MetLife Auto & Home® Privacy Policy
This Privacy Notice is given to you on behalf of one or more of the following companies:
- Metropolitan Property and Casualty Insurance Company
- Metropolitan Casualty Insurance Company
- Metropolitan Direct Property and Casualty Insurance Company
- Metropolitan General Insurance Company
- Metropolitan Group Property and Casualty Insurance Company
- Economy Fire & Casualty Company
- Economy Preferred Insurance Company
- Metropolitan Lloyds Insurance Company of Texas
- Economy Premier Assurance Company
- MetLife Auto & Home Insurance Agency, Inc.
@test123We are required by law to give you this notice. Please read it carefully. It describes in broad terms how we learn about you and members of your household who may be covered under your insurance with us (collectively "you") and how we treat the information we get about you. At MetLife Auto & Home, we respect your right to privacy. We treat all your personal information confidentially – before, during and even after your business relationship with us.
Why We Need Information: We need to know about you so that we can provide the insurance and other products and services you’ve asked for. When you first apply, we need information to determine if you qualify for coverage and at what rate. If you are insured with us, we may need information to conduct periodic reviews to make sure that you are still eligible for coverage, and that the rate charged is correct. We may also need it to administer your business with us, evaluate claims, process transactions and run our business. What we need to know includes names of all members of your household, address, age and other basic information. But we may need more information, such as employment, business conducted with us, with other MetLife companies (our “affiliates”) or with other companies and information from consumer reports.
How We Get Information: What we know about you we get mostly from you. Your application and claims are important sources of information for us. But we may also have to find out more about you to make sure that what we know is correct and complete. Those sources may include adult relatives, our affiliates, unaffiliated insurers, consumer reporting agencies, and others. For example, we may ask another insurer for information about the insurance you have with them and the claims you have filed.
We may also ask a consumer reporting agency for a “consumer report” about you . Any consumer reporting agency that gathers information about you may share this information with others who are authorized to use consumer reports by the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act or by state credit reporting acts. Consumer reports may tell us certain things about you including but not limited to:
- your driving record (e.g., Motor Vehicle Reports or MVR's),
- financial information (e.g. Credit Reports),
- your record of claims, or
- the condition and maintenance of your property.
Please see the Consumer Reports section below.
How We Protect What We Know: We treat what we know about you confidentially. Our employees are told to take care in handling your information. They may get information about you only when there is a good reason to do so. We take steps to make our computer data bases secure and to safeguard the information we have about you.
How We Use and Disclose What We Know About You: We may use what we know about you to help us serve you better and to ensure you are treated fairly. We are allowed by law to use it, and disclose it to our affiliates and others, for many purposes. For instance, we may use your information, and disclose it to others, in order to:
- Help us evaluate your request for a product or service from us or an affiliate
- Help us process claims and other transactions
- Confirm or correct what we know about you
- Help us prevent fraud and other crimes
- Help us run our business
- To comply with applicable laws
- Process information for us
- Perform research for us
- Audit our business
We generally will not give information about you to third parties without your consent, unless otherwise permitted by law. When we do disclose information we generally will disclose only what we consider reasonably necessary and no more. If necessary to conduct our business, we may give information to:
- our agents,
- our affiliates, or
- others who perform business services for us.
When we disclose information to others to perform business services for us, they must agree to protect this information. And they may use the information only for the purposes of performing those business services. Other reasons we may disclose what we know about you include:
- Doing what a court or government agency requires us to do; for example, complying with a search warrant or subpoena,
- Telling another company about you, if we may be selling any part of our business or merging with another company; or
- Giving your information to someone pursuant to your written authorization.
We may use what we know about you in order to offer you our other products and services. We may also provide information to others outside of the MetLife companies, such as marketing companies, to help us offer our own products and services to you. If you do not qualify for coverage from the MetLife Auto & Home affiliate to which you applied, and you directed us to do so on your application, we may share information with an affiliated MetLife Auto & Home company that offers a similar policy for which you qualify. In addition, we can tell you about our affiliates and the products that they offer. To the extent permitted by law, we may also disclose information to your own Independent Insurance Agent or Broker.
Unless you tell us not to (see “Opt Out” Election below), we may disclose information to our affiliates so that they can offer their products and services directly to you - without your specific authorization or direction. Our affiliates include life, securities firms, broker-dealers, a bank, a legal plans company and financial advisors. In the future, we may have affiliates in other businesses. In addition, if we have joint marketing agreements with unaffiliated companies, we may give them information about you so that we can offer products jointly or so they can offer products and services endorsed or sponsored by us to you. But we will not share information for joint marketing if you tell us not to or if the law that applies to you does not allow it.
Even if you do not “opt out,” we will not share your information with unaffiliated companies who may want to market their products directly to you, unless it is in connection with a joint marketing arrangement (as described above). For example, we will not sell or otherwise disclose your information to a catalog company.
“Opt Out” Election: You can tell us not to share your information to let our affiliates market their products directly to you or not to disclose your information to a third party in connection with a joint marketing arrangement. To make this election, please complete an “Opt Out” form and mail it to the address indicated on the form. If you are renewing your policy and have not received a form with this notice please see “You Can Get Other Information from Us” below. If you bought your MetLife Auto & Home insurance through an Independent Agent or certain of our MetLife Auto & Home Group Insurance Programs, you do not need to Opt Out. Our contract with your representative prohibits us from sharing your information for marketing purposes.
Email Opt-In
By providing a valid email address during your auto insurance quote, you
consent to receive details regarding your online quote and other
marketing messages from us. MetLife Auto & Home protects your
personal information, including your email address, to maintain its
confidentiality. We will not sell, distribute, or share your
personal information with a third party, other than in accordance with
our privacy policy.
Consumer Reports: Consumer reporting agencies are independent and impartial. They provide information to others in the form of consumer reports. They do not make decisions related to the insurance you applied for or have with us.
If we deny or change your coverage, or increase your premium, based on information in a consumer report, we will tell you and provide the name and address of the consumer reporting agency to you. You may obtain a copy of your consumer report by contacting the consumer reporting agency directly. If you contact the consumer reporting agency within sixty (60) days of the denial, change or premium increase, the report will be furnished free of charge.
In a few cases, if you have authorized us to do so in connection with your application, we may ask a consumer reporting agency to provide us with an “investigative” consumer report – which means they will ask others about you. This type of report is described in more detail on the application or related materials given to you with the application. In this case, we will ask the agency to contact you as well. The information collected may be kept by the agency and later given to others, as permitted by law.
You Can See and Correct Your Information: Generally, we will let you review what we know about you if you ask us in writing. (Because of its legal sensitivity, we will not show you anything that we learned in connection with a claim or lawsuit.) If you tell us that what we know about you is incorrect, we will review it. If we agree with you, we will correct our records. If we do not agree with you, you may tell us in writing, and we will include your statement when we give your information to anyone outside MetLife. It will also be sent to anyone that you designate who may have received such information in the past two years, or as otherwise required by law. (Minnesota residents may also file an appeal with the Insurance Commissioner.)
You Can Get Other Information from Us: In addition to any other privacy notice we may give you, we must give you a summary of our privacy policy once each year. You may have other rights under the law. If you want to know more about our privacy policy, please contact us through our Ask a Privacy Policy Question form, or call us at the number indicated in your Customer and Service Claim Directory which you received at the time you purchased or renewed your policy with us.
MetLife Auto & Home is a brand of Metropolitan Property and Casualty Insurance Company and its Affiliates, Warwick, RI.
PolicyHolder Bill of Rights: