Privacy

Premium Funding Services is committed to protecting your privacy in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles. This Privacy Policy describes our current policies and practices in relation to the collection, handling, use and disclosure of personal information. It also deals with how you can complain about a breach of the privacy laws and how you can access the personal information we hold and how to have that information corrected.

What information do we collect and how do we use it?

When we provide premium funding services, we ask for the information we require to assess your eligibility for funding and to provide and administer funding arrangements. This can include a broad range of information ranging from your name, address, contact details, age to other information about your personal affairs including your assets, personal belongings, financial situation, and other relevant information required to assess and manage funding.

We provide any information that funders, insurers, or intermediaries involved in premium funding arrangements require to enable them to decide whether to provide funding and on what terms.

Insurers or funders may in turn pass on this information to their reinsurers or related entities. Some of these companies are located outside Australia. For example, if we seek funding or policy information from an overseas provider, your personal information may be disclosed to that provider. If this is likely to happen, we inform you of where the organisation is located, if it is possible to do so.

From time to time, we will use your contact details to send you direct marketing communications including offers, updates and newsletters that are relevant to the services we provide. We always give you the option of electing not to receive these communications in the future. You can unsubscribe by notifying us and we will no longer send this information to you.

If you don’t provide some information to us

We can only fully assess your application for premium funding and assist in arranging or administering funding if we have all relevant information. Financial services laws may also require you to provide accurate and complete information in order for funding providers to decide whether to provide funding and on what terms.

When we disclose your information overseas

If funding providers, insurers, or service providers involved in your funding arrangement are located outside Australia, we may be required to disclose information to organisations located outside Australia.

We will tell you at the time of advising on funding arrangements if they are overseas and in which country they are located. If the organisation is not regulated by laws which protect your information in a way that is similar to the Privacy Act, we will seek your consent before disclosing your information to that organisation.

Funding providers and insurers may also obtain reinsurance or financial support from companies located throughout the world so in some cases your information may be disclosed to them for assessment of risk and funding arrangements. We do not make this disclosure; it is made by those organisations (if necessary) as part of their own business operations.

How we hold and protect your information

We strive to maintain the reliability, accuracy, completeness and currency of the personal information we hold and to protect its privacy and security. We keep personal information only for as long as is reasonably necessary for the purpose for which it was collected or to comply with any applicable legal or ethical reporting or document retention requirements.

We hold the information we collect from you initially in a working file, which when completed is electronically imaged and stored, after which any paper is destroyed. In some cases, your file is archived and sent to an external data storage provider for a period of time.

We ensure that your information is safe by protecting it from unauthorised access, modification and disclosure. We maintain physical security over our paper and electronic data and premises, by using locks and security systems. We also maintain computer and network security; for example, we use firewalls (security measures for the Internet) and other security systems such as user identifiers and passwords to control access to computer systems where your information is stored.

Will we disclose the information we collect to anyone?

We do not sell, trade, or rent your personal information to others.

We may need to provide your information to contractors who supply services to us, e.g. to handle mailings on our behalf, external data storage providers or to other companies in the event of a corporate sale, merger, re-organisation, dissolution or similar event. We may also disclose information we collect to the providers of our funding administration and management systems that help us to provide our products and services to you. However, we will take reasonable measures to ensure that they protect your information as required under the Privacy Act.

We may provide your information to others if we are required to do so by law, you consent to the disclosure or under some unusual other circumstances which the Privacy Act permits.

How can you check, update or change the information we are holding?

Upon receipt of your written request and enough information to allow us to identify the information, we will disclose to you the personal information we hold about you. We will also correct, amend or delete any personal information that we agree is inaccurate, irrelevant, out of date or incomplete.

If you wish to access or correct your personal information, please write to our Privacy Officer at the contact address provided on our website.

In some limited cases, we may need to refuse access to your information or refuse a request for correction. We will advise you as soon as possible after your request if this is the case and the reasons for our refusal.

What happens if you have a query or complaint?

If you have concerns about whether we have complied with the Privacy Act or this Privacy Policy when collecting or handling your personal information, please write to our Privacy Officer using the contact details provided on our website.

Your complaint will be considered by us through our internal complaints resolution process and we will try to respond with a decision within 45 days of you making the complaint.

Your consent

By asking us to assist with premium funding services, you consent to the collection and use of the information you have provided to us for the purposes described above.