1. Our obligations

As an organisation that collects and holds personal information about our clients, we must comply with Code Standard 5 of the Code of Professional Conduct for Financial Advice Services and adhere to the Privacy Act 2020 and its principles.

We only use client information for the purposes that we collect it for, and we do not underestimate the importance of keeping personal information secure during the collection, use, or authorised disclosure when providing our services.

2. Our commitment to protect your privacy

We understand how important it is to protect your personal information. This document sets out our privacy commitment in respect of personal information we hold about you and what we do with that information.

It is important to us that you are confident that any personal information we hold about you will be treated in a way which ensures protection of your personal information.

Our commitment in respect of personal information is to abide by the Privacy Principles set out in the Privacy Act 2020 (or any successor legislation) and all other applicable laws. This Privacy Policy applies in addition to, and does not limit, our rights and obligations under the Privacy Act and other applicable laws.

3. Who are we?

References in this Privacy Policy to “we”, “us” and “our” means The Insurance Department Limited (FSP551766) acting through a financial adviser.

4. What is personal information?

The Privacy Commission provides the following definition on their website:

Personal information is any piece of information that relates to a living, identifiable human being. People’s names, contact details, financial health, purchase records: anything that you can look at and say, “this is about an identifiable person.”

It does not need to include the client name, and does not need to be secret or sensitive in nature. It is any information that could be used to identify an individual.

5. Your authorisation

By providing us with personal information, engaging us to provide you with services, or by using our website, you consent to the collection, use, storage and disclosure of personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

6. Changes to our Privacy Policy

We may change our Privacy Policy from time to time, by publishing an updated version on this page, to reflect changes in the law and also our business needs so long as the changes do not disadvantage you. By continuing to engage us or use our website you will be deemed to have accepted the updated Privacy Policy.

7. What personal information do we collect?

When we refer to personal information we mean information that identifies, or is capable of identifying, you. This includes, for example, your name, date of birth, address, contact details, account details and occupation.

If you engage us to provide services to you, we may collect personal information about your financial situation or goals in order to recommend mortgage and insurance products that we are permitted to advise on (Products).

8. Why do we collect your personal information?

We collect your personal information for the purposes of our and relevant third parties’ services and relationship with you. For example:

• responding to your requests or inquiries;
• providing services to you (e.g. to enable us to recommend Products to you);
• sending communications and direct marketing to you about products and services we think may be of interest to you (whether through mail, telephone or electronic means (including email and SMS/MMS));
• market research; and
• any other purpose authorised by you or the Privacy Act.

If you do not wish to receive marketing information, you may ‘opt out’ at any time by notifying us.

We may also collect personal information (including credit information and health information) on behalf of the lenders, insurers and other providers of Products that you choose to apply for (Product Providers). Product Providers will have their own Privacy Policy that applies to the information that we collect on their behalf.

9. How do we collect your personal information?

Generally we will collect your personal information directly from you. For example, we collect your personal information directly from your use of our website and the information that you submit to the website. We also collect your personal information if you use the “contact us” functionality on our website and you provide the personal information during conversations between you and us.

We may also collect your personal information from:

• NZ Financial Services Group Limited (NZFSG) and its related bodies corporate;
• credit reporting agencies;
• with your authorisation, banks (e.g. through the use of illion Bank Statements) and employers;
• Product Providers (e.g. during the term of any loan or insurance we have arranged on your behalf, in order to answer your queries or assist you with your financial arrangements as your circumstances change). If applicable, the Product Providers may also periodically disclose your loan balance or premium to us in connection with the payment of ongoing commission to us over the term of your loan or insurance; and
• any other person authorised by you or the Privacy Act.

If you provide any personal information about anyone else to us, you confirm that you have collected that personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act and that the individual concerned has:

• authorised the disclosure to us and the collection, use and disclosure of their personal information by us in accordance with this Privacy Policy; and
• has been informed of their right to access and request correction of their personal information.

10. How long do we keep your information?

All personal information will be handed back to the you and/or destroyed once it is no longer required and at your request. However, we require the information to be held on file for 7 years following the end of the our relationship with you.

11. Updating your personal information

We will generally rely on you to ensure the information we hold about you is accurate. If any of your details change, please let us know as soon as possible by contacting us.

12. Who do we disclose your personal information to?

We may disclose your personal information to the following people if we consider it necessary to do so for the purposes described above:

• NZFSG and its related bodies corporate;
• Product Providers and other prospective lenders, third parties or other intermediaries in relation to your finance or insurance requirements (including a prospective lender’s mortgage insurer (if any), any person with whom a lender or insurer proposes to enter into contractual arrangements, any person who provides a guarantee or security and any trustee and any assignee or potential assignee of a lender’s or insurer’s rights);
• our referral partners who can help you with other services;
• contractors or service providers;
• investors, or any entity that has an interest in our business or any entity to whom we consider assigning or transferring any of our rights or obligations or selling all or part of our business;
• anyone who we are legally required or authorised to share your information with, including regulators and government agencies;
• to auditors (such as NZFSG) to ensure we are providing services to you that are in your best interests, and in accordance with current regulations;
• your employer and referees, as well as credit reporting and identity verification agencies; and
• any other person or entity authorised by you or the Privacy Act.

You acknowledge and agree that credit reporting agencies may hold your credit information (including default information) on their systems and use such information to provide their credit reporting services, which may include providing your credit information (including default information) to their customers.

Prior to disclosing any of your personal information to another person or organisation, we will take all reasonable steps to satisfy ourselves that the person or organisation has a commitment to protecting your personal information at least equal to our commitment.

13. Do we disclose your personal information to anyone outside New Zealand?

We may use cloud storage to store the personal information we hold about you. The cloud storage and the IT servers may be located outside New Zealand.

We may also disclose personal information to NZFSG and its related bodies corporate, and third party suppliers and service providers located overseas for some of the purposes listed above.

14. Office Security

We take great care to protect your personal information located on site at any of our offices. Any time the office is unattended, it is locked with a monitored security system. Only authorised staff have access to the office.

All computers, laptops and electronic devices, as well as software programs, are password protected so that they can only be used by those that are permitted. We follow recommended practices when it comes to creating passwords and do not share or use the same passwords for multiple programs. We only respond to emails or share information once we are able to verify that we are speaking with the client requesting the information. 

15. Data Security

All electronic devices and software programs are password protected. We only use internet connectivity or emails where there is a secure WiFi network and an inability for others to access data. We only use trusted third party service providers that abide by the Privacy Act 2020 and include assurances in their business agreement or contract. Our business uses a Customer Relationship Management platform (CRM) provided by The Adviser Platform. Details of how The Adviser Platform fulfill their obligations under The Privacy Act 2020 can be provided on request.

Where laptops or electronic devices are unaccounted for, we update passwords for all applicable software programs to prevent the chance of unauthorised access. The CRM platform that we use only allows a user to be logged into a single device at any one time and all users are logged out after a period of inactivity.

16. Our Website

Cookies and IP addresses

When you access our website, we may send a “cookie” (which is a small summary file containing a unique ID number) to your computer. This enables us to recognise your computer each time you visit our website. We also use cookies to measure traffic patterns, to determine which areas of our website have been visited, to measure transaction patterns, to analyse trends, administer the website, track users’ movements and gather broad demographic information. We use this to research our users’ habits so that we can improve our website and our service offering. Our cookies may record information such as your Internet Protocol (IP) address (that is, the electronic addresses of computers connected to the internet), your device and browser type, operating system, the pages or features of our site to which you have browsed and the time spent on those pages or features, the frequency with which the site is used by you, the search terms that you have used, the links on our site that a you have clicked on or used, and other usage statistics.

While our cookies do not collect personal information, if you submit your name and email address as part of your usage, then we will link that personal information with the cookies information that we have previously collected from you. If you do not wish to receive cookies, you can set your browser so that your computer does not accept them.

Security

As our website is linked to the internet, and the internet is inherently insecure, we cannot provide any assurance regarding the security of transmission of information you communicate to us online. We also cannot guarantee that the information you supply will not be intercepted while being transmitted over the internet. Accordingly, any personal information or other information which you transmit to us online is transmitted at your own risk.

Links and third party advertisements

Our website may contain links to other websites operated by third parties. Our website may also display advertisements, which are hosted by third parties.

We make no representations or warranties in relation to the privacy practices of any third party website or advertisement providers and we are not responsible for other privacy policies or the content of any third party website or advertisements. Third party websites are responsible for informing you about their own privacy practices.

Our online advertising network partner may use cookies, web beacons or other web tracking techniques to collect non-personally identifiable information about your activities on the website and other websites that you may visit to provide you targeted advertising based upon your interests.

17. Are you required to provide personal information to us?

You are not required to provide any personal information to us but if you choose not to it might affect our ability to provide services to you and your ability to obtain finance, insurance and other Products from Product Providers.

In most circumstances it will be necessary for us to identify you in order to successfully do business with you. However, where it is lawful and practicable to do so, we will offer you the opportunity of doing business with us without providing us with personal information, for example, if you make general inquiries about interest rates or current promotional offers.

You may choose to interact with our website anonymously, but we will not be able to contact you unless you provide your personal information.

18. Access to your personal information

You may access any of the personal information that we hold about you at any time by contacting us. We may charge a fee for our reasonable costs of retrieving and supplying the information to you.

19. Breach of Privacy

Where a breach of privacy is suspected, it is raised with our Privacy Officer (Kerry Alcock) to review for potential harm and assess what immediate action needs to be taken to prevent any further breach.

If it is concluded that a breach of privacy has occurred, we notify the affected individuals of the breach and let them know how their privacy has been breached, what steps we are taking to limit the breach, and confirm that we will be reporting the breach to the Privacy Commissioner.

We then notify the Privacy Commissioner using the NotifyUs function on the website of the Privacy Commission: https://www.privacy.org.nz/privacy-for-agencies/privacy-breaches/notify-us/

Where it is determined that there has been a breach of privacy or there was the potential for a breach to have occurred, it is recorded in our Incident Register and treated in line with our Material Issues and Reporting Policy.

20. How compliance is monitored

We have a nominated Privacy Officer in the office responsible for understanding our responsibilities under the Privacy Act, as well as providing guidance and updates, monitoring our practices, and raising awareness at team meetings. Our Privacy Officer is Kerry Alcock.

All of our advice files are self-reviewed for accuracy and compliance with our obligations under this policy. We also have a third party review of our advice practices on an annual basis to ensure ongoing compliance.

21. Further information

If you have any questions on our Privacy Policy or your personal information please contact us.