Privacy Policy

It's a matter of trust.

You have entrusted us with your personal information. As part of our commitment to provide the best possible service to our customers, we care about the privacy of your personal information and we take its protection seriously.

Summary

Our Privacy Policy sets out how we collect, use, share and protect your personal information as part of providing products and services to you.


Collecting your personal information

Most of the information we collect is from you, but there may be times when we need information about you from a third party.


Your personal information helps us to provide our products and services

We need your personal information so that we can provide you with products and services. Sometimes we also use it for other purposes, such as creating new or improved products or services, or telling you about them.

We may need to share your personal information with a third party, such as the insurer under your policy, Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurances (BHSI), to enable us to provide products and services.


We only handle personal information when we’re allowed

When you use our products and services, you consent to us to collect and handle your personal information. If you want to take away your consent, it may mean we can no longer provide our products and services to you.
Managing your personal information

If at any time you want access to or to correct your personal information held by us, please contact us at [email protected]

To find out more, please read our Privacy Policy below.

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Privacy Policy

This is the privacy policy for Star Underwriting Agents Limited and Star Insurance Limited trading as “Star Insurance Specialists and Star Insure” (“Star”). In this privacy policy “we”, “our” and “us” refers to both Star Underwriting Agents Limited and Star Insurance Limited.

We adhere to the Privacy Act 2020 (the Act).

What personal information do we collect, handle and share?

So we can provide you with products and services, we need to collect your personal information.

“Personal information” is information or an opinion about you or information which can be used to identify who you are.


Why do we collect personal information?

We collect personal information so that we can:

• identify you;
• assess any application for insurance cover, including terms on which cover may be offered
• set up and manage your products;
• collect any premiums or other money from you, including authorising and processing credit or debit card payments;
• administer and resolve claims that you make;
• respond to communications from you;
• investigate and resolve any complaint which you may make;
• prevent, detect and investigate any suspected fraud
• understand your needs and improve our products through research, product development and training;
• provide you with information about products which we may offer from time to time; and
• assist with the investigation and/or recovery of any claims made and/or paid (including historical claims);
• carry out any other activities as permitted or required by law.

If you are taking out insurance as the policyholder and for other people, you are responsible for making any other people aware that you are disclosing their personal information to us, and of the terms of this Privacy Statement.

From time to time, we may send you marketing and other information electronically such as by email or text message. If you have provided your email address or mobile phone number, we take this as your implied consent to us doing this. If you wish to withdraw your consent at any time, please contact us.

Generally, we record inbound and outbound telephone calls for operational and training purposes to help us provide our products and services to you.


How do we collect personal information?

Wherever possible, we collect information directly from you. Collection of information from you will occur when you request insurance cover or make a claim but we may also collect information from you at other times during the course of our relationship.

Your communications with us may be monitored and recorded. This is so we can improve our customer service, to ensure compliance with our policies and procedures, and to provide evidence of a particular transaction if necessary.

There may be occasions when we collect your personal information from a third party. We do this when it is authorised by the Act, for example when it is impossible or impracticable to collect information from you, or when you consent to us collecting information from someone else. Third parties may include but are not limited to the following.

• The policy holder where they are responsible for making you insured under the policy
• other customers covered by your policy
• other insurers, any insurance data collection service or fraud protection service, for the purposes of policy or claim verification and/or fraud prevention
• intermediaries associated with your policy
• law enforcement agencies, telecommunications and digital partners, social media and other service providers; or
• any other person when authorised by you
  
  

Your consent

By commencing or continuing your relationship with us, you are taken to have consented to the collection and sharing of personal information by us as detailed in this Privacy Policy.

You may withdraw this consent at any time simply by notifying us. Depending on the circumstances, this may prevent us from being able to provide services to you. For example, we may not be able to accept or process a claim, or make a claim payment.


Using and Sharing your personal information

We use and share your personal information only for the purposes we collected it, and other directly related purposes. We may collect your information from or share it with:

• Vero Insurance New Zealand Limited
• Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance Company (incorporated in Nebraska, USA) and their agents
• any joint ventures with Star where authorised or required
• information technology providers, such as hardware/software vendors and programmers; customer or market research organisations
• intermediaries such as your agent, adviser, broker, a representative acting on your behalf, other New Zealand Financial Services Providers, or our own authorised representatives and agents
• policyholders where you are an insured person, but not the policyholder
• other insured persons where you are the policyholder
• interested parties under the policy
• government, law enforcement or statutory bodies
• other insurers, financial institutions, insurance and claims reference agencies, credit agencies, loss assessors, financiers, and investigative service providers
• third party fraud protection services and their subscribers
• in the case of a relationship with a corporate partner such as a bank or credit union, the corporate partner and any new incoming insurer
• third parties contracted by us to perform our services, provided any use of your personal information by that third party is limited solely to the relevant service
• external dispute resolution schemes
• as otherwise required by law, and
• any other person authorised by you.

All communications from us relating to you, whether or not you are the policyholder, will be sent to the policyholder.

Keeping your personal information safe

Your personal information is stored securely by us using a range of safeguards so that it is protected from unauthorised use, access, modification or disclosure.

If you would like to contact us about your information, having access to or correcting the information, or the safeguards we use to protect the information, contact us at [email protected].


Overseas Disclosure

From time to time, your personal information may be sent overseas to our partners, agents, contractors or other service providers. Where information is sent overseas, it is done so in accordance with the Act. Other countries may not have similar privacy or data protection laws, and may in certain circumstances compel the disclosure of personal information to a third party such as an overseas authority for the purpose of complying with foreign law or regulatory requirements.


Internet use

We take reasonable steps to maintain secure internet communications. If you provide us with personal information by email or over the internet, the provision of that information is at your own risk. If you post your personal information to our social media pages, the information you post will be publicly available.


Cookies

We use cookies when you are using our website. Cookies are small pieces of information that can be stored on your computer hard drive or temporarily in your memory. Cookies allow us to track and target the interests of our website users. Any information we collect and share with third parties through cookies is aggregated and therefore anonymous (it doesn’t include personal information which is likely to identify you). You may disable new cookies being installed and delete existing cookies from your computer using your web browser at any time. However, if you do so, you may not be able to use all of the functions on our website. For more information on Cookies, please read our website Terms of Use.

Accuracy of your personal information

We will take reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information which we collect, use or disclose is accurate and up to date.


How can you access and correct your personal information?

To request access to or a correction of your readily retrievable personal information you can:

Write to us:
Privacy Officer - Star Insurance Specialists
PO Box 97954
Manukau
Auckland 2241

Call us: +649 250 6000

Email us: [email protected]
In order to provide you with your personal information, we will need to identify you to confirm that you are the person to whom the information relates.

Sometimes we might not be able to provide some of your personal information. If this happens, we’ll tell you why. If it looks like it might take longer to retrieve your personal information than we first expected, we’ll tell you when it should be available. A fee may be charged for requests.

If you make a request for correction of your personal information and we agree with your request, we will correct your personal information if we can reasonably do so. If we disagree with your request or it is not reasonably possible to make the correction, we will take reasonable steps to note on your personal information that you have requested the correction.

If you have a complaint

If you have a complaint about the privacy of your personal information, please contact:

Privacy Officer - Star Insurance Specialists
[email protected]
PO Box 97954
Manukau
Auckland 2241

We do our best to resolve complaints promptly and fairly, however, if you are not satisfied, you may contact the Privacy Commissioner, using one of the following methods:

Phone: 0800 803 909 (from 8.30am to 5pm, Monday to Friday)
Mail: Privacy Commissioner, PO Box 10094, The Terrace, Wellington 6143
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.privacy.org.nz

Policy Changes

We encourage you to review this policy on a regular basis as it may be updated in the future. Please contact us if you have any questions.