Applicant Privacy Notice

Last reviewed and approved; March 14, 2025

1. Applicant Privacy Notice

United Fire & Casualty Company (“UFG”, “UFG Insurance” or the “Company”) is committed to implementing measures to protect and limit use of Personal Information. This Applicant Privacy Notice (“Privacy Notice”) explains how UFG will collect, use, and store your Personal Information (“Applicant”) relating to the talent acquisition and recruitment processes, including through our careers portal (Careers in Insurance | UFG Insurance) (“Portal”), as well as your rights with respect to such Personal Information.

In this Privacy Notice, UFG Insurance is the marketing name used to refer to United Fire & Casualty Company and its property and casualty subsidiaries and affiliates, which include Addison Insurance Company, Financial Pacific Insurance Company, Franklin Insurance Company, Lafayette Insurance Company, Mercer Insurance Company, Mercer Insurance Company of New Jersey, Inc., UFG Specialty Insurance Company, United Fire & Indemnity Company, and United Fire Lloyds. All individuals who apply for a role at UFG are also subject to the Privacy and Terms of Use of our website, which you can review here.

We may provide Applicants with additional notices about our information practices that are covered by other laws (e.g., if we conduct a background check).

2. Scope of this Privacy Notice

This Privacy Notice applies to any information we collect about Applicants that identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with an individual (“Personal Information”). Our information practices may vary depending upon certain circumstances, such as the location from which or the role for which you are applying.

This Privacy Notice does not address or apply to our handling of certain information (for which we may provide additional notices), such as:

Publicly Available Information. Information that is lawfully made available from government records, information we have a reasonable basis to believe is lawfully made available to the general public by you or by widely distributed media, or by a person to whom you have disclosed the information and not restricted it to a specific audience.
Deidentified/Anonymized Information. Information that is deidentified or anonymized in accordance with applicable laws.
Aggregated Information. Information that relates to a group from which individual identities have been removed.
Protected Health Information. Information governed by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”) or similar state or local laws or regulations.
Activities Covered by the Fair Credit Reporting Act. This includes information we receive from consumer reporting agencies that are subject to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, e.g., information contained in background check reports we may obtain as part of our recruitment and hiring process.

This Privacy Notice also does not apply to the Personal Information we collect from our customers, contractors, employees, or our Applicants when they use our products and services in their personal capacity. For additional information on our general privacy practices, please visit UFG’s Privacy and Terms of Use.

3. What Personal Information Do We Collect?

If you create a user account on the Portal, you will be asked for your email address and to create a password. This will enable you to apply for job openings via the Portal. When you apply for a job at UFG, you will be asked to complete an online job application and to attach a resume.

As part of the recruitment and hiring process, we will collect, use, and store a range of information about you, which may include:

Identifiers, such as your name, address, and contact details, including postal and email addresses, and telephone number(s).
Characteristics of Protected Classifications, such as age (40 years or older), race, ancestry, national origin, citizenship, physical or mental disability, sex, veteran or military status, and other characteristics protected by federal, state, or local law, regulation or ordinance.
Geolocation Data, such as information derived from your IP address to enable us to show you open positions relevant to your geographic location.
Internet or Other Electronic Network Activity Information, such as information about your interaction with our portals, website, applications, or advertisements, including, but not limited to, IP address, browsing history, clickstream data, and search history.
Audio, Electric, Visual, or Similar Information, such as information collected via call recordings, recorded meetings, videos, photographs, and video footage to secure our offices and premises.
Employment-Related Information, such as previous positions held, skills and experience, results of measures of job-related capabilities, job duties, authorization to work in the United States, information obtained during interviews and Human Resource phone-screening calls, and, when lawful, information about your current level of compensation.
Education Information, such as educational / professional background information, including degrees earned, schools attended, licenses held, memberships in professional associations, and academic record.
Sensitive Personal Information, such as your social security number, government identifier, driver's license number, race or ethnic origin, medical condition, results of drug screening tests, and physical or mental disability.
Inferences and Preferences, such as your preferences, characteristics, attitudes, behaviors, and abilities.

UFG will collect, use and store this information only when applicable laws require or permit.

If you choose to register on the Portal, we collect the following information to create a talent profile for you: first and last name, email, country, state or commonwealth, area of interest (job category), and, if you choose to apply: your city, telephone number, and resume.

4. Sources of Personal Information

We may collect this Personal Information directly from the following categories of sources:

From you directly, such as from your application forms and resumes, and through the interview process.
From you automatically when you use our websites or the Portal (as noted in our Cookie Usage Notice).
From recruiters and recruiting platforms.
From publicly accessible sources, such as LinkedIn.
From former employers (with your permission).
From our service providers, representatives, and agents.
From any references you provide.

When we conduct background checks we do so only once a job offer has been made to you. When a recruiter provides personal or other information to UFG Insurance, they represent that they have your permission to do so.

5. Why Do We Collect Personal Information?

We generally collect and process your Personal Information as necessary for the following purposes:

Recruiting and Hiring. We use Personal Information from your application, from measures of job-related capabilities, and collected through the interview process to evaluate your qualifications and eligibility for employment. This includes identifying you, creating a Presence on our careers account, scheduling interviews, conducting background checks, conducting the measures of job-related capabilities, evaluating skills and qualifications, extending offers, communicating with you, responding to your inquiries and requests, maintaining your information for future consideration, and supporting our equal employment opportunity policy and practices.
Defending and Protecting Rights. We use Personal Information to protect and defend our rights and interests and those of third parties, including to manage and respond to Applicant and other disputes, to respond to legal claims or disputes, and to otherwise establish, defend or protect our rights or interests, including, but not limited to, our trade secrets and other intellectual property, and protecting the rights, property, and reputation of UFG and its workforce, or the rights, interests, health or safety of others, including in the context of anticipated or actual litigation with third parties.
Compliance with Legal Obligations. We use Personal Information to comply with applicable legal and regulatory obligations (such as determining hiring eligibility or responding to subpoenas and court orders) as well as assessments, reviews and reporting relating to such legal and regulatory obligations, including under employment and labor laws and regulations, Social Security and tax laws, environmental regulations, workplace safety laws and regulations, and other applicable laws, regulations, opinions, and guidance.
Reasonable Accommodation Determination. Except as specifically requested or legally required, we ask that you avoid submitting information that may qualify as sensitive information under applicable law. To the extent necessary, UFG may collect and process information about disability status to assess whether we are required to provide a reasonable accommodation for an Applicant who has a disability and, if so, to determine what accommodation(s) is (are) reasonable. We will not use this information for any purpose other than the recruitment and hiring process or as otherwise described in this Privacy Notice.
Job Alerts. We use Personal Information to send job alerts and company updates to those who indicate interest in a category of information and have not opted out of receiving those emails.
Develop and Improve our Site. We use Personal Information to improve the user experience on our websites and the Portal.

6. Disclosure of Personal Information

UFG is a property and casualty insurance company headquartered in the United States and comprises a group of subsidiaries and affiliates. We disclose your Personal Information to our subsidiaries and affiliates for the purposes outlined in this Privacy Notice. During the recruitment and hiring process, the information may be shared among various employees or teams involved in the recruitment and hiring process who have a business need-to-know, such as members of the Human Resources team, interviewers involved in the recruitment process, and managers in the business unit with a vacancy.

We may disclose your Personal Information for the following purposes:

To Evaluate Your Application/Candidacy. We may disclose Personal Information when it is necessary to provide services you request and where it is necessary to identify applicants, schedule interviews, and otherwise evaluate your qualifications and eligibility for employment.
To Make You an Offer. If we make you an offer of employment, we may ask you to share certain information with a third party, or, in limited situations we may provide it, in order to complete the hiring and probationary process.
To Enforce Rights. We may disclose Personal Information if required to do so by law, to protect our rights, property, or the safety of others, or where we have a legitimate interest in doing so.

We may disclose your Personal Information to the following categories of recipients:

Affiliates and Business Partners. We may disclose Personal Information to our affiliates and business partners where necessary to evaluate your candidacy for employment or for business operations purposes.
Service Providers. We may disclose Personal Information to our service providers who perform services on our behalf, such as recruiters or recruitment platform providers. Our service providers are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your Personal Information in line with our policies and are not permitted to use Personal Information for their own purposes.
Government Entities and Agencies. To comply with our legal obligations and where otherwise required by law, we may disclose the following categories of Personal Information to applicable regulatory and government entities: identifiers, characteristics of protected classifications, and employment-related information.

7. Security

We take the security of your Personal Information very seriously. We have internal policies and controls in place to help protect your data against loss, accidental destruction, misuse or disclosure, and unauthorized access. Please be aware that despite our efforts, no data security measures can guarantee security. You should take steps to protect against unauthorized access to your password and login details.

8. How Long Does UFG Retain Personal Information?

We store your Personal Information for as long as needed, or permitted, based on the reason why we obtained it (consistent with applicable law). When deciding how long to keep your Personal Information, we consider whether we are subject to any legal obligations (e.g., any laws that require us to keep records for a certain period of time before we can delete them) or whether we have taken any legal positions that require data retention (e.g., issued any legal holds or otherwise need to preserve data).

Rather than delete your Personal Information, we may also deidentify it in accordance with applicable privacy regulations, by removing identifying details. If we deidentify any Personal Information, we will not attempt to reidentify it.

9. Use of Artificial Intelligence

We do not use artificial intelligence or automated employment decision making tools, or technology, for hiring, promotion, and screening. However, we reserve all rights to use artificial intelligence for any legally permitted purpose.

10. Your Rights

When you interact with us you can decide not to provide certain information. However, if you do not provide the information, we may not be able to properly process your application or consider you for a position.

If you are a California resident, California law may provide you with additional rights regarding our use of your personal information. To learn more about your California privacy rights, visit the CCPA Privacy Notice for California Residents.

Under certain circumstances and subject to applicable legal requirements, restrictions, and exceptions, you may have the right to:

Request access and obtain a copy of your Personal Information, including certain information about our handling of your Personal Information (such as the categories, sources, and purposes of collection and disclosure);
Request a change to incorrect or incomplete data;
Request that we delete or stop processing your data, for example, where the data is no longer necessary for the purposes of processing;
Request we limit our use of sensitive personal information to certain permissible purposes (however, note that we do not use your sensitive personal information for any purposes other than as necessary to process your application or according to a legal obligation);
Request the transfer of your Personal Information to another organization; or
Not be discriminated against for exercising any of your rights with regard to Personal Information.

If you want to review, verify, or correct your Personal Information, you can do so by logging into our online career system. If you wish to make a privacy request relating to your Personal Information (e.g., access, erasure, correction, objection, etc.), or have other questions, comments, or concerns, or wish to make a complaint about how we use the Personal Information we hold about you, you can refer to UFG’s Privacy and Terms of Use or send an email to privacycoordinator@unitedfiregroup.com.

To verify your identity, we will need you to provide your full name, the email address you used to communicate with us, your address (if you previously provided it to us), and any requisition number for the position for which you applied. In some cases, we may need additional information from you in order to verify your identity. If we are unable to verify your identity after a good faith attempt, we may deny your request and will explain the basis for the denial.

You may designate someone as an authorized agent to submit requests and act on your behalf. To do so, you must provide us with written permission to allow the authorized agent to act on your behalf. We may also ask you directly to verify that you have authorized your authorized agent to act on your behalf.

11. Changes To This Privacy Notice

You may review this Privacy Notice on the UFG career website or request a copy by emailing privacycoordinator@unitedfiregroup.com. We may modify or update this Privacy Notice from time to time, so please check back periodically for changes by checking the date posted on the notice. Where changes to this Privacy Notice have a fundamental impact on the nature of the application or recruitment process or otherwise have a substantial impact on you, we will give you sufficient notice so that you have the opportunity to exercise your rights. By sharing your Personal Information with us, and by continuing to use our careers website, you confirm that you have read and understand the terms of this Privacy Notice.