Notice of Information Practices for California
Why did we send you this notice?
The State of California requires all insurance companies to tell customers about their information practices. Information practices include things companies do to gather and share information about customers. Insurance companies need information to make decisions. They make all sorts of day-to-day decisions: who to insure, how much to charge, how to handle claims, and others.
What are your rights?
Our information practices extend to applicants and policyholders (past and present). State and federal laws give you certain rights when you take part in transactions having to do with insurance for yourself, your family, or your household.
We send our customers a notice called the "Farmers Privacy Notice." The Farmers Privacy Notice does not limit any rights you may have - as a consumer, claimant, or beneficiary. Your state gives you additional protections. They are explained in this notice.
How do we collect the information?
You give us most of the information we need when you apply for insurance. Much of it is made up of common, practical facts: your employment information, your driving record, your age, where you live, and other things like that. Many times, we need more information. Or we may need to verify information you've given us. When that happens, we normally ask for a report from an outside source. That source can be a consumer reporting agency or an insurance support organization. Both provide information in the form of consumer reports. Most insurance companies use these; it's a common industry practice.
Sometimes one of these outside sources needs to gather information before they can prepare an investigative consumer report. This could be done as part of a fraud investigation, for example. They might then contact you, another adult member of your household, or a neighbor by phone or in person. If this happens, you can, as the Named Insured, ask us to interview you or your spouse as well. We will make every effort to honor your request.
What types of information do we collect?
Auto - While taking your application for insurance and to service policies covering your personal vehicles, we may obtain information about
- How you use your vehicle(s), including annual mileage
- Age, personal habits, and characteristics of drivers
- Credit information
- History of accidents, driving violations, arrests or convictions, and claims
- Previous insurance experience
Property - While taking your application for insurance and to service policies covering your real and personal property, we may obtain information about
- Type of construction and square footage of dwelling
- Heating system and other physical characteristics of the property
- Care and maintenance of the property
- Credit information
- Claims history
- Previous insurance experience
- Personal habits and characteristics of the property's occupants
What do we do with the information?
We use the information we collect about you to perform insurance functions. This includes
- Underwriting and servicing your policy
- Processing claims (we may obtain information relating to health and employment)
- Investigating potential fraud
- Other activities permitted by state and federal law
Here's an example: If you ask us to set up a payment by electronic funds transfer, we may obtain financial information for a particular bank account.
We may also disclose information to other parties. The law permits us to do this without your prior authorization when the information goes, for example, to these parties:
- Your Farmers® agent - to service your policy.
- Persons who need this information to perform normal business functions for us.
- Persons conducting actuarial or research studies on our behalf.
- Another insurance company or an insurance support organization - to perform an insurance transaction, or to detect or prevent criminal activity or fraud in connection with an insurance transaction.
- A medical professional or medical care institution - to verify insurance coverage or benefits or to inform an individual of a medical problem the individual may not know about.
- An insurance regulatory authority.
- Law enforcement or other governmental authority.
- A group policyholder - to report claims experience or conduct an audit of our operations, but only as needed to conduct the review or audit.
- Affiliates, as permitted by law. The law allows us to share your financial information with our affiliates to market products or services to you, and does not allow customers to restrict that disclosure.
- Persons that perform marketing services on our behalf, as permitted by law.
- Other non-affiliated third parties, as permitted by law.
- A party to a proposed or consummated sale, transfer, merger, or consolidation of all or part of the company underwriting your policy.
An insurance support organization that prepares a report may keep information it gathers and disclose that information to other persons, but only to the extent permitted by federal and state law.
How can you see or make corrections to your personal information?
You have these rights:
- To know what personal information about you we have in our records. That includes reports from outside sources.
- To get a copy of your personal information.
- To request that we correct, change, or remove any information you feel is incorrect.
To use these rights, you must send us a written request. Your Farmers® agent can give you the appropriate service center address.
If you request that we correct, change, or remove incorrect information, we'll check our records and make the changes if we can. We'll let you know in writing what we decide.
If we cannot make a change you asked for, you can file a statement. Write down the reasons you disagree with our decision. We'll include the statement in our records. That way, anyone who looks at the disputed personal information will also see your statement. From then on, if we disclose your information to another party, we'll include your statement. We will also send a copy to anyone who has gotten your personal information from us in the past two years. Just tell us who you would like us to send it to.
There are some types of information for which these rights do not apply:
- Information we collect to process an actual or anticipated claim
- Information we collect for an actual or anticipated civil or criminal proceeding
- Specific items of privileged information when an applicant or policyholder is suspected of fraud, material misrepresentation, or material nondisclosure
We'll keep you informed.
As required by law, we will keep you up to date on our information practices. We reserve the right to modify our practices at any time, when permitted by law.
If you have questions about this notice, please call Your Farmers® agent.
This notice is sent on behalf of the Farmers Insurance Group of Companies, whose members include, but are not limited to:
Farmers Insurance Exchange, Fire Insurance Exchange, Truck Insurance Exchange, Mid-Century Insurance Company, Farmers New Century Insurance Company, Farmers Insurance Company, Inc. (A Kansas Corp.), Farmers Insurance Company of Arizona, Farmers Insurance Company of Idaho, Farmers Insurance Company of Oregon, Farmers Insurance Company of Washington, Farmers Insurance of Columbus, Inc., Farmers Texas County Mutual Insurance Company, Illinois Farmers Insurance Company, Mid-Century Insurance Company of Texas, Texas Farmers Insurance Company, Civic Property and Casualty Company, Exact Property and Casualty Company, and Neighborhood Spirit Property and Casualty Company.