Privacy Policy for Gerber Life Websites
Updated June 2012
This website privacy policy tells you about the information we collect from you when you visit or use a Gerber Life website, such as GerberLife.com or GerberLife.ca (collectively, "Gerber Life websites," "our websites," or "our sites"), and how we use, share, and protect that information. This policy only covers our collection activities through the Gerber Life websites. It does not apply to information we collect via other methods (e.g., paper application forms, claim forms, phone calls with customer service, third party sources, etc.). For information about our practices in these other areas, please refer to our other privacy policy notices available here.
Table of Contents for Website Privacy Policy
- Who does this privacy policy apply to?
- When do we collect information from you online?
- What information do we collect from you and how do we use it?
- With whom do we share your information?
- How do we protect your information?
- How can you update your online account information or opt-out from certain features or services?
- How do we notify you about changes to this policy?
- How can I contact Gerber Life about this policy?
1. Who does this privacy policy apply to?
This privacy policy applies to any person or customer who visits or uses the Gerber Life websites. This may include our policyholders in the U.S., its territories where we do business, and Canada, as well as non-customers who may be exploring our products. This policy does not apply to insurance agents who use our agency website or to any other business-to-business website that we may operate. This policy also does not apply to users under the age of 18, as we do not knowingly solicit or collect any information on our sites from minors.
By visiting or using our websites, you agree to be bound by the terms of this policy. If you do not agree to these terms, please do not use our websites.
Special Note to Canadian customers
Because Gerber Life is headquartered in the United States, we may transfer information collected from you on our sites to the U.S. By using our websites, you agree to this transfer and to allow us to use and disclose your information in accordance with this policy.
Links to Third Party Sites
Our websites may provide links to other third party sites (such as third party social networks) that we do not own or control. If you link to such sites or use such features, you do so at your own risk. We are not responsible for the content or practices of any third party site, even if our branding is displayed on such sites.
2. When do we collect information from you online?
We collect information from you on our websites when you do any of the following:
- Apply for insurance
- Sign up for our newsletter
- Enroll in and use Gerber Life eService
- Contact Customer Service via email
- Fill out customer surveys
- Use our tell-a-friend features
- Fill out other purpose-specific forms available on our sites
- Visit or browse our websites (automated collection via cookies and web technologies)
A more detailed description of each of these collection scenarios, and how we use your information in each scenario, is provided in Section 3 below.
3. What information do we collect from you and how do we use it?
The information we collect and how we use it depends on the context and purpose for collection.
Insurance application forms
The information collected on these forms will vary depending on the product but will typically include some or all of the following:
- personal contact information (e.g., name, address, phone number, email address);
- demographic information (e.g., age, date of birth, gender);
- medical and criminal history (e.g., past medical conditions, alcohol use, convictions);
- previous policy information (e.g., policy numbers, coverage amounts);
- employment information (e.g., occupation, name of employer);
- beneficiary information (e.g., designee name, relationship to insured);
- payment information (e.g., bank account or credit card information); and,
- other information needed for us to assess your eligibility for insurance (e.g., requested coverage amount, residency, etc.).
The collected information may be regarding the person for whom the insurance is being sought (i.e., the proposed insured) and/or the beneficiary of the proposed insured. For some applications, we may also collect the proposed insured's Social Security Number.
Any information you provide on our online application form is used to review and process your application. For insurance policies that require underwriting, your application information may be used (together with other information we may obtain about you) to determine your eligibility for insurance. We may also use information from your application (such as your personal contact information) to keep you informed about the status of your application or to remind you about completing your application.
In addition, the information from your online application will be used and disclosed in accordance with our other privacy policy notices available here.
Newsletter sign-up
When you sign up for our newsletter online, we ask you for the following information:
- personal contact information (e.g., name, address, email address); and,
- communication preferences (e.g., which mailings/content you prefer to receive).
This information is used to send you the communications that you request, including our monthly email newsletter (Family Times) and/or other mailings (including postal mail) that may contain special offers and product news from Gerber Life and/or our partners. We do not sell, rent, or share any of your personal contact information with third party companies for their own marketing use.
In some instances, we may obtain sign-ups to our newsletter through check boxes that appear on other forms (such as on an application or quote-request form) or on the phone through our Customer Service department. We may also receive sign-ups through third party sources, such as from co-registration forms on other sites.
You can always opt-out from receiving our newsletter or other marketing communications by clicking on the unsubscribe link provided at the bottom of each such email communication or by contacting Customer Service.
Gerber Life eService
To set up a Gerber Life eService account (which allows our policy holders to access and manage their account online), we ask you to provide or validate the following information:
- login information (e.g., user ID, password);
- policy information (e.g., policy number, insured's date of birth); and,
- personal contact information (e.g., name, address, email address).
This information is used to verify that you own a policy (or group of policies) with Gerber Life and to create and maintain an online account that is linked to your policies.
Once set up, your eService account allows you to do many things, including:
- Receive premium-due notifications via email (i.e., Paperless Billing);
- Receive other policy documentation electronically;
- Pay your premiums online (individually or through AutoPay);
- View and make changes to your policy information (e.g., update contact or demographic information, change beneficiaries, etc.);
- View all recent premium payments and policy transactions, and,
- Add or remove policies to your eService account.
When you use our eService tool, we may collect information from you to verify or modify what we already have in our records or to obtain certain information from you (such as payment information or additional beneficiary information) for the first time. For some activities (such as when you make policy changes), you may be required to generate a printable form to sign and mail in to Gerber Life along with additional legal documentation (such as a birth certificate or other form of identification). Any new policy-related information you give us through your eService account will be handled in accordance with this policy, as well as Gerber Life's other privacy policy notices available here.
Customer Service
Our websites may allow you to contact Customer Service via email with specific questions about your policy or general questions about our different insurance products. The information collected for these purposes may include:
- personal contact information (e.g., name, email address);
- policy or application information, if applicable (e.g., policy number, application number); and,
- details about your question or inquiry.
This information is used to respond to your question or request in a timely fashion, and may be retained to keep a record of your correspondence.
Customer surveys
From time to time, we may solicit feedback from you in the form of brief online surveys. For example, we might ask you to tell us about your experience in using our websites, such as what you liked and disliked about our sites. In most cases, these surveys are anonymous (i.e., they don't ask you for personal information such as your name or email address). For some surveys, we may use a third party software or service provider to help us administer the survey.
Tell-a-Friend features
Our websites may offer tell-a-friend features that allow you to easily share information (or links to information) about Gerber Life products and services with other people, including family members and friends. To use these features, we typically ask you to provide:
- personal contact information about yourself (e.g., name and email address); and,
- personal contact information about your friend (e.g., email address).
This information is only used to deliver the requested link/message to friends on your behalf and is not kept or further used by Gerber Life. To show our gratitude, we may send a one-time thank-you message to the person who uses the feature.
Other purpose-specific forms
From time to time, we may offer other website forms, features, or services that allow users to submit information, including personal information, to Gerber Life online. The purposes of these forms, and how the collected information will be used in each case, will always be stated clearly at the point of collection. The types and amount of information collected will vary depending on intended uses of the data.
Automated collection via cookies and web technologies
We may use industry standard technologies (such as cookies, web beacons, and web logs) to automatically collect and remember certain information about your visit to our websites. The information collected through these technologies may include:
- technical information about your computer system or other technological device (e.g., computer IP address, operating system type, web browser type, etc.);
- usage information about how you navigate and interact with our websites (e.g., which links you click on, which pages or content you view, date and time of visit, which site you came from, and other similar information or statistics); and,
- certain login information (e.g., the user ID for your eService account, but not your account password).
The collection and use of this information allows us to:
- Enhance the operation and functionality of our sites;
- Troubleshoot technical problems, including security issues;
- Tailor the online content or messages that you see to better match your interests;
- Save you time when you use our sites (e.g., remembering your User ID for easy login);
- Understand how people generally use our site and which features are most popular; and,
- Analyze our website traffic and, in turn, optimize the layout of our sites.
We do not typically associate information collected and used for these purposes with your personal contact information (such as your name or email address). You can always disable cookies through your browser, but some parts of our site may not work properly if you do so.
Third Party Tracking
From time to time, we may allow third party ad networks to collect and use your information to show you targeted ads (including Gerber Life ads) on our sites or on other sites. This typically involves the ad network collecting and tracking certain technical information (such as your IP address) and website usage information (such as your browsing history) on our sites and across many other sites on the web. However, this does NOT involve the collection, use, or sharing of your personal contact information, such as your name or email address. You can opt-out from this type of third party tracking at any time by going to: http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp.
4. With whom do we share your information?
The sharing practices described below only apply to information we collect from you on our websites and specifically for website-related purposes (e.g., e-newsletter sign-up, eService account setup and maintenance, online customer surveys, etc.).
To learn about how we share information collected for insurance-related purposes (e.g., insurance applications, policy changes, etc.), please refer to Gerber Life's other privacy policy notices available here.
Website-Related Sharing Practices
We may share your website-related information (including personal contact information about you) as set forth below.
- With agents and contractors who help us run our sites or perform other services on our behalf (e.g., e-newsletter delivery, mailing list management, etc.). These companies are only allowed to access and use your information for the specific task they've been hired to do and are required to keep your information confidential and secure.
- For legal-related purposes (if necessary), including disclosures in connection with a lawsuit or legal investigation, court order, governmental inquiry, enforcement of legal rights (e.g., contract terms, intellectual property rights, etc.), fraud investigation, safety issue, or other similar matter.
- In the event of an acquisition, merger, sale, corporate restructuring, bankruptcy, or other similar event that involves Gerber Life. If such an event occurred, we would make reasonable efforts to require that your personal information continue to be handled in accordance with this privacy policy, unless it is not practical or permissible to do so.
Please note that we do NOT share any of your personal contact information with our affiliates or with third party companies for their own marketing use.
5. How do we protect your information?
We use a variety of methods to keep the information you give us online confidential and secure. These measures include (among other things) the use of industry-standard encryption to protect sensitive information and activities (e.g., submission of online application form, registration and login for eService account, etc.), storage of your information on firewall-protected servers, and limiting access to your information to only those Gerber Life employees and agents/contractors who need it to do their job and have been trained in the proper handling of customer information.
6. How can you update your online account information or opt-out from certain features or services?
If you created an eService account with us, you can always access and update your account profile (including the name, contact information, and password associated with your account) by logging in to your account and clicking on Profile. Within your account, you also have the ability to turn on/off electronic billing notifications or other account-related email alerts.
If you signed up to receive our newsletter or other marketing communications, you can always opt-out from receiving these communications by clicking on the unsubscribe link provided at the bottom of each such email communication or by contacting Customer Service.
To opt-out from being tracked by third party ad networks (for targeted advertising purposes), please go to http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp.
7. How do we notify you about changes to this policy?
If we decide to change the way in which we handle your website-related information, we will post the changes in this privacy policy. For material changes (i.e., substantially new practices you wouldn't expect from us or that we didn't previously disclose in this policy), we may decide to notify you more prominently (such as through a notice on the home page of our site).
8. How can I contact Gerber Life about this policy?
For privacy policy questions or concerns, please contact us:
Gerber Life Insurance Company
1311 Mamaroneck Avenue
White Plains, NY 10605
1-800-704-2180
info@gerberlife.com