Bonded Builders Warranty Group Privacy Policy

How we protect the information you entrust to us

Your Privacy is Important to Us
When you apply to Bonded Builders for any type of warranty product, you entrust us with information about yourself and your customers. The law regulates how we collect, use and disclose that information. Beyond legal requirements, though, we recognize our ethical obligation to protect the information you give us.

In order to fulfill that obligation, we maintain a variety of safeguards in compliance with state and federal regulations. These include both electronic and physical security measures as well as operating procedures designed to protect confidentiality. At the same time, we limit the access our employees have to your personal information. Only those employees who have a business reason for needing such information are able to access it. As a further safeguard, we continuously instruct our employees about the importance of respecting your privacy and maintaining confidentiality of personal information. We also take measures as needed to enforce our company regulations regarding employees’ access to, and use of, your personal information.

What kind of information do we collect about you, and from whom?
Bonded Builders obtains most of our information directly from you. The Warranty Acknowledgement document, application, as well as any additional information you provide, generally gives us most of the information we need to know. Sometimes we may contact you by phone or mail to obtain additional information. We may also use information gained from your other transactions with us, our affiliates, or other parties.

Depending on the nature of your warranty transaction, we may need additional information about you. We may obtain the additional information from third parties, such as insurance companies, government agencies, information clearinghouses, courts and other public records. For example, when we handle a claim, we may need to review warranty claim information and other loss information reports, and/or obtain medical or financial information.

In addition, we may receive consumer credit information from a consumer reporting agency (CRA). If we need to order a more detailed investigative consumer credit report, we will notify you as required by both state law and the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act ("FCRA"). Under the FCRA, you have the right to ask to be personally interviewed if we order an investigative consumer credit report. Upon request, we will tell you how to get a copy of the report. The agency that prepares a consumer report for us may retain that report and disclose it to other persons as permitted by law. If warranty coverage is declined, or the charge for coverage is increased because of information contained in a consumer report we obtained from a CRA, we will tell you that as required by state law and the FCRA. We also will give you the name and address of the CRA making the report.

What do we do with the information collected about you?
Information that has been collected about you and your customers may be retained both in our records and in your builder’s files. We review it in evaluating your builder’s request for warranty coverage. We will also refer to and use information in our records when we issue and service your warranty and settle claims. We may also use information about you and your customers that is in our files for insurance marketing purposes or to help you with your overall insurance programs.

We may retain information about former customers as well as current ones. That information would only be disclosed as described in this notice.

To whom do we disclose information about you?
We will not disclose information about you to others unless the disclosure is necessary to conduct our business.

We do not disclose any non-public personal information about our customers or former customers, except as permitted by law. That may mean that we could make disclosures to the following types of third parties without your consent:

Our affiliated companies
Parties who perform a business, professional or warranty function for our company, including our reinsurance companies
Independent claims adjusters, appraisers, investigators and attorneys who need the information to investigate, defend or settle a claim involving you
Businesses that help us with data processing or marketing
Businesses that conduct scientific research including actuarial or underwriting studies
Other warranty companies, agents or consumer reporting agencies as reasonably necessary in connection with any application, policy or claim involving you
Warranty support organizations which are established to collect information for the purpose of detecting and preventing fraudulent claims
Warranty regulatory agencies in connection with the regulation of our business
Law enforcement or other governmental authorities to protect our legal interests or in cases of suspected fraud or illegal activities
Authorized persons as ordered by a subpoena, warrant or other court order or as required by law
Lienholders, mortgagees, lessors or other persons shown on our records as having a legal or beneficial interest in your warranty coverage
Companies that perform marketing services on our behalf or to other financial institutions with whom we have joint marketing agreements

How can you find out about information we have about you?
You have the right to 1) know what kind of information we keep in our files about you, 2) have reasonable access to it and 3) receive a copy. Contact us as described at the end of this notice if you have questions about what information we may have on file. Tell us what information you would like to receive. Provide your complete name, address, date of birth, type of warranty held or applied for, and numbers of all warranties issued to you by us. Be aware, however, that we are not obligated to disclose to you certain types of information that are generally collected when evaluating claims or possible lawsuits.

Within thirty business days of receipt of your request, we will inform you in writing of the nature and substance of personal information about you that is recorded in our files and can be located and retrieved. You may review this information in person or receive a copy at a reasonable charge. We will also identify the person(s) or organization(s) to whom we have disclosed this information within the past two (2) years. In addition, you will be given the name and address of any consumer credit agency that may have prepared a report about you so that you can contact them for a copy of that report if you wish.

After you have reviewed the personal information about you in our file, you can contact us if you believe it should be corrected, amended or deleted. Tell us what you think is wrong and why. We will consider your request and within thirty business days either change our files or tell you why we have not done so. If we do not make changes, you will have the right to insert in our file a concise statement containing what you believe to be the correct, relevant, or fair information and explaining why you believe the information on file to be improper. If you choose to do this, we will notify the people or companies you designate, to whom we have previously disclosed your information, of the statement you have submitted, and when we disclose your information in the future, it will include your statement.

We appreciate the fact that you trust us to handle your warranty needs, and we do not take that trust lightly. We hope that being aware of our privacy policy will help you feel even more confident that we value our relationship with you and are working hard to maintain the confidentiality of the information you give us.

Sincerely,

Bonded Builders

How to contact us
We cannot accept inquiries on privacy issues via phone or e-mail. Please write to us with your questions:

Bonded Builders
Privacy Compliance Division
1500 Kings Highway, Port Charlotte, FL 33980

This Privacy Policy is provided to you by Bonded Builders Warranty Group, and Bonded Builders Insurance Services, Inc., as well as Bankers Insurance Group, Bankers Insurance Company, and First Community Insurance Company.