WHO WE ARE

We are Pacific Life Re (Australia) Pty Limited (ACN 601 822 431) (PLRA) an Australian based company within the Pacific Life Group. PLRA is authorised and regulated by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority.

References to “we”, “our” and “us” in this Privacy Notice are to PLRA. 

WHAT WE DO

We provide reinsurance to the insurance companies who have issued the policies under which you are covered. Reinsurance is insurance for insurers. It allows the insurers to reduce their potential losses by insuring some or all of the risk related to the underlying policies with its policyholders. Reinsurers also insure some or all of the risks they take on from insurers. These arrangements are known as retrocession and the companies providing insurance to reinsurers are called retrocessionaires. These arrangements spread risks across a number of companies which helps to ensure that claims can be paid, particularly when major events occur that trigger significant losses or claims.

We reinsure mortality, critical illness, disability, medical and associated risks and provide longevity and funded reinsurance solutions.   

WHAT INFORMATION WE USE

Information we use may include:

• Your basic personal details such as name, address and date of birth.
• Information that allows us to underwrite individuals seeking cover, including occupation, medical history, lifestyle characteristics and hobbies or activities that may affect the risk and any other insurance policies or insurance-related services they have applied for or received.
• Information that allows us to manage and administer our reinsurance arrangement with your insurer such as calculating reinsurance balances due and monitoring trends in the business being reinsured.
• Information that allows us to assess claims including, the cause and circumstances of the claim, your medical history, your financial history and any other insurance claims you have made.
• Some of the personal information we use is sensitive information which attracts higher standards of protection. Sensitive information we may use includes your:
  • Health information
  • Racial or ethnic origin
  • Religious beliefs or affiliations
  • Sexual orientation or practices
  • Genetic information that is not otherwise health information

and only where they are relevant and necessary to achieve the purpose for which we use information. Apart from information concerning your health, the other sensitive information is only likely to be used incidentally.

WHY DO WE NEED IT?

As set out in the Australian Privacy Principles, the basis on which we use your personal information is that it is reasonably necessary for one or more of our functions or activities.

We need to use personal information in the ways described in this privacy notice to provide reinsurance services to our clients, to manage our business and to comply with legal and regulatory requirements relating to our business as a reinsurer.

Our use of your sensitive personal information is based on the consent you provided to your insurer or intermediary with whom you deal in relation to your insurance policy and in some cases, where it is reasonably necessary for establishing, exercising or defending a legal or equitable claim, for example where we are investigating a potentially fraudulent claim.  

HOW DO WE COLLECT IT?

In most instances we receive personal information about individuals insured under policies from the insurers whose business we reinsure. or other third parties with whom you deal with in relation to your insurance policy. From time to time, we may collect information directly from you through letters, emails, telephone calls, online correspondence or other mechanisms of communication; or when you use our services (such as our website).

We may generate new personal information, for example, when seeking opinions from our company medical officers on claims we assess.

WHAT DO WE USE IT FOR?

We use your information to:

• Provide reinsurance cover. This may be for a group of policies or for specific individuals and includes underwriting, pricing, estimating future claims and claims assessment.
• Perform reinsurance arrangements. New and existing reinsurance arrangements must be implemented, administered and managed.
• Procure retrocession cover. We may seek retrocession cover for all or part of the business we reinsure. Our retrocessionaires may need information to assess the risk they are being asked to cover.
• Establish, exercise or defend our legal rights in connection with reinsurance or retrocession agreements. This applies when we are faced with any legal claims or where we want to pursue any legal claims ourselves.
• Detect and prevent fraud and financial crime.
• Screen certain personal information we receive about individuals against lists published by governments and international organisations relating to sanctions, embargoes and politically exposed persons. 
• Manage our business. This includes financial reporting, compliance with legal and regulatory requirements, and research and statistical analysis to support and improve our reinsurance services and those of our affiliates. This ensures that our processes, procedures and systems are as efficient as possible and enhance the service we provide.

We may also use your information for any other purpose that has been authorised by you.

Wherever possible and proportionate, we anonymise or pseudonymise information to carry out these purposes. Pseudonymisation is a recognised data minimisation technique that enables our employees and agents to use information about individuals without being able to personally identity the individuals concerned.

We do not use personal information in any automated decision-making process.

We do not sell information about our clients or their underlying policyholders. 

We do not share your information with anyone else for their marketing purposes.

HOW DO WE SECURE IT?

We have in place physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to protect personal information that we hold against unauthorised disclosure or unlawful use. Safeguards include; only holding personal information on secure servers, the use of encryption, firewalls and access controls and the separation of duties within our organisation. When using personal information, we seek to use only anonymised or pseudonymised information where knowledge of the individual’s identity is not necessary.

HOW LONG DO WE RETAIN IT?

We retain personal information for as long as is necessary to carry out the purpose for which we collected it and any other permissible purposes. We have a retention policy in place which governs retention and destruction of information and is designed to ensure that personal information is kept only for so long as we may be required to keep it in order to manage our business and for a reasonable period thereafter. We will keep personal information relating to individuals for a reasonable period beyond the date when we no longer reinsure the risk or are potentially liable to pay claims, whichever is later.

When we delete personal information in connection with a policy, it may persist on backup or archive media for legal, tax or business continuity purposes.   

WHO DO WE SHARE IT WITH?

We will only share your information where it is lawful and necessary to enable us to provide reinsurance services.

We may disclose personal information to:

• Third-party service providers. We share information with third parties to allow us to provide the reinsurance services, for example, our company medical officers who provide expert medical opinion to help us to assess claims. These third parties are authorised to use personal information only as necessary to provide these services.
• Other companies within the Pacific Life Group. We may disclose personal information to our affiliated companies to enable us to provide reinsurance services and for IT services such as the hosting of applications and systems that are used to process reinsurance information.
• Comply with legal obligations or proceedings. We may need to disclose personal information when we respond to court orders, or legal process, or to establish or exercise our legal rights or defend against legal claims or to meet our legal and regulatory obligations.
• Retrocessionaires. In some cases, we share personal information with retrocessionaires who provide us with retrocession services. These companies will use personal information in accordance with the terms of their own privacy policies.

INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS

We may transfer personal information to third parties or affiliates located in countries or regions that are outside Australia for the purposes described in this Privacy Notice. These countries or regions are:

• The United Kingdom
• The European Union
• The United States
• Singapore
• Canada

We ensure that any transfer of information outside Australia is made under a transfer mechanism that ensures the Australian Privacy Principles are not breached and provides an appropriate level of protection to the information transferred.

WHAT ARE MY RIGHTS?

Right of access: You have the right to know if we are using your personal information and to receive a copy of that personal information. We will always try to provide your information in the format you request, and we will not normally make any charge. 

Right of correction: If any of the information we hold about you is inaccurate or out of date, you can ask us to correct or update it. 

Right to withdraw consent: You have the right to withdraw consent at any time on providing us with reasonable notice.  Please note that if you do withdraw your consent, it may prevent us from continuing to provide reinsurance cover in respect of your policy.

Right to complain: You can complain the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner if you are dissatisfied with our handling of your information or if you believe we have breached our information protection obligations. To exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the information in the “WHO CAN I CONTACT” section below.

WHO CAN I CONTACT?

Pacific Life Re (Australia) Pty Limited

Level 43

Quay Quarter Tower

50 Bridge Street

Sydney

NSW 2000

Australia
Email: dpo@pacificlifere.com

Office of the Australian Information Commissioner

GPO Box 5288

Sydney

NSW 2001

Fax: +

Website: Office of the Australian Privacy Commissioner - Complaints

CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY NOTICE

We will keep this Privacy Notice under regular review and reserve the right to change it from time to time. It was last updated on 3 December 2025