Privacy Policy
We are committed to data security and to protecting your personally identifiable information. This statement discloses the privacy practices for our website.
This privacy notice only applies to www.higginbotham.net and any other website of Higginbotham where a link to this notice is provided. Higginbotham operates branch offices that many have their own websites with separate privacy notices, in which case this privacy notice does not apply.
PURPOSE OF THIS NOTICE
Title V of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) generally prohibits any financial institution, directly or through its affiliates, from sharing nonpublic information about you with a non-affiliated third party unless the institution provides you with a notice of its privacy policy and practices, such as the type of information that it collects about you and the categories of personal information or entities to whom it may be disclosed. In compliance with the GLBA, we are providing you with this document, which notifies you of the privacy policies and practices of our firm.
OUR PRIVACY POLICIES AND PRACTICES
Information we collect – We collect nonpublic personal information about you from the following sources:
Information we receive from you on applications or other forms
Information about your transactions with us, our affiliates or others
Information we receive from a consumer-reporting agency
Cookies and their use on this website – A cookie is a message given to a web browser by a web server. The message is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from that server. Cookie files define you as a user, not as an identifiable person. We use cookies to better customize our website and our services to your interests and needs. We do not use cookies to retrieve information from your computer that was not willingly provided by you.
Information we may disclose to third parties – In our normal course of business in quoting and contracting for insurance coverage for you, we may disclose the following kinds of nonpublic personal information about you:
Information we receive from you on applications or other forms, such as your name, address, Social Security number, assets, income and beneficiaries
Information about your transactions with us, our affiliates or others, such as your policy coverage, premiums and payment history
Information we receive from a consumer reporting agency, such as your creditworthiness and credit history
Third parties to whom we may disclose information – We may disclose nonpublic personal information about you to the following types of third parties:
Financial service providers, such as life insurers, automobile insurers, mortgage bankers, securities broker-dealers and insurance agencies
Links to other websites – This website contains links to other websites. The operators of those websites may collect information about you through cookies or other technologies. If you link to another website, you will leave the Higginbotham website, and this privacy policy will not apply to your use of and activity on that website.
If you provide personal information through any other website, your transaction will occur on that website (not the Higginbotham website), and the personal information you provide will be collected and controlled by the privacy policy of that website operator. Links on the Higginbotham website to other websites are provided only as a convenience, and the inclusion of such links does not imply endorsement of the linked website.
We encourage you to read the legal notice posted on those websites, including their privacy policies. We have no responsibility or liability for your access or use of, and the data collection and use practices of, other websites.
Children’s Privacy – Higginbotham’s website is not directed to or intended for children. Higginbotham does not knowingly collect or post information from children under the age of 13 in compliance with laws protecting the privacy of children. Visit the Federal Trade Commission’s website to learn more about the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
Service providers and joint marketers – We may disclose all of the information we collect, as described above under the caption “Information we collect,” to companies that perform marketing services on our behalf, or to other financial institutions with whom we have joint marketing agreements.
Your right to opt-out of third party disclosures – If you prefer that we not disclose nonpublic information about you to nonaffiliated third parties, you may opt out of those disclosures and direct us not to make those disclosures (other than disclosures permitted by law). If you wish to opt out of disclosures to nonaffiliated third parties, you may contact us during normal business hours. Our contact information is on our website in the Contact Us section.
Our practices regarding information confidentiality and security – At all times, we use our best and diligent efforts to restrict access to nonpublic personal information about you to those employees or third parties who need to know that information in order to provide products or services to you. We maintain physical, electronic and procedural safeguards that comply with applicable federal and state laws and regulations to guard your nonpublic personal information.
Links and Co-Branded Sites – This website contains links to other sites. Higginbotham provides links to other sites as a convenience to persons who visit the Higginbotham website. If you choose to use the services provided by those sites, you may be asked by those sites to provide certain personally identifiable information (some of which may, on an individual or aggregated basis, be shared with Higginbotham). Please be aware that Higginbotham is not responsible for the privacy practices of those sites, even though Higginbotham’s name or logo may appear on those sites. We encourage you to be aware when you leave our site and to read the Privacy Statements of each and every website that you visit, as the privacy policy of those sites may differ from ours.
Our policy regarding dispute resolution – Any controversy or claim arising out of or relating to our privacy policy, or the breach thereof, shall be settled by arbitration in accordance with the rules of the American Arbitration Association, and judgment upon the award rendered by the arbitrator(s) may be entered in any court having jurisdiction thereof.
Reservation of the right to change our privacy policy – We reserve the right to amend or replace this policy without notice. By visiting our website, you agree to accept all terms and conditions outlined in this privacy policy.
Higginbotham Privacy Notice for California Residents
Effective Date: January 1, 2020
Last Reviewed on: May 6, 2020
This Privacy Notice for California Residents supplements the information contained in Higginbotham’s Privacy Policy located at https://www.higginbotham.net/privacy-policy and applies solely to all visitors, users, and others who reside in the State of California (“consumers” or “you”). We adopt this notice to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA) and any terms defined in the CCPA have the same meaning when used in this Notice.
This Notice does not apply to employment-related Personal Information collected from California-based employees, job applicants, contractors, or similar individuals (see [HYPERLINKED URL TO CALIFORNIA EMPLOYEE PRIVACY NOTICE]).
Where noted in this Notice, the CCPA temporarily exempts Personal Information reflecting a written or verbal business-to-business communication (“B2B Personal Information“) from some of its requirements.
If you are an employee of a commercial client of Higginbotham, we may collect Personal Information in performance of our contract with your employer. In that instance, we are acting as a “Service Provider” to your employer. As such, we are obligated to collect and process that Personal Information in order to achieve the purpose of that contract such as providing Employee Benefits and your employer which remains responsible for the handling of your Personal Information. You should therefore review your employer’s Privacy Notice to learn how your Personal Information is handled.
When we act as a Service Provider to a Client, if you or your authorized agent, as discussed further below, want to exercise any of your rights afforded under the CCPA, you need to contact your employer to make your request. We do not have any obligation to respond to your requests under these circumstances. If you are unclear whether or not we are acting as a Service Provider to a Client, you may contact us through one of the provided methods below.
INFORMATION WE COLLECT
Higginbotham is an insurance brokerage, placing insurance policies, providing risk management, employee benefits and related services to our clients. In conducting our business, we collect information that identifies, relates to, describes, references, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer, household, or device (“Personal Information“). Personal Information does not include:
Publicly available information from government records.
Deidentified or aggregated consumer information.
Information excluded from the CCPA’s scope, like:
health or medical information covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and the California Confidentiality of Medical Information Act (CMIA) or clinical trial data
personal information covered by certain sector-specific privacy laws, including the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) or California Financial Information Privacy Act (FIPA), and the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act of 1994.
In particular, we have collected the following categories of Personal Information (PI) from our consumers within the last twelve (12) months:
CATEGORIES OF SOURCES OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
We obtain the categories of Personal Information listed above from the following categories of sources:
- Directly from you. For example, from the insurance applications you submit to us or requests for information you submit through our website.
- Indirectly from you. For example, from observing your actions on our Website.
- From third parties acting on your behalf such as a financial advisor, business manager, insurance carriers or your employer who has hired us to provide insurance services on its behalf and for its employees.In the latter instance, Higginbotham is considered a “Service Provider.”
SHARING PERSONAL INFORMATION
We may disclose your Personal Information to a third party for a business purpose. When we disclose Personal Information for a business purpose, we enter a contract that describes the purpose and requires the recipient to both keep that Personal Information confidential and not use it for any purpose except performing the contract.
We share your Personal Information with the following categories of third parties:
- Insurance carriers and third-party agents/brokers
- Service providers we use in connection with the services we provide to you
- Your Business manager or financial advisor
Sales of personal information – Higginbotham does not sell Personal Information to third parties. In the preceding twelve (12) months, Higginbotham has not sold any Personal Information.
YOUR RIGHTS AND CHOICES
The CCPA provides consumers (California residents) with specific rights regarding their Personal Information. This section describes your CCPA rights and explains how to exercise those rights.
Access to specific information and data portability rights – You have the right to request that we disclose certain information to you about our collection and use of your Personal Information over the past 12 months. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request (see Exercising Access, Data Portability, and Deletion Rights), we will disclose to you:
- The categories of Personal Information we collected about you.
- The categories of sources for the Personal Information we collected about you.
- Our business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling that Personal Information.
- The categories of third parties with whom we share that Personal Information.
- The specific pieces of Personal Information we collected about you (also called a data portability request).
- If we disclosed your Personal Information for a business purpose, a list disclosing:
- disclosures for a business purpose, identifying the Personal Information categories that each category of recipient obtained.
We do not provide these access and data portability rights for B2B Personal Information.
Deletion request rights – You have the right to request that we delete any of your Personal Information that we collected from you and retained, subject to certain exceptions. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request (see Exercising Access, Data Portability, and Deletion Rights), we will delete (and direct our service providers to delete) your Personal Information from our records, unless an exception applies.
We may deny your deletion request if retaining the information is necessary for us or our service provider(s) to:
- Complete the insurance transaction for which we collected the Personal Information, provide the service that you requested, and take actions reasonably anticipated within the context of our ongoing business relationship with you.As an insurance brokerage, we are required by law to maintain the information and documentation you provided to us to procure your insurance policies for a minimum of 5 years.Therefore, in most cases, we will not delete your Personal Information.
- Detect security incidents, protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, or prosecute those responsible for such activities.
- Debug products to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality.
- Comply with the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (Cal. Penal Code § 1546 et. seq.).
- Enable solely internal uses that are reasonably aligned with consumer expectations based on your relationship with us.
- Comply with a legal obligation.
- Make other internal and lawful uses of that information that are compatible with the context in which you provided it.
We do not provide these deletion rights for B2B Personal Information.
Exercising access, data portability, and deletion rights – To exercise the access, data portability, and deletion rights described above, please submit a verifiable consumer request to us by either:
- (888) 314-4563
- CCPArequest@higginbotham.net
- Visiting Higginbotham.net
Only you, or someone legally authorized to act on your behalf, may make a verifiable consumer request related to your Personal Information. You may also make a verifiable consumer request on behalf of your minor child. To designate an authorized agent, we must receive a verifiable written authorization from you designating your agent.
You may only make a verifiable consumer request for access or data portability twice within a 12-month period. The verifiable consumer request must:
- Provide sufficient information that allows us to reasonably verify you are the person about whom we collected Personal Information or an authorized representative, which may include:
- Confirm some of the Personal Information we have collected from you, excluding sensitive Personal Information such as driver’s license number or social security number.
- Describe your request with sufficient detail that allows us to properly understand, evaluate, and respond to it.
We cannot respond to your request or provide you with Personal Information if we cannot verify your identity or authority to make the request and confirm the Personal Information relates to you.
Making a verifiable consumer request does not require you to create an account with us. We will only use Personal Information provided in a verifiable consumer request to verify the requestor’s identity or authority to make the request.
Response timing and format – We endeavor to respond to a verifiable consumer request within forty-five (45) days of its receipt. If we require more time (up to 90 days), we will inform you of the reason and extension period in writing. We will deliver our written response by mail or electronically, at your option.
Any disclosures we provide will only cover the 12-month period preceding the verifiable consumer request’s receipt. The response we provide will also explain the reasons we cannot comply with a request, if applicable. For data portability requests, we will select a format to provide your Personal Information that is readily useable and should allow you to transmit the information from one entity to another entity without hindrance.
We do not charge a fee to process or respond to your verifiable consumer request unless it is excessive, repetitive, or manifestly unfounded. If we determine that the request warrants a fee, we will tell you why we made that decision and provide you with a cost estimate before completing your request.
NON-DISCRIMINATION
We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your CCPA rights. Unless permitted by the CCPA, we will not:
- Deny you goods or services.
- Charge you different prices or rates for goods or services, including through granting discounts or other benefits, or imposing penalties.
- Provide you a different level or quality of goods or services.
- Suggest that you may receive a different price or rate for goods or services or a different level or quality of goods or services.
However, we may offer you certain financial incentives permitted by the CCPA that can result in different prices, rates, or quality levels. Any CCPA-permitted financial incentive we offer will reasonably relate to your Personal Information’s value and contain written terms that describe the program’s material aspects. Participation in a financial incentive program requires your prior opt in consent, which you may revoke at any time. We do not presently offer any financial incentives with respect to the CCPA.
CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY
We reserve the right to amend this privacy notice at our discretion and at any time. When we make changes to this privacy notice, we will post the updated notice on the Website and update the notice’s effective date. Your continued use of our Website following the posting of changes constitutes your acceptance of such changes.
CONTACT INFORMATION
If you have any questions or comments about this notice, the ways in which Higginbotham collects and uses your information described here, your choices and rights regarding such use, or wish to exercise your rights under California law, please do not hesitate to contact us at:
- Phone: (888) 314-4563
- Website: Higginbotham.net
- Email: CCPArequest@higginbotham.net
- Online Request Form
