We process personal data in order to be able to provide our customers with the best possible service/product. We always ensure we either have a legitimate purpose to hold personal data or obtain consent. We strive to maintain the highest possible Data Protection standards and we will handle all data with the upmost care.
Your trust is important to us, so we want you to be aware of our Privacy Policy which explains how we collect, store and handle your personal data.
If you suspect data about QBE’s customers, staff or other contacts has been inappropriately disclosed or you find QBE property which may contain confidential or personal data, please let our Data Protection Team know as soon as possible by completing our Data Breach Form.
QBE European Operations ("QBE") is committed to ensuring your privacy is protected. This Fair Processing Notice sets out details of the information that we may collect from you and how we may use that information. Please take your time to read this notice carefully. When using a QBE website, this notice should be read alongside the website terms and conditions and cookie policy.
QBE is part of a wider group of companies, the QBE Insurance Group, one of the world’s leading international insurers and reinsurers. As a business insurance specialist, we offer a range of reinsurance products from the standard suite of property, casualty and motor to the specialist financial lines, marine and energy. All are tailored to the individual needs of our small, medium and large client base.
To enable us to provide reinsurance services, including providing a quote and then reinsurance, and dealing with any claims or complaints that might arise, we need to collect and process data. This makes us a "data controller" for any personal information that you provide to us which makes us responsible for complying with data protection laws.
The specific company acting as a data controller of your personal information will be listed in the documentation we provide to you. A list of all the companies within QBE European Operations which act as data controllers is set out below:
If you are unsure about who the data controller of your personal information is, you can also contact us at any time by e-mailing us at dpo@uk.qbe.com.
The types of personal information that we collect and our uses of that personal information will depend on your relationship with us. For example, we will collect different personal information depending on whether you are an insurer, a broker, an expert, a policyholder or a beneficiary covered by an insurance policy, a website user, or another third party.
Sometimes we will request or receive some of your “sensitive personal information”. Sensitive personal information is information that relates to your health, biometric data, criminal convictions, sex life, sexual orientation, racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs or trade union membership. For example, we may need access to information about your health in order to draw up statistics and provide a broker or an insurer with a quote or process any claims you make. We may also need details of any unspent criminal convictions you have for fraud prevention purposes or to carry out money laundering checks. We won’t actively collect sensitive personal information about your sex life, sexual orientation, racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs or trade union membership although it is possible that this could be disclosed indirectly in certain circumstances when answering our questions.
Where you provide personal information to us about other individuals (for example, policyholders, beneficiaries or your employees) we will also be data controller of and responsible for their personal information. You should refer them to this notice.
In order to make this notice as user friendly as possible, we have split it into different sections. Please click on the section below that best describes your relationship with us.
Prospective policyholders or beneficiaries
If you apply for an insurance policy with a broker or an insurer that decides to reinsure the policy or where someone else (such as your employer) applies for an insurance policy which will benefit you, this section will be relevant to you and sets out our uses of your personal information.
What personal information will we collect?
What sensitive personal information will we collect?
How will we collect your personal information?
We will collect information from:
What will we use your personal information for?
We may use your personal information for a number of different purposes. In each case, we must have a "legal ground" to do so. We will rely on the following “legal grounds”, when we process your "personal information":
When the information that we process is classed as “sensitive personal information", we must have an additional “legal ground". We will rely on the following legal grounds when we process your "sensitive personal information":
Purpose for processing | Legal grounds for using your personal information | Legal grounds for using your sensitive personal information |
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To set you up a reinsurance contract including carrying out fraud, sanctions, credit and anti-money laundering checks. |
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To evaluate the reinsurance application and provide a quote to a broker, (re)insurer. |
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Complying with our legal or regulatory obligations. |
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Managing our business operations such as maintaining accounting records, analysis of financial results, internal audit requirements, receiving professional advice (e.g. tax or legal advice).. |
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Monitoring applications, reviewing, assessing, tailoring and improving our products and services and similar products and services offered by the QBE Group. |
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Investigating or detecting the unauthorised use of our systems, to secure our system and to ensure the effective operation of our systems. |
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Transferring or selling part of our business or re-organising our company strucutre. |
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Who will we share your personal information with?
We will keep your personal information confidential and we will only share it where necessary for the purposes set out above with the following parties:
If you take out an insurance policy with a broker or an insurer that decides to reinsure the policy or if you are listed as an applicant or beneficiary under a policy that someone else has with the broker or insurer (such as a named solicitor under a professional indemnity policy), this section will be relevant to you and sets out our uses of your personal information.
What personal information will we collect?
What sensitive personal information will we collect?
How will we collect your personal information?
We will collect information directly from you:
What will we use your personal information for?
We may use your personal information for a number of different purposes. In each case, we must have a "legal ground" to do so. We will rely on the following “legal grounds”, when we process your "personal information":
When the information that we process is classed as “sensitive personal information", we must have an additional “legal ground". We will rely on the following legal grounds when we process your "sensitive personal information":
Purpose for processing | Legal grounds for using your personal information | Legal grounds for using your sensitive personal information |
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To administer and manage a reinsurance contract. |
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Handling and paying insurance claims within the framework of the reinsurance contract |
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Prevention and detection of and investigating and prosecuting fraud and sanctions checking. This might include sharing your personal information with third parties such as the police, and other insurance and financial services providers and insurance industry databases.. |
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Complying with our legal or regulatory obligations. |
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Managing our business operations such as maintaining accounting records, analysis of financial results, internal audit requirements, receiving professional advice (e.g. tax or legal advice). |
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Monitoring applications, reviewing, assessing, tailoring and improving our products and services and similar products and services offered by the QBE group. |
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Tracing and recovering debt. |
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Investigating or detecting the unauthorised use of our systems, to secure our system and to ensure the effective operation of our systems). |
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Transferring or selling part of our business or re-organising our company structure. |
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Who will we share your personal information with?
We will keep your personal information confidential and we will only share it where necessary for the purposes set out above with the following parties.
Third party claimants and third parties under commercial insurance policies
If you make a claim against a third party who has an insurance policy with one of the insurers we reinsure, this section will be relevant to you and sets out our uses of your personal information.
What personal information will we collect?
What sensitive personal information will we collect?
How will we collect your personal information?
We will collect information from:
What will we use your personal information for?
We may use your personal information for a number of different purposes. In each case, we must have a "legal ground" to do so. We will rely on the following “legal grounds”, when we process your "personal information":
When the information that we process is classed as “sensitive personal information", we must have an additional “legal ground". We will rely on the following legal grounds when we process your "sensitive personal information":
Purpose for processing | Legal grounds for using your personal information | Legal grounds for using your sensitive personal information |
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Prevention and detection of and investigating and prosecuting fraud and sanctions checking. This might include sharing your personal information with third parties such as the police, and other insurance and financial services providers and insurance industry databases. |
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Complying with our legal or regulatory obligations. |
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Managing our business operations such as maintaining accounting records, analysis of financial results, internal audit requirements, receiving professional advice (e.g. tax or legal advice). For business processes and activities including analysis, review, planning and business transaction. |
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Tracing and recovering debt. |
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To apply for and claim on our own insurance. |
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Investigating or detecting the unauthorised use of our systems, to secure our systems and to ensure the effective operation of our systems). |
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Transferring or selling part of our business or re-organising our company structure. |
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Who will we share your personal information with?
We will keep your personal information confidential and we will only share it where necessary for the purposes set out above with the following parties.
Witnesses to an incident or other individuals who provide us with information in relation to an incident
If you are a witness to an incident or an individual who otherwise provides a broker or insurer that we reinsure with information in relation to an incident which is the subject of a claim, this section will be relevant to you and sets out our uses of your personal information.
What personal information will we collect?
What sensitive personal information will we collect?
We do not routinely process sensitive personal information of witnesses. However, we may do so if it is relevant to the incident that you have witnessed (for example, if you have a health condition which may affect your witness statement).
How will we collect your information?
We will collect information from:
What will we use your personal information for?
We may use your personal information for a number of different purposes. In each case, we must have a "legal ground" to do so. We will rely on the following “legal grounds”, when we process your "personal information":
When the information that we process is classed as “sensitive personal information", we must have an additional “legal ground". We will rely on the following legal ground when we process your "sensitive personal information":
Purpose for processing | Legal grounds for using your personal information | Legal grounds for using your sensitive personal information |
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Handling and paying claims to an insurer. |
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Managing our business operations such as maintaining accounting records, analysis of financial results, internal audit requirements, receiving professional advice (e.g. tax or legal advice). For business processes and activities including analysis, review, planning and business transactions. |
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Complying with our legal or regulatory obligations.. |
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Prevention and detection of and investigating and fraud. This might include sharing your personal information with third parties such as the police, and other insurance and financial services providers and insurance industry databases. |
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Investigating or detecting the unauthorised use of our systems, to secure our system and to ensure the effective operation of our systems). |
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Transferring or selling part of our business or re-organising our company structure. |
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Who will we share your personal information with?
We will keep your personal information confidential and we will only share it where necessary for the purposes set out above with the following parties:
Insurers, brokers, sub-brokers appointed representatives and other business partners, such as lawyers and claims handlers
If you are an insurer, broker or sub-broker doing business with us, an appointed representative or other business partner such as a lawyer or claims handler, this section will be relevant to you and sets out our uses of your personal information.
What personal information will we collect?
What sensitive personal information will we collect?
How will we collect your information?
As well as obtaining information directly from you, we will collect information from:
What will we use your personal information for?
We may use your personal information for a number of different purposes. In each case, we must have a "legal ground" to do so. We will rely on the following “legal grounds”, when we process your "personal information":
When the information that we process is classed as “sensitive personal information", we must have an additional “legal ground". We will rely on the following legal grounds when we process your "sensitive personal information":
Purpose for processing | Legal grounds for using your personal information | Legal grounds for using your sensitive personal information |
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Managing our business operations such as maintaining accounting records, analysis of financial results, internal audit requirements, receiving professional advice (e.g. tax or legal advice).For business processes and activities including analysis, review, planning and business transaction. |
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To provide key business services |
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To build and maintain our business relationships |
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To communicate with you and provide you with marketing communications. Complying with our legal or regulatory obligations |
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Communicating with you to manage and handle your queries.. |
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Not applicable. |
Investigating or detecting the unauthorised use of our systems, to secure our systems and to ensure the effective operation of our systems).. |
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Transferring or selling part of our business or re-organising our company structure. |
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Who will we share your personal information with?
We will keep your personal information confidential and we will only share it where necessary for the purposes set out above with the following parties:
Users of the QBE websites
If you are a user of the QBE websites, this section will be relevant to you and sets out our uses of your personal information.
What personal information will we collect?
How will we collect your personal information?
We will collect your information directly from our website.
What will we use your personal information for?
We may use your personal information for a number of different purposes. In each case, we must have a "legal ground" to do so. We will rely on the following “legal ground”, when we process your "personal information":
Who will we share your personal information with?
We will keep your personal information confidential and we will only share it where necessary for the purposes set out above with our QBE Group companies.
We only send marketing communications to our business contacts such as brokers, subbrokers, appointed representatives and other business partners. We will send marketing communications via post, email, telephone and social media. You can opt-out of marketing communications at any time by contacting us using the details set out in section 10 below.
How long do we keep your personal information for?
We will keep your personal information for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes set out in section 2 above and to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.
We have a detailed retention policy in place which governs how long we will hold different types of information for. The exact time period will depend on your relationship with us, the type of personal information we hold and the type of reinsurance, for example:
If you would like further information regarding the periods for which your personal information will be stored, please contact us using the details set out in section 10.
Sometimes we (or third parties acting on our behalf) will transfer personal information that we collect about you to countries outside of the European Economic Area ("EEA").
Where a transfer occurs we will take steps to ensure that your personal information is protected. We will do this using a number of different methods including:
Depending on our relationship and your particular circumstances, we might transfer personal information anywhere in the world. A summary of our regular data transfers outside the EEA is set out below:
Country of transfer | Reason for the transfer | Method we use to protect your information |
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Australia |
Reporting to our parent company |
Standard Contractual Clauses |
Philippines |
Some of our back-office functions are provided by our Group Shared Services Centre in the Philippines |
Standard Contractual Clauses |
USA |
Our email system is provided through a hosted service with servers located in the USA. |
Standard Contractual Clauses |
India |
Some of our third party IT adequacy-protection-personal-data-non-eu-countries_entechnology suppliers providedsome of their services from India. |
Standard Contractual Clauses |
If you would like further information regarding our data transfers and the steps we take to safeguard your personal information, please contact us using the details set out in section 10.
We have a package of technical and organisational measures in place to protect your personal information which have been adopted to comply with the latest data protection requirements. The measures cover various aspects of data security including the following:
Our security measures are kept under periodic review and are regularly updated to reflect developments in technology and security and changes to our business. However, please be aware that there are inherent security risks in transmitting data, such as e-mails or via the Internet, because it is impossible to safeguard completely against unauthorised access by third parties.
What is profiling?
Profiling is any form of automated processing of personal information to evaluate certain personal aspects. Insurance underwriting, and sometimes claims payment, is based on profiling as it assesses the event that you are seeking to insure and the likelihood of that event occurring. We use profiling as part of:
We keep our profiling process under regular review and, in most cases, an individual will then make a decision based on the outcome of that profiling.
What is automated decision making?
Automated decision making refers to a situation where a decision is taken using personal information that is processed solely by automatic means (i.e. using an algorithm or other computer software) rather than a decision that is made with some form of human involvement.
Automated decision making is widely used in the (re)insurance industry to offer and administer reinsurance efficiently and accurately. Where an automated decision produces a legal or other similarly significant effect concerning you, we will only carry out automated decision making using your personal information where it is necessary for the purposes of entering into or performing a contract with you (e.g. to assess the insurance application). In all other cases, we will ask for your consent in advance.
We use a proprietary system called LifeQube to assess risk and calculate premium and to determine whether or not we will reinsure a particular risk in relation to certain life policies. This is based on medical information which you provide to your insurer and which they input into the system through a series of questionnaires (e.g. your BMI and whether you are a smoker). The answers to those questionnaires will trigger an automated decision that can be Accept, Accept but with a higher premium, Decline or Request to fill in another questionnaire (e.g. specific questions about the heart, diabetes, etc.). For example, whether you are a smoker or have heart disease may impact the rate we charge to your insurer (and therefore the premium which you pay) as well as whether or not we decide to reinsure the policy. Your insurer may still decide to underwrite the policy with you or to obtain reinsurance from another provider. You should check with your insurer if any automated decision making has been part of the decision on whether or not to underwrite the policy or in setting the premium.
Please see section 8 for the rights that arise when we carry out automated decision making including profiling. If you object to a decision based solely on automated processing, you should contact your insurer and have the right to obtain human intervention on the part of the insurer, to express your point of view and to contest the decision.
Under data protection law you have a number of rights in relation to the personal information that we hold about you which we set out below. These rights might not apply in every
circumstance. You can exercise your rights by contacting us at any time using the details set out in section 10. We will not usually charge you in relation to a request.
Please note that although we take your rights seriously, there may be some circumstances where we cannot comply with your request such as where complying with it would mean that we couldn't comply with our own legal or regulatory obligations. In these instances we will let you know why we cannot comply with your request.
In some circumstances, complying with your request may result in the termination of the relationship. We will inform you of this at the time you make a request.
The right to access your personal information
You are entitled to a copy of the personal information we hold about you and certain details about how we use it.
We will usually provide your personal information to you in writing unless you request otherwise. Such request will usually be without charge. Where your request has been made electronically (e.g. by email), a copy of your personal information will be provided to you by electronic means where possible.
The right to rectification
We always take care to ensure that the information we hold about you is accurate and where necessary up to date. If you believe that there are any inaccuracies, discrepancies or gaps in the information we hold about you, you can contact us and ask us to update or amend it.
The right to restriction of processing
In certain circumstances, you are entitled to ask us to stop using your personal information, for example where you think that the personal information we hold about you may be inaccurate or where you think that we no longer need to use your personal information.
The right to withdraw your consent
Where we rely on your consent in order to process your personal information, you have the right to withdraw such consent to further use of your personal information.
Please note that for some purposes, we need your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may no longer be able to perform our obligations. We will advise you of this at the point you seek to withdraw your consent.
The right to erasure
This is sometimes known as the 'right to be forgotten'. It entitles you, in certain circumstances, toprequest deletion of your personal information. For example, where we no longer need Yourpersonal information for the original purpose we collected it for or where you have exercised your right to withdraw consent.
Whilst we will assess every request, there are other factors that will need to be taken into consideration. For example we may be unable to erase your information as you have requested because we have a legal or regulatory obligation to keep it.
The right to object
In certain cases, you have the right to object to our processing. This arises in relation to:
Marketing: You have control over the extent to which we market to you and you have the right to request that we stop sending you marketing messages at any time. You can do this either by clicking on the "unsubscribe" button in any email that we send to you or by contacting us using the details set out in section 1010. Please note that even if you exercise this right because you do not want to receive marketing messages, we may still send you service related
communications where necessary.
Processing based on our legitimate interest: Where we process your personal information on the basis of a legitimate interest, you can object to such processing, unless our purpose outweighs any prejudice to your privacy rights.
The right to data portability
In certain circumstances, you can request that we transfer personal information that you have provided to us directly to a third party.
Rights relating to automated decision-making including profiling
Where an automated decision or profiling produces a legal or other similarly significant effect concerning you (for example, where your policy or claim is rejected), you have the right to ask us to reconsider a decision taken by automated means or profiling or to take a new decision on a different basis (e.g. by introducing some form of human involvement).
The right to make a complaint
You have a right to complain to the local regulator – where you are resident. You also have the right to complain to either the Belgian Data Protection Authority (previously known as the Privacy Commission) or the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) if you believe that we have breached data protection laws when using your personal information.
You can visit the Belgian Data Protection Authority's website at http://www.dataprotectionauthority.be and/or ICO's website at https://ico.org.uk/ for more information. Please note that lodging a complaint will not affect any other legal rights or remedies that you have.
If you would like further information about any of the matters in this notice or if have any other questions about how we collect, store or use your personal information, you may contact our data protection officer by emailing dpo@uk.qbe.com or writing to:
The Data Protection Officer
QBE Re (Europe) Limited
Plantation Place
30 Fenchurch Street
London EC3M 3BD
United Kingdom
From time to time we may need to make changes to this notice, for example, as the result of changes to law, technologies, or other developments. We will provide you with the most up-todate notice and you can check our website https://qbere.com periodically to view it. This notice was last updated on 5th January 2021.