Privacy and Security

Privacy

Your privacy is important to us. Below is a summary of how Bupa handles personal information. For full details about our Information Handling Practices, please refer to our Information Handling Policy (PDF, 89.7Kb).

We collect personal information (including information about your health) in various ways to enable us to provide you with our products and services.

For example, we collect personal information when you complete an application form at a retail centre or online, or when you provide details over the phone. When you make a claim for benefits, we collect information from you and/or your provider about your treatment to enable us to administer and verify your claim. Where we collect information from you or your provider, we only collect the information we need to fulfill the relevant purpose. We may also collect information about you through our agents.

There are a number of laws which require us to collect information about you, including the Private Health Insurance Act 2007.

If you do not provide us with the information we require, we will not be able to pay to provide you with the products or services you have requested. You have the right at any time to request reasonable access to the information we hold about you. We reserve the right to charge for retrieval of your information.

In providing you with our products and services, we may disclose personal information to third parties, including:

• Disclosure to other persons or organisations engaged by us or acting on our behalf in relation to the provision of our products and services, or the operation of our business. When we engage a third party, we require that party to handle your personal information in accordance with all relevant privacy laws, and solely for the purposes of their engagement;
• Where laws require or allow us to disclose personal information, for example disclosure to the Department of Health and Ageing, Medicare Australia, other government or regulatory bodies, tribunals and courts of law;
• When a hospital or provider helps administer a claim that has been made for hospital or ancillary items or services (e.g. hospitals, doctors and other ancillary providers).
• If you transfer to or from another health insurer, we may be required to disclose your information to that insurer.

We may also disclose your personal information to other companies within the Bupa Australia Group. We do everything reasonable to ensure your personal information is kept secure from unauthorised access or disclosure.

From time to time, we may contact you (via mail, email, phone or SMS) to notify you about products, services or benefits offered by Bupa, its related entities and affiliate organisations which we consider of potential benefit to you and your family. If you do not wish to be contacted for marketing or promotional purposes, you may opt out by contacting us.

Security

This site uses SSL (Secure Socket Layer) encryption to keep your transactions secure and private. SSL is the industry standard for data encryption. It provides a secure link between your browser and our server, and scrambles your personal information to ensure it is kept private during transmission over the Internet.