Email Best Practices

As a valued partner of American Equity, we appreciate your hard work and accomplishments. Your continued success helps facilitate our own success. In an effort to assist you with conducting proper business, we will continue to send you updates about the compliance rules and regulations of our industry. Thank you for your partnership with us.

In today’s world, one of the greatest concerns of consumers is how to keep their identify and personal, private information (PPI) from being stolen. One way we can assist in keeping PPI safe is to limit our sending of PPI through the e-mail. However, sometimes we need to send such information. When we do, we should send that information by a secure, encrypted e-mail.

Why and when should I encrypt email?

Use of secure email is intended to address the need for communicating restricted/confidential information in a safe and secure manner. You are required to use secure email whenever you send a message that contains confidential information such as PPI to a recipient on the Internet. The first thing you have to do is determine if the e-mail you will be sending contains such confidential PPI, which is defined as:  

Information that includes the Personally Identifiable Information (PII) of consumers. PII is defined by the U.S. Government Accountability Office as “any information about an individual maintained by an agency, including (1) any information that can be used to distinguish or trace an individual’s identity, such as name, social security number, date and place of birth, mother’s maiden name, or biometric records; and (2) any other information that is linked or linkable to an individual, such as medical, educational, financial, or employment information.” 

If the email message you will be sending to parties outside your business practice falls under this definition, the message must be sent by encrypted e-mail. Email encryption is the process of protecting the content of email messages containing PPI or other confidential information from being read by unintended recipients. There are many services available that you can use to send encrypted emails. We suggest you review your current email provider to determine what service best fits your business need.  

Thank you for your business and support of American Equity.