Renewal recommendations and AI confidentiality: what a renewal letter gives away in ChatGPT or Claude.

Renewal season is when brokers write the most and have the least time, which is when ChatGPT or Claude gets opened. A renewal recommendation carries the client’s whole risk picture: what is insured and for how much, what it costs, what has been claimed, where the premises are and how they are secured, and what the broker advises. This page marks every item in a routine business pack renewal that the Code of Practice and the Privacy Act bear on, and shows how the same letter is drafted on Ermos inside the brokerage.

The renewal recommendation

Sent before each renewal date with the insurer’s terms, the broker’s recommendation and the brokerage’s remuneration disclosure.

Pacific Harbour Insurance Brokers
AFSL 123456

Mr Daniel Okafor, Director¹
Harbourline Joinery Pty Ltd (ABN 51 824 753 556)¹
14 Wattle Street, Brookvale NSW 2100¹

Re: Business insurance renewal, 1 December 2026

Dear Daniel,

Your cover. Business pack with Meridian General: contents and stock $420,000, business interruption $600,000 (12 months), public liability $20 million, machinery breakdown $180,000 (CNC router and edgebander). Commercial motor: three vehicles. Management liability $2 million.²

Renewal terms. Premium $38,420 including GST and stamp duty, up 14% on last year. The increase reflects the two claims in the period and the hardening market for timber manufacturers.³

Claims history. July 2026: water damage to stock after a roof leak, settled at $31,200. March 2026: a contractor’s hand injury on the edgebander, public liability claim open, reserve $85,000, SafeWork NSW also notified.⁴

Risk information. Premises at 14 Wattle Street: steel-framed factory, 1,100 square metres, monitored back-to-base alarm (Chubb), no sprinklers. The insurer has imposed a condition requiring a thermal imaging inspection of the dust extraction system by 31 January.⁵

Our recommendation. Renew with Meridian. We obtained alternative terms from two insurers; both quoted higher premiums and one declined machinery breakdown. We recommend increasing business interruption to $800,000 given the two new contracts starting in January, and we note the sum insured for stock may be inadequate after the recent price increases; please confirm current values.⁶

Our remuneration. Commission of $4,806 (15% of base premium) paid by the insurer, plus a broker fee of $650. We receive no other benefit in connection with this placement.⁷

Please note your duty of disclosure before renewal: you must tell the insurer anything that could affect its decision, including the change in your largest customer’s circumstances if it affects your turnover.⁸

Priya Desai⁹
Account Manager, Pacific Harbour Insurance Brokers⁹

An invented letter. The ABN is the ATO’s published example value. Hover or tap any highlighted item for the analysis; the full list is below.

What leaves the brokerage

The client and the premises

A named director, a named company and a street address. Personal information, and the location of everything insured below. Privacy Act guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	Transmitted to the provider, generally offshore on personal plans
Ermos Edge	Stays on your instance in Australia; leaves only inside a permitted excerpt, per question, to the named provider
Ermos Dominion	Stays on the unit in your office

What is insured and for how much

A complete inventory of the business’s cover and limits. Commercial information, and a shopping list for anyone planning a theft or a fraudulent claim.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	The full inventory of cover transmitted
Ermos Edge	Stays on your instance in Australia; leaves only inside a permitted excerpt, per question, to the named provider
Ermos Dominion	Stays on the unit in your office

The premium and why it rose

What the client pays and the insurer’s view of the risk. Confidential commercial terms.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	Commercial terms transmitted
Ermos Edge	Stays on your instance in Australia; leaves only inside a permitted excerpt, per question, to the named provider
Ermos Dominion	Stays on the unit in your office

The claims history, including an injury

Two claims, one involving a contractor’s hand injury with an open liability reserve. Health information about a third party, and a live claim. Patient data guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	A third party’s injury and a live claim transmitted; on consumer tiers they can train future models
Ermos Edge	Stays on your instance in Australia; leaves only inside a permitted excerpt, per question, to the named provider
Ermos Dominion	Stays on the unit in your office

Security and the premises

Alarm provider, absence of sprinklers, construction, and an outstanding insurer condition. The information most useful to a burglar, and the fact the client has a compliance deadline with its insurer.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	Security details and an insurer condition transmitted
Ermos Edge	Stays on your instance in Australia; leaves only inside a permitted excerpt, per question, to the named provider
Ermos Dominion	Stays on the unit in your office

The advice and the alternatives

The broker’s recommendation, the market it tested, and a warning about underinsurance. The work the Code of Practice’s best interests commitment describes, and the client’s biggest customer named in passing.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	The advice and a customer’s name transmitted
Ermos Edge	Stays on your instance in Australia; leaves only inside a permitted excerpt, per question, to the named provider
Ermos Dominion	Stays on the unit in your office

Remuneration

What the brokerage earns. The Code of Practice has brokers set out the remuneration they will earn in their terms of engagement (section 4.2) and, for retail clients, disclose commission in dollars (section 6.1). It is information for the client and nobody else.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	Remuneration transmitted
Ermos Edge	Stays on your instance in Australia; leaves only inside a permitted excerpt, per question, to the named provider
Ermos Dominion	Stays on the unit in your office

The duty of disclosure reminder

A reference to information the client may need to disclose to the insurer, and a hint that its largest customer is in difficulty. Disclosure obligations under the Insurance Contracts Act, and a third party’s circumstances.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	A disclosure matter transmitted
Ermos Edge	Stays on your instance in Australia; leaves only inside a permitted excerpt, per question, to the named provider
Ermos Dominion	Stays on the unit in your office

The broker

Ties the letter to a named account manager bound by the Code of Practice.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	Transmitted, and the leak is traceable to you
Ermos Edge	Stays on your instance in Australia; leaves only inside a permitted excerpt, per question, to the named provider
Ermos Dominion	Stays on the unit in your office

What happens in Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)

The whole document is transmitted to the provider’s servers. On personal plans the user cannot choose where it is stored or processed, and for the major providers that has generally meant outside Australia, under that country’s legal process. Some business plans offer storage in Australia, but the provider still receives the content.
On consumer tiers, prompts can be retained and used to train future models.
The provider’s staff and systems can reach the content under the provider’s own policies.
Once sent, the brokerage no longer controls it. Retention and deletion happen on the provider’s terms.

The same document on Ermos

Ermos Dominion

The document is drafted on a unit in your office, from your own templates and the client file. Every marked item stays on the unit, which keeps working with the internet switched off. Nothing in it is transmitted to an AI provider, so there is no disclosure to analyse: the confidentiality work is the same as for your file server.

Ermos Edge

Your documents, the index and your access boundaries stay on your own instance in an Australian data centre. When a staff member asks for this draft, only their question and the excerpts they are permitted to see go to a named Australian provider, who is contractually barred from keeping the content or training any model on it. Nothing is processed outside Australia.

	Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	Ermos Edge	Ermos Dominion
Where the document is processed	Provider servers, generally offshore on personal plans	Your instance in an Australian data centre; answers generated in Australia	The unit in your office
Who can read it	Provider staff and systems, under policy	Your staff, within the boundaries you set. The named Australian provider processes only permitted excerpts, under contract, and keeps nothing	Your staff only
Is it kept	On the provider’s terms	Kept on your instance; the provider is barred from retaining it	Stays on the unit
Can it train a model	On consumer tiers, yes	No, by contract	Only your own unit learns from it, on your hardware

Part of AI data leakage in insurance brokerages. See how this works in practice: Renewal preparation on Ermos.

Common questions

Do ChatGPT and Claude use the information in a renewal recommendation?

Both receive everything pasted into them on the AI company's servers. As at October 2026, whether a conversation on a personal plan (ChatGPT Free, Plus or Pro; Claude Free, Pro or Max) can be used to train the models depends on a setting each user controls. Business plans (ChatGPT Business and Enterprise, Claude Team and Enterprise) and the developer APIs sit under commercial terms, and OpenAI and Anthropic each say they do not train on that content by default (OpenAI, Anthropic). On either product, the thumbs up and thumbs down buttons can send a whole conversation back for training. A renewal recommendation puts the sums insured, the premium and the alarm and sprinkler details in one paste.

Can we use ChatGPT or Claude for a renewal recommendation if we remove the client's name?

No, because the rest of a renewal recommendation still describes one business. Removing names rarely makes a document anonymous. Information stays personal information while the person is reasonably identifiable, and the OAIC warns that information can be at risk of re-identification even when it has been de-identified or anonymised. A steel-framed joinery factory with a CNC router, a contractor's open injury claim and a largest customer in difficulty points to a single site and director. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) recommends in its guidance on commercially available AI products that organisations do not enter personal information, and particularly sensitive information, into publicly available generative AI tools, because of the significant and complex privacy risks.

What if staff use their own ChatGPT or Claude account for a renewal recommendation?

Then client details leave the brokerage through accounts it does not control. On a personal plan the user cannot choose where conversations are stored or processed. Some business plans let an organisation choose to store data at rest in Australia (OpenAI), which still leaves the content with the AI company. Both companies can also review content that is flagged for safety or policy reasons. Renewal season is when brokers write the most letters in the least time. The brokerage cannot see, retrieve or delete the sums insured, claims histories and security details that staff sent from personal accounts.

How can a brokerage use AI for a renewal recommendation without sending it to ChatGPT or Claude?

Ermos is built so the document stays under your control. On the Dominion AI unit it is drafted inside your office and none of it is sent to an AI provider. On Ermos Edge your documents and index stay on your own instance in an Australian data centre, and only the question and the excerpts the user is permitted to see go to a named Australian provider that is contractually barred from keeping them or training any model on them. The draft is built from the policy schedule, the claims register and the brokerage's own renewal template. The account manager checks every figure and signs the letter before it goes out.

Renewal letters are mostly template. Why does it matter where they are drafted?

Because the template is the smallest part. The sums insured, the claims history, the security details and the advice are the client's, and they fill most of the letter. On an Ermos unit the letter is drafted from the policy schedule, the claims register and the brokerage's template inside the office, and the template is the only thing that was ever generic.

Is the security information really sensitive?

A letter stating that a factory at a named address has an alarm from a named provider and no sprinklers is a description of how to break in and how much there is to take. Brokers hold that information because insurers need it. It should not be anywhere a brokerage does not control.

Does the Code of Practice say anything about where documents are drafted?

No. It commits subscribers to act in the client's best interests when acting on their behalf and to communicate clearly and honestly. Sending the client's risk picture to a third party the client never agreed to is a question under the first of those, and under the Privacy Act.

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