Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA)

Introduction

This Act lays down rules on how your client's personal information may be used. It exists to protect your clients and gives them the right to access information about them held on either computer or paper files.

Our application forms contain full information relating to the Data Protection Act 1998 in the sections headed 'Important information' and in the 'Declaration'.

To protect your client’s interests, the following guidelines are in place to decide if it is appropriate to disclose your client's and policy information to third parties.

General rules

Information relating to an individual client or a business will only be provided to that individual or business.

Medical evidence will not be disclosed to any third party, including you, without your client’s express written consent.

Any policy information about the sum assured or surrender values will only be provided to the person entitled to the benefits under the policy, or with their written permission.

We will send information to your client if requested to do so by another third party.

Third party requests

We can give information to any third party providing your client has given their consent.

We can also give information to third parties without your client's consent in the following situations:

• Assignees – where a policy has been assigned to a lender, information may be passed to the lender.
• Solicitors/Accountants and Actuaries – information can be passed on to a legitimate professional firm as long as we have their confirmation in writing that they act for the individual or company concerned.
• Trustee in Bankruptcy/Official Receiver – information can be provided subject to us seeing a copy of the Bankruptcy order, which has been certified, as a true copy of the original.
• Spouses/ registered civil partner – If a policy is not jointly owned, we will require written confirmation from the policyholder before we release any information to the other spouse or registered civil partner. This does not include personal medical/financial evidence – these details cannot be provided to a spouse or registered civil partner, without express consent, even if the policy applied for is a joint application.
• FSA/Financial Ombudsman – Information can be provided to these organisations without the written consent of your client.
• HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC)/Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) – information, which we are legally required to produce, can be provided without written consent.
• The Police – any information requested by the police will be referred to our Special Investigation Manager.
• Power of Attorney – information on a policy will be passed to an Attorney once we receive a properly executed Power of Attorney. For further details refer to Power of Attorney.