has resulted in a correction of your information. If we do not believe an error exists, you may file a statement disputing the information. We will attach the statement to your file. We will send any corrections we make or your statement to any person or organization to whom we provided your information within the past two years or who may receive your information from us in the future. Please be aware that we do not control the personal information about you obtained from other third parties such as consumer reporting agencies or Departments of Motor Vehicles. You will need to contact these third parties directly to correct your personal information. We will provide you with the name and address of these third parties.
For More Information or if you have Questions
Should you have further
questions regarding our privacy policy, you may write to us at:
Western General Insurance Company – Attention Privacy Officer
5230 Las
Virgenes Road, Suite #100
Calabasas, CA 91302