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Privacy Notice

Marsh, part of the Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc. (MMC) group, strives to protect the privacy and confidentiality of Personal Data that the company submits to processing in the context of its services to its clients. Marsh's services consist primarily of risk advisory and insurance intermediation activities, which provide the assessment, access, administration and submission of claims regarding insurance services.

An insurance is a pooling and sharing of a risk against a possible eventuality. For this, the information, including the Personal Data of different categories of people, has to be shared between the different participants in the insurance market during the life cycle of the insurance.

To clarify the terms used in this Privacy Notice we have set out the roles of the key Insurance Market Participants below:

  • Policyholders: Request insurance to protect themselves against risks that could affect them. They may approach an  Intermediary (such as Marsh) to purchase insurance or they may approach an Insurer directly or via a price comparison website.
  • Intermediaries: Help Policyholders and Insurers arrange insurance cover.  They may offer advice and handle claims. Many insurance and reinsurance policies are obtained through Intermediaries.
  • Insurers: Sometimes also called underwriters. Provide insurance cover to Policyholders in return for payment (premium).
  • Reinsurers: Provide insurance cover to another Insurer or Reinsurer. That insurance is known as reinsurance.

During the insurance lifecycle Marsh may receive Personal Data relating to potential or actual Policyholders, Beneficiaries under a policy, their family members, claimants and other parties involved in a claim. Therefore references to “individuals” in this Privacy Notice include any living person from the preceding list, whose Personal Data Marsh receives in connection with the services it provides under its engagements with its clients. This Privacy Notice sets out Marsh’s uses of this Personal Data and the disclosures it makes to other Insurance Market Participants and other third parties.

A glossary of key terms used in this Privacy Notice can be found here.

IDENTITY OF CONTROLLER AND CONTACT DETAILS

Marsh, Lda., Rua António Pedro, 111, 1150-045 Lisboa, (Marsh or We) is the controller in respect of the Personal Data it processes in connection with the services provided under the relevant engagement with its client.

In certain cases, and for the purposes of performing some services, Marsh and its client may have agreed that Marsh is a processor. When Marsh acts as a processor, it complies with the obligations set out in  the agreement concluded with its client.

Personal information that may be processed

We may collect and process the following Personal Data:

  • Individual details: Name, address (and proof of address), other contact details (e.g., email and telephone details), gender, marital status, family details, date and place of birth, employer, job title and employment history, relationship to the policyholder, insured, beneficiary or claimant.
  • Identification details: Identification numbers issued by government bodies or agencies (e.g., depending on the country you are in, social security or national insurance number, passport number, ID number, tax identification number, driver’s license number).
  • Financial information: Payment card number, bank account number and account details, income and other financial information.
  • Insured risk: Information about the insured risk, which contains Personal Data and may include, only to the extent relevant to the risk being insured:
    • Health data: Current or former physical or mental medical conditions, health status, injury or disability information, medical procedures performed, relevant personal habits (e.g., smoking or consumption of alcohol), prescription information, medical history;
    • Criminal records data: Criminal convictions, including driving offences; and
    • Other Special Categories of Personal Data: Racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, genetic data, biometric data, data concerning an individual’s sex life or sexual orientation.
  • Policy information: Information about the quotes individuals receive and the policies they obtain.
  • Credit and anti-fraud data: Credit history and credit score, information about fraud convictions, allegations of crimes and sanctions details received from various anti-fraud and sanctions databases, or regulators or law enforcement agencies.
  • Previous claims: Information about previous claims, which may include health data, criminal records data, and other Special Categories of Personal Data  (as described in the Insured Risk definition above).
  • Current claims: Information about current claims, which may include health data, criminal records data, and other Special Categories of Personal Data  (as described in the Insured Risk definition above).
  • Marketing data: Whether or not the individual  has consented to receive marketing from us and from third parties.

Where we collect such information directly from individuals, we will inform them of whether the information is required and the consequences of not providing it on the relevant form.

Sources of personal data

We collect Personal Data from various sources, including (depending on the country you are in):

  • Individuals and their family members, online or by telephone, or in written correspondence
  • Individuals’ employers
  • In the event of a claim, third parties including the other party to the claim (claimant/ defendant), witnesses, experts (including medical experts), loss adjustors, lawyers and claims handlers
  • Other insurance market participants, such as Insurers, Reinsurers and other Intermediaries
  • Credit reference agencies (to the extent Marsh is taking any credit risk)
  • Anti-fraud databases and other third party databases, including sanctions lists
  • Government agencies, such as vehicle registration authorities and tax authorities
  • Claim forms

How we use and disclose your personal data

In this section, we set out the purposes for which we use Personal Data, explain how we share the information, and identify the “legal grounds” on which we rely to process the information.

These “legal grounds” are set out in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which allows companies to process Personal Data only when the processing is permitted by the specific “legal grounds” set out in the regulation (the full description of each of the grounds can be found here).

Please note that in addition to the disclosures we have identified in the table below, we may disclose Personal Data for the purposes we explain in this notice to service providers, contractors, agents and MMC group companies that perform activities on our behalf.

Consent

In order to facilitate the provision of insurance cover and administer insurance claims, we rely on the data subject’s consent to process Special Categories of Personal Data and Criminal Records Data, such as medical and criminal convictions records, as set out in the table above and for profiling as set out in the next section. This consent allows us to share the information with other Insurers, Intermediaries and Reinsurers that may need to process the information in order to undertake their role in the insurance market (which in turn allows for the pooling and pricing of risk in a sustainable manner).

The affected individual’s consent to this processing of Special Categories of Personal Data and Criminal Records Data is a necessary condition for Marsh to be able to provide the services the client requests.

Where you are providing us with information about a person other than yourself, you agree to notify them of our use of their Personal Data and to obtain such consent for us.

Individuals may withdraw their consent to such processing at any time. However, doing so may prevent Marsh from continuing to provide the services. In addition, if an individual withdraws consent to an Insurer’s or Reinsurer’s processing of their Special Categories of Personal Data and Criminal Records Data, it may not be possible for the insurance cover to continue.

Profiling and automated decision making

Insurance premiums are calculated by Insurance Market Participants benchmarking clients’ and beneficiaries’ attributes as against other clients’ and beneficiaries’ attributes and propensities for insured events to occur. This benchmarking requires Marsh and other Insurance Market Participants to analyse and compile information received from all insureds, beneficiaries or claimants to model such propensities. Accordingly, we may use Personal Data to both match against the information in the models and to create the models that determine the premium pricing in general and for other insureds. Marsh and other Insurance Market Participants may use Special Categories of Personal Data and Criminal Records Data for such modelling to the extent it is relevant, such as medical history for life insurance or past motor vehicle convictions for motor insurance.

Marsh and other insurance market participants use similar predictive techniques to assess information that clients and individuals provide to understand fraud patterns, the probability of future losses actually occurring in claims scenarios, and as set out below.

We use these models only for the purposes listed in this Privacy Notice. In most cases, our staff make decisions based on the models.

Automated broking platform

Where clients use an automated broking platform, insurance quotations are offered entirely by matching whether the attributes that the client has provided meet the criteria set by the insurers, which determines (a) whether a quotation will be made; (b) on what terms; and (c) at what price. Each insurer will use different algorithms to determine their pricing, and clients must consult each insurer’s privacy policy for further details. Our platform merely queries whether attributes of potential insureds satisfy insurers’ models and then returns the results. If the potential insured’s attributes do not satisfy insurers’ models, the quotation request is referred for review by a team with underwriting authority. We also apply fraud prediction algorithms to the information clients provide to assist us in detecting and preventing fraud. We regularly review all profiling and associated algorithms against inaccuracies and bias.

These automated processes may result in a client not being offered insurance or affect the price or terms of the insurance.

Clients may request that we provide information about the decision-making methodology and ask us to verify that the automated decision has been made correctly. We may reject the request, as permitted by applicable law, including when providing the information would result in a disclosure of a trade secret or would interfere with the prevention or detection of fraud or other crime but generally in these circumstances we will verify that the algorithm and source data are functioning as anticipated without error or bias.

Safeguards

We have in place physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of the information we maintain. These safeguards will vary depending on the sensitivity, format, location, amount, distribution and storage of the Personal Data, and include measures designed to keep Personal Data protected from unauthorized access. If appropriate, the safeguards include the encryption of communications via SSL, encryption of information during storage, firewalls, access controls, separation of duties, and similar security protocols. We restrict access to Personal Data to personnel and third parties that require access to such information for legitimate, relevant business purposes.

Limiting collection and retention of personal information

We collect, use, disclose and otherwise process Personal Data that is necessary for the purposes identified in this Privacy Notice or as permitted by law. If we require Personal Data for a purpose inconsistent with the purposes we identified in this Privacy Notice, we will notify clients of the new purpose and, where required, seek individuals’ consent (or ask other parties to do so on Marsh’s behalf) to process Personal Data for the new purposes.

Our retention periods for Personal Data are based on business needs and legal requirements. We retain Personal Data for as long as is necessary for the processing purpose(s) for which the information was collected, and any other permissible, related purpose or as required by law. For example, we may retain certain transaction details and correspondence until the time limit for claims arising from the transaction has expired, or to comply with regulatory requirements regarding the retention of such data. When Personal Data is no longer needed, we either irreversibly anonymise the data (and we may further retain and use the anonymised information) or securely destroy the data.

Cross-border transfer of personal information

Marsh transfers Personal Data to, or permits access to Personal Data from, countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA). These countries’ data protection laws do not always offer the same level of protection for Personal Data as offered in the EEA. We will, in all circumstances, safeguard Personal Data as set out in this Privacy Notice.

Certain countries outside the EEA have been approved by the European Commission as providing essentially equivalent protections as EEA data protection laws. EU data protection laws allow Marsh to freely transfer Personal Data to such countries.

If we transfer Personal Data to other countries outside the EEA, we will establish legal grounds justifying such transfer, such as MMC Binding Corporate Rules, model contractual clauses, individuals’ consent, or other legal grounds permitted by applicable legal requirements.

Individuals can request additional information about the specific safeguards applied to the export of their Personal Data by contacting the Data Protection Officer at the address below.

ACCURACY, ACCOUNTABILITY, OPENNESS AND YOUR RIGHTS

We strive to maintain Personal Data that is accurate, complete and current. Individuals should contact us at email address below to update their information.

Questions regarding Marsh’s privacy practices should be first directed to Marsh’s Data Protection Officer.

Under certain conditions, individuals have the right to request Marsh to:

  • Provide further details on how we use and process their Personal Data;
  • Provide a copy of the Personal Data we maintain about the individual;
  • Update any inaccuracies in the Personal Data we hold;
  • Delete Personal Data that we no longer have a legal ground to process;
  • Where processing is based on consent, to withdraw the consent;
  • Object to any processing of Personal Data that Marsh justifies on the “legitimate interests” legal grounds, unless our reasons for undertaking that processing outweigh any prejudice to the individual’s privacy rights; and
  • Restrict how we process the Personal Data while we consider your inquiry.

These rights are subject to certain exemptions to safeguard the public interest (e.g., the prevention or detection of crime) and our interests (e.g., the maintenance of legal privilege). We will respond to most requests within 30 days.

If we are unable to resolve an inquiry or a complaint, individuals have the right to lodge a complaint with the applicable supervisory authority, the Commissioner for Data Protection.

QUESTIONS, REQUESTS OR COMPLAINTS

To submit questions or requests regarding this Privacy Notice or Marsh’s privacy practices, please write to the  Compliance Officer at the following address:

Encarregado de Proteção de Dados
Marsh, Lda.
Apartado 1373
EC Arroios - Lisboa
1001-000 Lisboa
portugal.privacy@marsh.com

 

CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY NOTICE

This Privacy Notice may be changed at any time. The Privacy Notice was last updated on 07.02.2023. If Marsh changes this Privacy Notice, it will also update the most recent version date. Changes made to this Privacy Notice are effective immediately.

Privacy Notice