Privacy Policy

Introduction

Medical Defence Association of South Australia Limited (ABN 41 007 547 588) and Medical Insurance Australia Pty Ltd (ABN 99 092 709 629) (referred to jointly as “MIGA”, “us”, “we” and “our”) are bound by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs).

In accordance with the APPs, this Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose and store personal information.
 

Types of information we collect

Personal Information:
Personal information means information or an opinion about an individual who is identified, or who can reasonably be identified, from the information or opinion. We collect personal information including:

• Identifying information, like your name, address, other contact details and your date of birth
• Gender
• Employment details
• Education information
• Credit card details
• Information in relation to claims, incidents and complaints
• Financial information.

Sensitive Information:
Sensitive information which we may ask of you includes information about:

• Health (including predictive genetic information)
• Membership of a political association, professional or trade association or trade union
• Criminal record.

It is extremely unlikely that we will collect sensitive information and will do so only where it is necessary to do so to conduct our business.

Collection

We may collect personal information from you in the following situations:

• Upon your request for a quotation
• Upon receipt of your application for insurance and/or membership
• If you request a change to your details
• When an income declaration is required for Premium Support Scheme (PSS)¹ or policy adjustment purposes
• When you opt into PSS
• When providing personal, medico-legal or risk management advice to you
• When your policy cover is amended
• During the process of assessing or acting on your behalf in relation to a notified incident or claim
• At other times as necessary to provide insurance and membership services to you.

Wherever possible, we will collect your personal information directly from you. This information will generally come from what you provide in forms you complete and information you provide for the purpose of applying for insurance and membership with us, renewing your insurance and membership with us and/or when you lodge a claim with us. We only ask for personal information from you that is relevant to the provision of our products and services.

We may also collect personal information about you from third parties such as:

• Insurance brokers or agents
• Corporate groups
• Associations
• Financial advisors
• Other insurers
• Government bodies
• Practice managers and other approved third parties
• Persons covered on your policy; or
• Professional advisors and experts.

Use

We will only use your personal information for the purpose of providing products and services to you and to manage our business. This may include:

• Assessing and processing your application for the products and services we provide
• Providing services relating to claims management and risk advice
• Executing your instructions
• Charging and billing
• As required or authorised by law
• Developing our business systems to provide our products and services to you
• Research
• Direct marketing. 

In general, we do not use or disclose your personal information for a purpose other than:

• A purpose set out in this Privacy Policy
• A purpose you would reasonably expect
• A purpose required or permitted by law, or
• A purpose otherwise disclosed to you to which you have consented.

Disclosure

In order for us to provide you with our products and services we may disclose your personal information to:

• Our related bodies corporate
• Your insurance agent or broker
• Reinsurers and reinsurance brokers
• Our legal advisors
• Our professional advisors, such as actuaries, accountants and auditors
• The Australian Health Practitioners Regulation Agency and equivalents
• Government regulatory bodies
• Your practice manager or practice nurse*
• Your employer or prospective employer*
• Hospitals*
• Other parties as required by law, such as courts and tribunals
• Third parties authorised by you
• Contractors who supply services to us, for example, to collate and mail communications.

(*Only when we have your consent to do so.)

MIGA may disclose your personal information to recipients located overseas, for example, to reinsurers who reinsure our business, or to service providers who may have servers located outside Australia.

If we disclose your personal information to overseas recipients, we will take reasonable steps to ensure that the overseas recipients will not hold, use or disclose that information in a manner which is inconsistent with the purposes as outlined in this Privacy Policy.

Security

We take all reasonable steps to protect personal information we hold from misuse, interference and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. We hold your personal information in both electronic and hard copy form. Personal information held electronically on the information technology systems may only be accessed by authorised employees who require access in connection with the purposes of this Policy.

Where we no longer need the personal information for any purpose for which it may be used or disclosed, we will take reasonable steps to destroy that information.

Where we have received unsolicited personal information about you which we could not have otherwise collected, we will promptly destroy this information.

Website

Our website contains links to a number of other websites that are included on the basis of containing content related to our business. When you have clicked on a link to another site, you leave our site and are no longer protected by our Privacy Policy.

Email
When we receive emails, we will retain the content of the email and our response to you where we consider it necessary to do so.

Your email address will only be used or disclosed for the purpose for which it was provided. It will not be added to any mailing list or used for any other purpose without your consent.
 

Access

You may request access to the personal information that we hold about you at any time. We will respond to your request for access within a reasonable time frame. If we decline to release the information, we will give you reasons and you can request a review of our decision through our complaints handling procedures.
 

Accuracy

We aim to ensure that the personal information we collect, use or disclose is accurate, up-to-date, complete and relevant. If you believe that the personal information we hold about you is not accurate, complete or up-to-date, please contact us and we will take reasonable steps to correct the information.
 

Marketing

We may use your personal information, including your contact details, to provide you with information about products and services which we consider may be of interest to you. We will consider that you consent to this, unless you opt out. You may opt out at any time if you no longer wish to receive marketing information through email. In order to do so, you will need to request that we no longer send marketing material. You can make this request by ‘unsubscribing’ from our email marketing messages, which always include an unsubscribe option.
 

Cookies

MIGA use cookies to collect anonymous data on all users of our website in order to better understand and improve your experience. A cookie is a small text file containing relevant information which our webpage-server can extract from your browser. You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser, however this may affect the functionality of our website.

Anonymous data is collected and analysed using Google Analytics to assist us in evaluating and developing our website. The reports provided by Google Analytics do not allow us to identify individual users.

By using this website, you consent to the processing of data about your use of the MIGA website by Google in the manner described in Google's Privacy Policy and for the purposes set out above. You can opt out of Google Analytics if you disable or refuse the cookie, disable JavaScript, use the opt-out service provided by Google or change your Google account privacy settings.

Changes to our Privacy Policy

We may make changes to this Privacy Policy as required by our business needs or by law. Our Privacy Policy is available on our website.
 

Questions and Complaints

If you have any questions, concerns or complaints in regards to this Privacy Policy, or our handling of your personal information, please contact us and we will respond to you as soon as possible.

Privacy Officer
MIGA
GPO Box 2048
Adelaide SA 5001
Telephone: 1800 777 156
Email: corporate.risk@miga.com.au
In the subject line of the email please add: “Attn. Privacy Officer”

If you remain unsatisfied with the initial response you receive, please advise the Privacy Officer who will investigate further. If you still remain unsatisfied, you can contact external bodies that deal with privacy complaints. Their details are listed below.

Federal Privacy Commissioner
Mail: GPO Box 5218 Sydney NSW 2001
Telephone: 1300 363 992
Website: www.oaic.gov.au

Australian Financial Complaints Authority
Mail: GPO Box 3, Melbourne VIC 3001
Telephone: 1800 931 678 (free call)
Website: www.afca.org.au

Australian Prudential Regulation Authority
Mail: GPO Box 9836, Sydney NSW 2001
Telephone: 1300 558 849
Website: www.apra.gov.au
 
_{1 The Premium Support Scheme is a Commonwealth Scheme introduced to assist eligible doctors to meet the cost of their medical indemnity insurance.}