NOTICE OF PRIVACY PRACTICES
West Coast Group Benefits and Flynn & Piel Insurance Services, LLC know that privacy is important. We value our relationship with you, and are committed to protecting the confidentiality of nonpublic personal information (“NPI”). This notice explains what kind of NPI we collect, what we do with it, and how we protect it.
Collecting Information
We collect NPI from:
- Applications or other forms you complete;
- Employers, medical providers, and other insurance organizations;
- Your business dealings with us and other companies; and
- Consumer reporting agencies and insurance support organizations.
NPI is collected to provide you with insurance products and services. The type of information we collect may include your address, telephone number, social security number, date of birth, occupation, income, health history, and medical record information.
Information Disclosure
We may disclose all the information that we collect. We do not disclose any NPI about you to anyone unless allowed by law.
The law does allow us to disclose NPI to people who perform business, professional, or insurance services for us. These services may include helping us process claims or detect fraud.
We may disclose NPI to a medical provider to verify coverage or benefits. Or, we may disclose information if someone is asking about the status of an insurance claim.
We may also disclose NPI when permitted by law. For example, we may disclose NPI to government regulators or other legal authorities, or in response to a subpoena. We may disclose NPI to actuaries or if we are being audited. We may also report claims experience to group policyholders. We may disclose NPI if it is needed to determine if you are eligible for government benefits. If we sell our business, we may disclose NPI in connection with the sale.
When legally necessary, we ask your permission before disclosing your NPI. Our information disclosure practices apply to current, former, and future customers.
The law allows us to share personal financial information with our affiliates to market products or services to you. You cannot prevent those disclosures.
Insurance support organizations collect information about people so that they can provide the data, when asked, to insurance companies or agents. The data may be in the form of a consumer report. The information may be used for underwriting or to detect fraud. The insurance support organization may keep this information and disclose it to others.
Protecting Information
We protect your NPI. The only employees who have access to the information are those who must have it to provide products or services to you. We have also established safeguards to protect the security, confidentiality, and integrity of the NPI we collect.
When we share NPI with other companies, we expect them to comply with relevant privacy laws. We do not authorize these companies to use or disclose NPI except as needed to perform the services we have asked them to perform, or as otherwise permitted or required by law.
Access and Correction
You have the right to access the NPI we have about you. You may make that request in writing to our Privacy Officer at the address given below. After we receive your request, we will respond to it within 30 business days. We may charge a reasonable fee to cover our copying costs. You also have the right to request, in writing, that the information be corrected.
Explanation of Opt Out Right
If you don’t want us to disclose personal information about you to nonaffiliated companies, you may tell us so. This is known as “opting out.” If you wish to opt out, call us at (858) 521-0025 and ask to speak to our Privacy Officer. We may share information about you if we do not hear from you within 30 days. However, you may opt out at any time. Just call or write us at 10809 Thornmint Road, Suite A, San Diego, California 92127. Even if you opt out, we may still disclose information as allowed by law. This includes disclosing information to our affiliates to market other products or services to you.
