Our general responsibilities to you

This section explains how we’ll work with you and communicate with you in general. It also covers your rights under the privacy law.

1. We’re committed to high standards of service.

2. We’ll act transparently, and with integrity and utmost good faith towards you.

3. We’ll act in the interests of our customers by treating you honestly and fairly, and fulfilling our duties and obligations.

4. We’ll develop, market, and sell our products responsibly.

5. We’ll identify and address instances of poor conduct within our company.

6. We’ll communicate clearly and will:

  • answer your questions accurately and in writing if requested
  • explain the information you need to give us when you apply for insurance, renew your policy, or make a claim
  • explain the importance of you disclosing information that is honest, complete, up-to-date and relevant
  • give you access to your policy wording, which sets out in plain English what is insured, what is not insured, and what your obligations are
  • tell you about any changes to your policy
  • explain the decisions we make accurately, clearly, concisely and effectively in all our interactions with you.

7. We’ll train our staff and our agents so they can fulfil our responsibilities to you. Their training will include the requirements of this code, privacy law and information about our products, and may also include principles of insurance and relevant consumer laws.

8. You’re entitled to ask for and receive clarification on the terms, conditions and exclusions of your insurance policy. We’ll take all reasonable steps
to help people with disabilities, or people who have English as a second language.

We’ll comply with the privacy law

9. Under the privacy law you have the right to:

  • access the information we hold about you, including information we’ve relied on in evaluating your claim

  • ask us to correct any mistakes or inaccuracies in the information we hold about you, or to attach to that information a statement that a correction was asked for but not made

  • know what we’ll use the information we hold about you for.

10. The list of privacy law rights above is not exhaustive.

11. We can withhold some or all of any information you request in some limited circumstances. If we withhold information from you, we’ll give you reasons. You can ask us to put our reasons in writing. If you’re not happy with the reasons we give, you can make a complaint through our internal dispute resolution process.

12. We won’t use the information we hold about you for any other reasons than what we disclose to you.

13. We’ll make arrangements for the security and storage of personal information we hold about you.

14. You can make a complaint to the Privacy Commissioner if you think that your privacy has been interfered with, including if you disagree with our reasons for withholding information2.

2–If you have privacy concerns, you can contact the Privacy Commissioner on 0800 803 909 or www.privacy.org.nz.