Tri-State Insurance Company Privacy Notice

Our Policy Regarding Your Privacy
In order to provide insurance products and services that respond to our customers' diverse needs, Tri-State Insurance Company (Tri-State) collects certain personal information. Tri-State does not disclose any nonpublic personal information to any affiliated or nonaffiliated third party for marketing purposes. At Tri-State, maintaining the confidentiality of our customers' personal information is of the highest importance. Tri-State's personal information-handling practices are governed by this privacy policy and are further regulated by law. This notice describes those practices and how they preserve your privacy in a way that permits Tri-State to provide you with the products and service you demand.

Collection of Personal Information
We get most of our information directly from you. The application you complete, as well as any additional information you provide, generally gives us most of the information we need to know. Sometimes we may contact you by phone or mail to obtain additional information. Depending on the nature of your insurance transaction, we may need additional information about you or other potential insureds from outside sources such as motor vehicle records, loss information reports, credit reports, court records or other public records. For property insurance, we may send someone to inspect your property and verify information about its value and condition, and a photo of the property may be taken.

We also may obtain information from third parties such as other insurance companies or consumer reporting agencies. A consumer report from such an agency may contain information as to credit worthiness and credit standing. If we order any kind of consumer report, upon request, we will tell you how to get a copy of the report. The agency preparing a consumer report for us may keep the information collected about you as permitted by law, and it may be disclosed to other persons.

Disclosure of Personal Information
Information which has been collected about you will be contained in either our policy records or in your agent's files. We review it in evaluating your request for insurance coverage and in determining your rates. We will also use information in our policy records for purposes related to issuing and servicing insurance policies and settling claims. Tri-State may disclose personal information to others in order to service, process or administer business such as underwriting and claims operations. In this context, Tri-State may disclose (i) information we receive from you on applications and other forms, including information such as assets, income, and identifying information such as name, address and social security number; (ii) transaction information such as information about balances, payment history and parties to the transaction; and (iii) information from consumer reporting agencies such as a consumer's credit worthiness and credit history.

If coverage is declined or the charge for coverage is increased because of information contained in a consumer report, we will tell you as required by state law and the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act. We will also give you the name and address of the consumer reporting agency making the report.

Parties to Whom Information May be Disclosed
Tri-State will not disclose information about you to others without your written consent unless the disclosure is necessary to conduct our business. By law, Tri-State is permitted to share information about you without prior permission under certain circumstances to certain persons and organizations such as:

• Your agent or broker.
• Parties who perform a business, professional or insurance function for our company, including our reinsurance companies.
  
• Claim adjusters, appraisers, investigators and attorneys who need the information to investigate, defend or settle a claim involving you.
  
• Insurance support organizations which are established to collect information for the purpose of detecting and preventing insurance crimes and fraudulent claims.
  
• Insurance regulatory agencies in connection with the regulation of our business.
  
• Law enforcement or other governmental authorities to protect our legal interest or in cases of suspected fraud or illegal activities.
  
• Authorized persons as ordered by subpoena, warrant or other court order or as required by law.
  
• Lienholder, mortgagee, assignee, lessor, or other person shown on our records or our agents' as having a legal or beneficial interest in a policy of insurance.
  
• Parties acting in a fiduciary or representative capacity to you (attorneys, accountants, and auditors).
  
• Insurance rate advisory organizations.
  
• Parties enforcing Tri-State's rights in connection with the settlement of a debt, the transfer of interests or an audit.
  
• Parties administering transactions as requested or authorized by you.

Right of Access to Personal Information
You have the right to know what kind of information we keep in our files about you, to have reasonable access to it and to receive a copy. Write to us if you have questions about the information. Provide your complete name, address, type of policy and policy number that was issued or applied for with us. Mail your request to: Privacy Administrator, Post Office Box 9177, Boston, MA, 02205-9177. Certain types of information generally collected when evaluating claims or possible lawsuits need not be disclosed to you.

Within thirty (30) business days of receipt of your request, we will inform you in writing of the nature and substance of retrievable recorded personal information about you in our files. You may review this information in person or receive a copy by mail. We will also identify the person or organization to which we have disclosed this information within the past two (2) years. In addition, you will be given the name and address of any consumer reporting agency which prepared a report about you so that you can contact them for a copy.

After you have reviewed the personal information about you in our file, you can write to us if you believe it should be corrected, amended or deleted. We will consider your request, and within thirty (30) days either change the information or tell you that we did not and state the reason. If we do not make changes, you will have the right to insert in our file a concise statement containing what you believe to be the correct, relevant or fair information, and explaining which information on file you believe to be improper. We will notify persons designated by you to whom we have previously disclosed the information of the change or your statement. Subsequent disclosures we make also will include your statement.

Confidentiality and Security of Personal Information
Our company maintains appropriate standards and procedures to prevent unauthorized access to your information. Tri-State limits employee access to personally identifiable information to those with a business reason for knowing such information. We educate our employees so that they will understand the importance of confidentiality of personal information and take appropriate measures to enforce privacy responsibilities.

Treatment of Personal Information of Former Customers
Tri-State follows this personal information privacy policy even when a customer relationship no longer exists.

If you have additional questions about the privacy of your personal information or about your insurance needs in general, please contact your agent.

TS PN-001-2-1-02