At American Sterling, we are committed to protecting your privacy, along with your financial assets. Whether you are online or at one of our retail outlets, our privacy policies are the same. We have extra measures in place to protect your privacy when you interact online with American Sterling.

The American Sterling companies:

This disclosure applies to consumers who have a relationship with one or more of the following American Sterling companies:

• American Sterling Corporation (ASC)
• American Sterling Bank (ASB)
• American Sterling Bank Mortgage Lending (ASBM)
• American Sterling Insurance Company (ASIC)
• American Sterling Insurance Services (ASIS)
• American Sterling Capital Corporation (ASCC)
• American Sterling Education Solutions (ASES)
• American Sterling Productions (ASP)

The practices and policies contained in this disclosure are subject to change, but we will communicate any material changes to you when required by applicable laws. The practices and policies in this disclosure replace all previous notices or statements with respect to the same subject matter.

How and why information Is shared:

We limit who receives information and what type of information is shared. We share information with the goal of bringing you greater convenience and more choices.

offers made by mail, telephone or e-mail. You can also choose not to have information from an application or an outside source, such as a credit report, shared within our family of companies. Whatever your preferences, we will honor your request. (Please note that we will continue to share some account information among our family of companies as permitted by law. We will do so for internal purposes or to provide more value and better service.) To tell us your preferences, you can:

Use Contact Us at the top of this Web Page to determine the appropriate location, telephone number, e-mail address or mailing address.

Reducing mailed advertisements:

If you would like to reduce the amount of advertising you receive from other companies, you can write to the following agencies:

Please be sure to include complete information about each name, address and telephone number you would like excluded from these lists. If you have moved within the last year, please also include your old address and phone number. The same is true for name changes and the addresses and phone numbers associated with each name.

Reducing credit card solicitations:

If you would like to have your name taken off all pre-approved credit solicitations, you may request that you stop receiving "prescreened" offers of credit from other companies by calling toll-free 1-888-567-8688 to OPT-OUT with the credit reporting agencies listed below.   If you wish to OPT-OUT in writing, you can send your request to the credit reporting agencies at the addresses shown below.  Please be sure to include your name, current address and Social Security number.

ONLINE PRIVACY

How we handle e-mail:

We preserve the content of your e-mail, your e-mail address and our response so that we can more efficiently handle any follow-up questions you may have. We also do this to meet legal and regulatory requirements. If we think that a particular American Sterling account or service might apply to your situation, we may occasionally contact you at your e-mail address to inform you of potential benefits and availability.

Regular non-encrypted Internet e-mail is not secure. In the instances where American Sterling Internet e-mail addresses are provided, these are provided for information inquiries of a non-sensitive and non-confidential nature.

When information is collected and not collected:

Some areas of our web site require information, such as your e-mail address or your account number, to enable you to perform certain tasks (for example, review your accounts or correspond with us). In these cases, we collect your information if necessary to interact with you. If you do not interact with us, you browse our web site anonymously, and personal information, such as your e-mail address, is not collected.

We gather and analyze data regarding usage of our web site, including domain name, number of hits, pages visited, length of user session, etc., to evaluate the usefulness of our sites.

About "cookies"

To provide better service and a more effective web site, we use "cookies" as part of our interaction with your browser. A "cookie" is a small text file placed on your hard drive by our web page server. These cookies do not collect personally identifiable information, and we do not combine information collected through cookies with other personal information to determine who you are or your e-mail address.

Cookies are commonly used on web sites and do not harm your system. By configuring your preferences or options in your browser, you determine if and how a cookie will be accepted. We use cookies to determine if you have previously visited our web site and for a number of administrative purpose.

Links to non-American Sterling sites:

We are not responsible for the information collection practices of the non-American Sterling links you click to from our Web pages. We cannot guarantee how these third parties use cookies or whether they place on your computer cookies that may identify you personally. We urge you to review the privacy policies of each of the linked Web sites you visit before you provide them with any personally identifiable information.

Protecting our children:

We do not knowingly solicit data from children under 13, and we do not knowingly market to children. We recognize that protecting children's identities and privacy online is important and that the responsibility to do so rests with both the online industry and with parents.