Privacy Statement

Collecting and Using Personal Information to Serve Your Needs

TEJ Agency is a “DBA” entity of Southmoor-Coushatta Insurance Agency, Inc.

TEJ Agency is also a Managing General Agent for Lenders Specialty, Inc. (LSI), a GAP insurance company chartered to do business in Louisiana. As a result, personal information obtained by LSI may be shared with TEJ Agency employees, specifically regarding insurance applications and claims.

We may collect the following nonpublic personal information about you from the following sources:

Information we receive from lenders or borrowers on applications or other forms (such as name, address, social security number and type and amount of any coverage requested).
Information we receive from a consumer-reporting agency while processing a claim.

We use the personal information above to administer our relationship with you, provide you with efficient customer service and help us identify and determine your eligibility for new insurance or claims benefits.

Safeguarding Your Personal Information

We use established security standards and procedures to protect personal information from unauthorized access and improper use and disclosure. We maintain personal information in secure environments using physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards that comply with federal standards to protect against unauthorized access. We restrict access to personal information to those employees who need to know such information to administer your accounts and to provide products and services to meet your needs. We regularly train our employees on privacy and information security and on their obligations to protect personal information. Additionally, we hold our employees accountable so that they adhere to such policies and procedures to protect against the improper use and disclosure of personal information.

Maintaining Accurate Information

We continually strive to maintain complete and accurate information on you and your insurance coverages that may be either sold or serviced by us. If you ever discover that your personal information is incomplete or inaccurate, please email us or write to us at PO Box 2187, Natchitoches, LA 71457 or call us directly 800-559-9889. We will correct any inaccuracies as quickly as possible.

Limiting and Controlling the Sharing of Personal Information

In order to protect your privacy, we carefully control our sharing of any such information. We do not disclose any personal information to anyone (including our providers that are responsible for any products or services you may buy or use), except as required by law or to provide required services for you.

Sharing Information Outside TEJ Agency

We do not sell your personal information to nonaffiliated third parties. However, as do most other insurance sales, servicing and administrative entities, we may occasionally contract service companies to perform support services. We disclose to such service providers only the personal information they need to deliver such support services. If we do use service providers to assist us, we require them to comply with standards of security and confidentiality equal to those described in this privacy policy notice and prohibit them from using or disclosing any personal information solely for their own purposes.

We will not provide your personal information to companies for the purpose of their independent telemarketing or direct mail marketing of any products or services.

We may also disclose personal information about you to nonaffiliated third parties when required by law.

We will adhere to the privacy policies and practices described in this notice even if our customer relationship with you is discontinued.

Collecting Information Via The Internet

The information we collect from you when you communicate with us using our web site(s) may include cookies and your IP address.

Cookies are small pieces of information sent by us to be stored on your internet browser that help us recognize you and better serve you when you visit our site. We do not use cookies for marketing purposes. Additionally, we do not use cookies to get data from your hard drive or to get your email address or personal identifying information. Most browsers can be configured to inform you when cookies are sent or to prevent cookies from being sent. Please be aware that by not accepting cookies you may limit the usefulness we can provide when you visit our site.

When you enter our web site(s), you pass through a firewall we use for security purposes. As you pass through it, we identify the Internet protocol (or IP) address associated with the device you are using, such as a personal computer or handheld device. The IP address does not identify you personally, but it does allow us to identify the device you are using. The IP addresses are stored in case a connection to its point of origin ever has to be tracked for security reasons.

When you send us an email, we will use your email address to reply to you, and, for a period of time, we may store your email address, your message, and our response to ensure quality. We may also do this to meet legal and regulatory requirements. If we collect your email address in this manner, we will not use it to let you know about our products and services.

Children’s Information

We respect the privacy of your children, and we comply with the practices established under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. We do not knowingly collect or retain any personally identifiable information from children.

Security

We have implemented standards of technology and operational security on the Internet to protect your nonpublic personal information (if it is made available) from loss, misuse, alteration, or destruction.

Specifically, information that is collected for processing or to keep as an insurance record is transmitted directly to our secure internal database server, and information stored there is not accessible to parties outside of TEJ Agency via the Internet. Our employees are required to comply with our security, privacy, and confidentiality standards and practices.

Messages sent to us within online pages are secure. However, other email you send us may not be secure unless we advise you that it is secure prior to transmitting your message. Therefore, we recommend that you do not send us confidential information such as social security or account numbers via unsecured e-mail.

Information Gathering Practices For Claims

We will rely primarily on information provided by the insured, their insurer and publicly available sources. On occasion, we may ask a consumer reporting agency to collect information and submit an investigative consumer report to us as explained under the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act mentioned below. You may request to be interviewed in connection with the preparation of this report. In certain limited situations, we are allowed by law to disclose necessary items of personal information to third parties without the insured’s specific authorization. The insured has a right to be told about, and to see and copy if they wish, items of personal information about them that appear in our files, including information contained in investigative consumer reports. They also have the right to seek correction of information they believe to be inaccurate. We will send the insured a more detailed explanation of our information practices if they send us a written request to PO Box 2187, Natchitoches, LA 71457.

Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act

This notice is provided in compliance with 15 USC 1681 et. seq. As part of our claims processing for LSI, we may ask that an investigative consumer report be prepared. A consumer-reporting agency will prepare this report. The report may typically include information as to the insured’s character, general reputation, and mode of living and personal characteristics. “Mode of living” does not include information related directly or indirectly to a claimant’s sexual orientation. The agency may conduct personal interviews with their family, friends, neighbors, business associates, financial sources, or others with whom they are acquainted in order to get this information. If claimants write to us within a reasonable time after filing a claim, we will tell them whether or not a report was requested. If a report was requested, we will tell you the name, address and telephone number of the agency to whom the request was made. Upon request, the agency will furnish information as to the nature and scope of its investigation. If you would like to inspect and receive a copy of the report, you may do so by contacting the agency directly.