General PRIVACY Statement

Last Updated: October 15, 2020

Merchants Bonding Company ("Merchants") is committed to maintaining the privacy and confidentiality of the personal information which it obtains. Merchants recognizes that customers, agents, and others with whom we deal have an expectation of privacy with respect to personal information. Preserving that trust is one of the core values of the organization.

This policy describes the types of information we may collect from you or that you may provide when you visit Merchant’s website (“Website”) and our practices for collecting, using, maintaining, protecting, and disclosing that information. 

Please read this policy carefully to understand our policies and practices regarding your information and how we will treat it. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, your choice is not to use our Website. By accessing or using this Website, you agree to this privacy policy. This policy may change from time to time. Your continued use of this Website after we make changes is deemed to be acceptance of those changes, so please check the policy periodically for updates.

How We Collect Personal Information

We collect non-public personal information about you from the following sources:

  • Information you submit to us when applying for insurance or surety products or when paying premiums, filing claims, or making changes to your policies or bonds.
  • Consumer Reporting Agencies, such as personal and business credit reports (when part of our insurance underwriting practices).
  • Financial Institutions, Banks, Suppliers, Attorneys, or other third parties identified by you as sources of information.
  • State Agencies, such as a Contractor License Board.
  • Insurance Agents or Brokers, such as any of the above types of information as well as information about other insurance or surety products you may have.

The categories of information we collect may include:

  • Contact and profile information. We may collect personal information, such as your name, phone number, address, business information, gender, age, and e-mail address, when you register for our Services, sign up for our mailing list, purchase our products, or otherwise communicate or interact with us.
  • Payment and transaction information. We may collect information such as items purchased, date and time of your transaction, agency or producer name and location, amount purchased, and payment information, such as your bank account.
  • Comments, chat and opinions. When you contact us directly (e.g., by email, phone, mail or by completing an online form or participating in online chat), we may record your comments and opinions. We may also record comments and opinions you express when responding to surveys, or postings on our Social Media Pages.
  • Information you may post or submit to our Sites. We may collect information about how you use and interact with our Services, including any content you post to the Services.
  • Information provided by social networks. When you interact with our Service through various social media networks, such as when you “Like” us on Facebook or when you follow us or share our content on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram or other social networks, we may receive some information about you that you permit the social network to share with third parties. The data we receive is dependent upon your privacy settings with the social network. You should always review and, if necessary, adjust your privacy settings on third party websites and social media networks and services before linking or connecting them to our Sites or Service.
  • Information provided by others. From time to time, we may receive information about you from third parties and other users. For example we may obtain information from third parties to enhance or supplement our existing user information. We may also collect information about you that is publicly available. We may combine this information with the information we collect from you directly.
  • Information provided by our Agencies and Producers. We may receive information about you from our agencies and producers so that information you provide to them may be used by us to provide you services, communicate with you or provide you other personalized content.
  • Information you provide about other People. If you submit any Personal Information relating to other people to us or to our service providers, you represent that you have the authority to do so and to permit us to use the information in accordance with this General Privacy Statement.

Information We Collect Through Automatic Data Collection Technologies

As you navigate through and interact with our Website, we may use automatic data collection technologies to collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions, and patterns, including:

  • Details of your visits to our Website, including traffic data, location data, logs, and other communication data and the resources that you access and use on the Website.
  • Information about your computer and internet connection, including your IP address, operating system, and browser type.

The technologies we use for this automatic data collection may include:

  • Cookies (or browser cookies). A cookie is a small file placed on the hard drive of your computer. You may refuse to accept browser cookies by activating the appropriate setting on your browser. However, if you select this setting you may be unable to access certain parts of our Website. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you direct your browser to our Website.

How We May Use Personal Information

We may use Personal Information:

  • To provide a quote, underwrite and rate bonds and policies, respond to your inquiries, fulfill your requests, and complete your transactions
  • To process claims
  • To service your bonds and policies
  • To confirm or correct what we know about you
  • To help us prevent fraud and other crimes
  • To comply with applicable laws
  • To perform research or send you surveys
  • To send you information that we believe may be of interest to you
  • To personalize your experience on the Services
  • To facilitate social sharing functionality
  • To inform you of job opportunities and to evaluate your suitability for a job
  • To contact you at a telephone number you provide to us, including if the number is for a cell phone or other wireless device.
  • For our other business purposes.
  • As otherwise allowed by law.

How Personal Information May Be Disclosed

Merchants does not disclose personal information to others unless it is permitted by law. Your Personal Information may be disclosed in the following manner:

  • To third parties to help us manage or service our business. These third parties can include but are not limited to agents or brokers, other insurance companies, regulators, administrators, and service providers that provide services such as website hosting, data analysis, payment processing, information technology and related infrastructure provision, email delivery and other services.
  • To insurance support organizations and consumer reporting agencies. Information that we share with these organizations, such as your claims history, may be retained by them and disclosed to others.
  • By you, on message boards, chat, profile pages and blogs and other services to which you are able to post information and materials (including, without limitation, our Social Media Pages). Any information you post or disclose through these services will become public information, and may be available to users of the services and to the general public.
  • To a third party in the event of any reorganization, merger, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer or other disposition of all or any portion of our business, assets or stock (including in connection with any bankruptcy or similar proceedings)
  • As we believe to be necessary or appropriate: (a) under applicable law, including laws outside your country of residence; (b) to comply with legal process; (c) to respond to requests from public and government authorities including public and government authorities outside your country of residence; (d) to enforce our terms and conditions; (e) to protect our operations; (f) to protect our rights, privacy, safety or property, and/or that of you or others; (g) to detect and prevent fraud; and (h) to allow us to pursue available remedies or limit the damages that we may sustain
  • As otherwise allowed by law

Personal Information Sales

We do not sell our customers' personal information to other companies for marketing purposes. If in the future, we anticipate selling your personal information to any party, we will provide you with the opt-in and opt-out rights required by federal and state laws and regulations including the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

Protecting Personal Information

Merchants uses physical, electronic, and administrative security controls to maintain the confidentiality and integrity of personal information in our possession and guard against its unauthorized access. We are responsible for identifying information that must be protected, providing an adequate level of protection for that data and granting access to protected data as permitted or required by law.  Merchants' associates are prohibited from making unauthorized disclosure of personal information that we collect.

If you have reason to believe that your interaction with us is no longer secure (for example, if you feel that the security of any account you might have with us has been compromised), please immediately notify us of the problem by contacting us by email at privacy@merchantsbonding.com or by mail at Merchants Bonding Company, P.O Box 14498, Des Moines, IA 50306-3498.

Accessing and Correcting Your Information

  • You may send an email to support@merchantsbonding.com to request access to, correct or delete any personal information that you have provided to us. We may not accommodate a request to change information if we believe the change would violate any law or legal requirement or cause the information to be incorrect.
  • California residents may have additional personal information rights and choices. Please see our California Privacy Statement for more information.

Notification of Changes to this Statement

This privacy policy may change from time to time. If we change our Privacy Policy, we will post those changes on the web site www.merchantsbonding.com. You may wish to visit this page periodically to review the most recent Privacy Policy.