Financial strength, Solvency and Legal

Solvency disclosures

As licensed insurers, Southern Cross Medical Care Society (the “Society”) and its 100% owned subsidiaries (Southern Cross Pet Insurance Limited and Southern Cross Benefits Limited) are required by the Interim Solvency Standard Amendment Standard 2023 (the “ISS") issued by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (“RBNZ”) to retain a positive solvency margin, meaning that the solvency capital exceeds the prescribed capital requirement under the ISS.

As the Society is a licenced insurer with two licenced insurer subsidiaries, these insurers must be consolidated to calculate and report the consolidated insurance group solvency.

The following solvency information as at 31 December 2024 for both the Society and the consolidated insurance group is required to be disclosed in compliance with the ISS as issued by the RBNZ.

Financial advice disclosure

Southern Cross Medical Care Society holds a licence issued by the Financial Markets Authority to provide a financial advice service. You can check our financial services registration at fspr.govt.nz.

Limitations on the nature and scope of our financial advice service

Our financial advice service is intended to help you decide which Southern Cross product may best suit your needs.

Only those of our employees who have been appropriately trained and nominated by us are able to provide financial advice (these are our “nominated representatives”). Their advice is limited to recommending Southern Cross health insurance products or plans (or changes to your current plan). They cannot advise you on products offered by other providers.

We recommend that you consult an independent adviser if you need advice on how to choose from a range of different providers’ products.

No fees

Our financial advice service is provided free of charge.

Conflicts of interest and prioritising your interests

Our nominated representatives are required to act in an ethical and transparent way. To ensure they prioritise your interests, before giving advice on any of our products they will ask about your particular health insurance needs, financial situation and goals. Any recommendations they make will take account of relevant information that you provide. For employer groups, this includes relevant information about the group of employees that would be covered under an employer group plan.

We provide ongoing training to our nominated representatives and undertake regular checks to ensure that the financial advice they provide is appropriate and meets our legal obligations.

Our nominated representatives are also required to comply with our conflicts of interest policy. This includes a requirement to raise any actual, perceived or potential conflict of interest with their manager or other senior staff member so that it can be resolved appropriately.

Complaints process and disputes resolution scheme

If you’re dissatisfied with the financial advice service provided by or on behalf of Southern Cross, you can raise your concern directly with any of our nominated representatives, or by:

• calling us on 0800 800 181
• using our online complaints form
• writing to us at: Complaints at Southern Cross, Southern Cross Health Society, Private Bag 99934, Newmarket, Auckland 1149.

We’ll acknowledge receipt of your complaint within two working days of the date we receive it (or if it is not practicable to do so, as soon as practicable after that time). We’ll aim to resolve your concerns in a transparent and timely manner and we’ll keep you informed of our progress.

So that we can best address your complaint, we may refer your complaint to different teams within Southern Cross. We will respond to you with the outcome of our investigation in a timely, fair and transparent way.

If you’re unhappy with our response, you can request that your complaint be reviewed by our Chief Operating Officer. The Chief Operating Officer will review and make a final determination in respect of your complaint, which will be communicated to you as soon as possible.

Still not satisfied?

We belong to the Insurance and Financial Services Ombudsman’s approved dispute resolution scheme (IFSO). The IFSO Scheme is a free and independent dispute resolution service available to consumers that may help investigate or resolve complaints if not able to be resolved through our internal complaints process.

If your complaint has been fully investigated by us and you’re still not satisfied with the outcome, you can refer your complaint to the IFSO for review.

You can contact the IFSO Scheme on 0800 888 202, email at [email protected] or www.ifso.nz.

Alternatively, you can write to: Insurance and Financial Services Ombudsman, PO Box 10845, Wellington 6143.

Our duties

Southern Cross and its nominated representatives are bound by the duties set out in the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013 to:

• give priority to your interests (by taking reasonable steps to ensure that our financial advice is not materially influenced by our own interests)
• exercise care, diligence and skill in providing advice to you; and
• meet the standards of ethical behaviour, conduct, client care and competence, knowledge and skill set out in the Code of Professional Conduct for Financial Advice Services. These standards are designed to make sure we treat you as we should and give you suitable advice. The Code of Conduct standards can be read here: fma.govt.nz.

This statement was prepared on 1 July 2021.

Southern Cross Medical Care Society (trading as Southern Cross Health Society), Level 1, Te Kupenga, 155 Fanshawe Street, Auckland City 1010. Phone: 0800 800 181.

Member privacy statement

We are with you in valuing your privacy and will always work hard to look after the information you entrust to us. This is our Southern Cross Medical Care Society (“Southern Cross”) Privacy Statement and explains the ways we routinely deal with your information, but during your relationship with us we may tell you more about how we will handle your information.

When you are covered by a Southern Cross health insurance policy you agree to us handling your information in the ways set out here. We may also update this statement so please check back from time to time.

How may Southern Cross use your information? 

We use your information to be with you when you need us most – when you apply for a policy and when you want to claim. We also use your information to tell you about products or services we think you’d be interested in and to help us personalise and improve your experience with us and other Southern Cross branded businesses.

We may use your information:

• to consider your eligibility for cover under the policy and any specific terms applying to the policy (including any pre-existing conditions),
• to administer the policy and your membership with the Society including annual general meetings,
• to process, investigate and review any enquiries, prior approvals or claims made on your policy,
• to help administer products and services you take up with other Southern Cross-branded businesses,
• to understand, improve and personalise your experience with us and with other Southern Cross branded businesses,
• for marketing, including telling you about products, services and offers from us, other Southern Cross branded businesses, or our partners. We may do this by contacting you directly or via another Southern Cross-branded business. We also use advertising technologies for targeted online advertising to provide relevant messages to you and others on our own and third parties’ websites. You can opt out by contacting us on 0800 800 181 or by clicking the unsubscribe function included in our electronic marketing communications,
• to develop and improve what we offer. This includes products, partnerships, systems, and member outcomes, and to meet audit and compliance requirements. We use anonymised or de-identified data to do this wherever possible and always when we present the results,
• to prevent, detect, or investigate fraud or suspected fraud,
• to conduct research and analysis to assist with any of the above purposes,
• where permitted or required by law.

How do we collect and share your information?

We exchange information with the policyholder about everyone covered on their policy including notifying them of prior approvals and claims submitted for anyone on the policy. The partner or spouse of the policyholder can access limited information about anyone else on the policy. When we receive a prior approval or claim we exchange information with the health service providing your treatment. We may exchange information with third parties such as ACC, other Southern Cross branded businesses, and the administrator of any group scheme you belong to. Insurance advisors associated with your policy can access most information on it to help provide their services to you.

This section sets out the parties we collect your information from and disclose it to:

• The policyholder can submit or view information about anyone covered on their policy, including details of plan change quotes, prior approvals and claims submitted by anyone on the policy. The policyholder can also authorise third parties to access information about anyone else covered by their policy.
• The spouse or partner of the policyholder (if covered by the policy) can update some policy details, submit and view most prior approvals, and access information about others on the policy on request.
• When we receive a prior approval or claim we exchange information with the provider or facility providing the health service or treatment. This is to assess, review or assist with administration of the prior approval or claim. If we need information from your GP or another health provider to assess a prior approval or claim we will let you know.
• Affiliated Providers and Easy Claim Providers can access limited policy details to help accurately submit prior approvals and claims directly to us on your behalf.
• Financial and Insurance Advisers the policyholder has authorised - including those who advise on a work scheme the policyholder is part of - can access information about everyone covered on the policy to enable them to provide you with their services.
• Other Southern Cross branded businesses may exchange information with Southern Cross for the purposes listed in this statement, including but not limited to contact details, demographic information, the products, services or partner offers you have taken up, and your communication preferences. No medical declarations or claims information will be exchanged without your consent.
• Administrators of a work or association scheme we exchange limited identifiable information with the policyholder to administer the scheme, including determining eligibility, applying discounts and subsidies. We will never share your identifiable health or claims information.
• If your prior approval or claim appears to relate to an accident or treatment injury we may check whether there is an ACC claim for the same matter. We will get your consent before exchanging any further information with ACC.
• Trusted partners may tell us you have taken up an offer or discount available to members so we can check eligibility, administer it, and help us understand uptake. We may tell you more when you take up a particular partner offer or discount.
• The policyholder can authorise third parties to access anyone’s information on the policy. If you’re not the policyholder you can only authorise access to your own information.
• We collect information via cookies and similar technologies when you use our apps and websites, or open emails we send you. See our Cookies Policy for more information, including how to control cookies in your own browser.
• We may disclose information about you to our trusted business partners, service providers or any business that supports our products and services such as providers of information technology services and advertising, market research and customer insight agencies.
• From you when you communicate with us including recordings of all incoming and outgoing phone calls with you.
• Any other party in accordance with the law.

Do I have to provide this information?

We need complete and accurate information about you and anyone else covered by the policy to process your application for insurance, prior approvals, claims and to provide you cover. The consequences of providing incomplete, false or misleading information are set out in your policy document.

Managing your information: access, correction, preferences and security

You have the right to access and correct information we hold about you and to opt out of marketing communications from us. We work to keep your information secure through our ongoing focus on cyber security along with employee training and awareness.

You can ask to access and correct any personal or health information we hold about you. Please get in touch on 0800 800 181 to make a request. We do our best to ensure the information we hold about you is accurate, complete and up to date. Please help us do this by letting us know as soon as you can of any changes to your circumstances or contact details so we can keep in touch with the information you need to manage and understand your policy. You can update your personal details online in My Southern Cross, or the mobile app.

From time to time, Southern Cross may send you marketing and other information by email or text. If you have provided your email address or mobile phone number we take this as your implied consent for this. You can opt out of receiving these messages or your data being used for third party platform messages by contacting us on 0800 800 181 or by clicking the unsubscribe function included in our electronic marketing communications.

We regularly review, update safeguards and raise awareness about keeping the information we hold secure. We carefully screen other businesses that carry out services on our behalf (eg, mailing houses, research and insight agencies, and information technology providers) to ensure they meet our data protection standards.

Need more information?

If you have any questions about how we handle your information, or our Member Privacy Statement, please contact us on 0800 800 181. Your information is collected and held by Southern Cross Medical Care Society, Level 1, Te Kupenga, 155 Fanshawe Street, Auckland City 1010.

Cookies policy

By using the Southern Cross website, you agree to the use of cookies as disclosed in this policy.

What is a cookie?

Cookies are small text files which are sent to your web browser when you visit a website. Cookies are then sent back to the originating website on each subsequent visit, or to another website that recognises that cookie. Cookies act as a memory for a website, allowing that website to remember your browser on your return visits. Cookies can also remember your preferences, improve the user experience and tailor the adverts you see to those most relevant to you.

This means we automatically collect and store the following information about your visit:

• the internet domain and IP address from where you access the website
• the type of browser software and configuration and operating system used to access the website
• the date and time you access the website
• if you linked to the website from another website, the address of that website
• the pages you enter, visit and exit the website from, content viewed and duration of visits.

Our Privacy Statement sets out full details of the other information we collect and how we use your personal information.

What cookies do Southern Cross use on this website?

Two kinds of cookies are used on Southern Cross’ website: Session cookies and Persistent cookies.

• Session cookies are used to remember selections made on our website (for example in the Plan comparison tool). Session cookies are deleted automatically when you leave the website or close your browser.
• Persistent cookies are used to identify you when you return to our website and/or to remember specific information about your preferences. These cookies also help us understand browsing behaviour within the website, which can assist us in customising content that we believe will be most relevant to your interests. Persistent cookies are stored on the user's computer and are not deleted when the browser is closed. These cookies must be 'manually' deleted if you want to remove them.

Different cookies are used to perform different functions

Strictly necessary cookies - some cookies are essential for Southern Cross to use in order to provide you with secure access to certain areas of our website (e.g. My Southern Cross). These cookies use a unique identifier to ensure the privacy and security of your personal and or health information once you have logged into the website. If your browser is configured to reject all cookies you will be unable to log on to certain areas of the Southern Cross website e.g. My Southern Cross.

Analytical/performance cookies - these cookies allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors interact and move around and use our website. These cookies are used for web enhancement and optimisation purposes and to aggregate statistics on how our visitors reach and browse our websites. This type of information allows us to improve the way our website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily and to help us understand what interests our users, and measure how effective our advertising is;

• Southern Cross example 1: Google Analytics cookies collect information in an anonymous form, providing Southern Cross with information about how our website is used. Southern Cross can determine where visitors have come from to our site, how they are interacting with our site and how many visits have been recorded to our site. These third party cookies assist with making on-going improvements to our website and the online experience.

• Southern Cross example 2: Using Google Analytics User ID functionality, a unique, random ID is assigned by our system to members when they log in to My Southern Cross for the first time. This allows Southern Cross to view that visitor’s access to both My Southern Cross and the Southern Cross website across multiple devices and sessions over a period of time, providing us with more accurate information about how our members use our website, and to assist with making improvements to My Southern Cross and the Southern Cross website. In using the Google Analytics User ID tool we don’t disclose any personal information about you to any third party, including Google, and the data we get back from Google is aggregated and may only be used by Southern Cross in a non-identifiable form.

Functionality cookies - these cookies allow our website to remember choices you have made previously in order to improve your online experience. Southern Cross example: If you enter information about your age, gender and number of dependent children in our “Plan comparison tool” to get a quote on a health insurance plan option, a cookie is used to remember this information if you want to get a quote on a different health insurance plan option.

Advertising / targeting cookies - These cookies collect information about your browsing habits, which assists in the delivery of more relevant advertising. Third party organisations, including Google, collect certain information when you visit our website in order to display our advertisements when you visit other websites. Advertising features that Southern Cross uses include Google AdWords and Analytics Remarketing and Google Display Network Impression Reporting.

Please note that some cookies on the website are managed by third parties, including, for example, advertising networks, features such as videos, maps and social media, and providers of external websites like web traffic analysis services. These cookies are likely to be analytical/performance cookies or targeting cookies. You should refer to such third parties’ own cookie and privacy policies for information about how they may use your information.

How do I control my cookie settings on my computer?

If you decide to disable or block cookies, parts of our website will not function correctly, or at all, (e.g. you will be unable to access your My Southern Cross login).

Should you choose to disable or block our cookies you can do this through your browser. Most browsers allow you to manage your cookie preferences from the browser settings.

More on how Google uses cookies and how to opt out of targeted advertising.

We may change the content of this cookie policy at any time without notice, and any revised terms located on the website from time to time will apply to your use of the website or any website services.

This version: July 2021

Complaints process and disputes resolution scheme

Other legal information

Southern Cross Medical Care Society (trading as Southern Cross Health Society) is a friendly society operated for the benefit of members since 1961. We are registered under the Friendly Societies and Credit Unions Act 1982. Southern Cross is a licensed insurer and a licensed financial advice provider. For financial advice on Southern Cross products call 0800 100 777, or if your employer has a work scheme call 0800 438 268. For more information and a copy, please see our financial advice disclosure.