In today’s insurance marketplace, the telephone is an important tool. The telephone allows you to contact Farm Bureau Insurance with questions about coverage and price, to quickly speak with customer service representatives or producers for important explanations, and even to file claims. Farm Bureau Insurance recognizes, however, that, for many consumers, unsolicited telephone calls selling additional products and further services are unwelcome. As a result, we have established this do-not-call policy both to protect our member-policyholders and insureds and to comply with Federal and State laws. When you see the wordswe, us,orourwithin this policy, you should understand that these words include South Carolina Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company, Palmetto Casualty Insurance Company, South Carolina Farm Bureau Insurance Agency, LLC, and Palmetto Specialty Insurance Agency, Inc.
Our current business practices do not include cold-calls from our corporate offices to prospective customers to generate sales leads or to member-policyholders or insureds to up-sell or cross-sell products and services. It is, in effect, a no-call policy. From time to time, we may telephone you to follow-up on calls that you have made to our offices, to service your existing policies, to assist with claims that you have filed or that have been filed against you, to complete surveys designed to enhance our offerings, and to discuss specific coverage, billing, or account matters. We strictly comply with the terms of ourJoint Privacy Noticewhen utilizing any information captured as part of that process. We do not turn these telephone calls made to member-policyholders or insureds with whom we have established business relationships into solicitations for other insurance products or services. We do not block our telephone number or any caller identification if we contact you. We do not use prerecorded voice services. We have been in business within this State for over fifty years, and we have followed these customer service practices with our member-policyholders and insureds long before the enactment of Federal and State telephone solicitation rules.
If you would like to avoid cold-calls from telephone solicitors, including insurance producers, then you should register your telephone number on the Federal Trade Commission’s National Do-Not-Call Registry atwww.donotcall.gov. Registration is free, and the Registry gives consumers the choice as to whether or not they would like to receive cold-calls from telephone solicitors. You can link to the Registry and its detailed explanations of current law and the registration process through the above link. You may also call the Registry toll-free from the telephone number that you would like added at 1-888-382-1222. You may register your residential and mobile telephone numbers.
We sell our insurance products only through licensed insurance producers. These insurance producers are licensed by the State of South Carolina Department of Insurance and are appointed by us to sell our insurance products. From time to time, they may also be appointed to sell the insurance policies of other insurers. These licensed insurance producers are independent contractors, and they manage their business affairs and sales contacts according to their own practices. In some instances, these producers may cold-call prospective clients. However, they have been provided access to training and informational materials. They have been instructed both on our corporate policy and on the law regulating their sales practices when they are selling our Farm Bureau Insurance products. They have been instructed to check the National Do-Not-Call Registry before cold-calling, to follow telemarketer etiquette, to scrub cold-calling lists, and to develop and maintain office compliance plans, and they have been warned of the penalties. They have been directed to comply with all current laws.
Once you have registered a telephone number according to the Registry’s rules, you should not receive cold-calls from our Farm Bureau Insurance producers.Agency office staff may, however, contact you on our behalf for non-solicitation purposes such as to follow-up on calls that you have made to our offices, to service your existing policies, to assist with claims that you have filed or that have been filed against you, and to discuss specific coverage, billing, or account matters.Further, current Federal law has carved-out a number of exceptions to the anti-cold-calling rules, such as for business-to-business calls, consumer-consented calls, and consumer-initiated calls. In addition, Federal law allows for the existing business relationship exception, or EBR, to the cold-calling rules.This EBR exception provides some flexibility to sales professionals.Under this exception, a sales professional may make telephone solicitation calls to a consumer for up to 18 months after the consumer's last purchase, delivery, or payment and may make telephone solicitation calls to prospective customers within three months after that customer’s most recent inquiry or application.
If you receive a cold-call from a Farm Bureau Insurance independent contractor licensed insurance producer under this existing business relationship exception, and you do not want to receive any further calls, then simply tell the caller that you do not want to be cold-called again.That insurance producer must maintain an additional do-not-call list by telephone number. If your telephone number ever changes, then be sure to update it with that insurance producer. If you have multiple telephone numbers, then be sure to list all of your numbers.You may contact your insurance producer of record at any time and tell that producer that you wish to be placed upon his or her do-not-call list. However, be aware that most of our insurance producers do not cold-call member-policyholders and, therefore, do not maintain active do-not-call lists.
This do-not-call policy is our most current policy.If we modify this policy at any time, or if we update it to comply with any law revisions, then changes will be incorporated into this policy.We respect the privacy of all of our member-policyholders, and we strive to provide the best possible customer service.If you feel that you have been contacted in violation of this policy or applicable Federal or State law, then please contact us immediately at[email protected].
[revised upon June 12, 2017]
