Assurant Canada

At Assurant we are committed to providing you with great customer service.  We do our best to treat you fairly and with respect.

Protecting your privacy and the confidentiality of your personal information is a keystone to our relationship with you, and to your trust in us. Your trust is our most valuable asset.

This Privacy Policy informs you of our practices that help protect your privacy and keep your personal information safe and secure.

The term "personal information" means individual and particular details about you that you provide to us or we obtain as a result of the products and services you use.

We may change this Privacy Policy at any time.  If we do, we will post the revised policy on our website.

At or before the time of collecting your personal information, we will explain how we intend to use it and ask for your consent to do so.    We will limit the information we collect to what we need for those purposes.  We will also obtain your consent if we wish to use your information for any other purpose and before collecting information from third parties.

You may refuse or withdraw consent for us to use your information. If you do, we will respect and record your choices. We will advise you if your choices impact our ability to serve you as a customer. 

We ask for your personal information to establish, communicate and serve you as customer.

1. From you (or provided to us on your behalf), via online or paper applications, and other forms you submit to us, we may collect, for example, your name, address, age, social insurance number, telephone number, and employment information.

2. From your transactions with our companies and/or other non-affiliated parties, we may collect, for example, your name, address, telephone number, age, credit card use, insurance coverage, transaction history, and claims history.

3. From health care providers, such as doctors and hospitals, we may collect your past or present health condition.  Health data will be collected only if we need to find out if you are eligible for coverage, process claims, prevent fraud, as authorized by you, or as the law may permit or require. Please note that we collect health data only to manage a health-related product or service, such as life or disability insurance, for which you applied.

4. From you, when you enroll, request a service, or file a claim or service request on one of our websites, we may collect, for example, your name, address, contract number, credit card issuer, account number, personal identification number, e-mail address, service contract, and claim or service request information. We may also use your email address to send you customer satisfaction surveys.

5. From your visits to our Internet websites, we may collect information through cookies such as a session number and user ID. By reviewing the legal notice, terms of use, site agreement, or similarly named link appearing on any of our websites that you visit, you may learn of any "cookies" we utilize and of any additional information we may collect from you on that site. For more information about cookies and the types of cookies we collect, please refer to «Cookies» and «Managing your cookie preferences».

We may share your information with a third party with your consent, for purposes that we will identify to you in advance.  In addition, we may share your information in the following situations:

1. When required or permitted by law - We may release personal information to help us collect a debt you may owe to us, or because we may be obligated to give information in response to a court order or subpoena, or in the course of an investigation.
2. Transfers of a business – If we consider selling, or actually sell parts of our business, we may release personal information to third parties involved with the potential or actual sale.
3. For marketing services - We may share customer information with persons or organizations inside or outside our family of companies that perform marketing services for us or with whom we have joint marketing agreements.
4. For customer service purposes - We give limited information as needed to our suppliers, partners, affiliates, and agents who provide goods and services to you on our behalf, or who perform support services on our behalf.  All our suppliers, partners, affiliates, and agents, as part of their agreements with us, are bound to conform to our privacy standards and to maintain your confidentiality in a manner consistent with this policy, and may not use your information for any unauthorized purpose.  We have the right to audit these suppliers, partners, affiliates, and agents for compliance.  Some of these suppliers, partners, affiliates, and agents are located outside of Canada and are subject to legal requirements in their jurisdictions, such as lawful requirements to disclose personal information to government authorities in those countries.

We restrict access to your information to authorized employees, and to the authorized employees of our member companies and our service providers that we determine have a legitimate business purpose to access such information in connection with the products or services you have applied for, or hold with us.

We maintain physical, electronic and procedural safeguards.  

We provide training and communication programs to educate employees about the meaning and requirements of our strict standards for data security and confidentiality.

All our suppliers and service providers, as part of their agreements with us, are bound to maintain confidentiality and may not use your information for any unauthorized purpose.

When your information is no longer needed for the purposes explained to you, and following applicable retention periods for our corporate records, we have procedures to destroy, delete, erase, or convert your personal information to an anonymous form.
We may process and store your information outside your province in another country, which may be subject to access by government authorities under applicable laws of that country. 

Email and contacting us through our website

We recognize that unencrypted email is not secure.  An email message could be accessed and viewed by others without your knowledge or consent while in transit to us.  We strongly recommend that you not include sensitive or confidential information in an unencrypted email. Please contact us to find out your options for secure communications with us.

We make efforts to protect your personal information using security measures appropriate to the sensitivity of the information that you provide or access through our websites.  However, because no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be perfectly secured, any personal information you submit to us or access electronically is done at your own risk, and we do not guarantee or warrant the security of information transmitted in this manner. 

Essential (which are strictly necessary) and non-essential cookies (functional, analytical and advertising cookies) may be used on our websites.  In accordance with applicable law, we are able to store certain cookies on your device if they are essential or strictly necessary for the operation of the site. For all other types of cookies, we require your permission.

Cookies are pieces of information or data, sent to your browser (e.g. Chrome, Safari or Firefox) from a web server and stored on your computer’s hard drive for record-keeping purposes, or for personalization of certain aspects of your visit to our website. Through the use, of cookies and other technologies, we can understand your use of the site and provide a better customer experience.

We may use cookies for the following purposes: 

• to learn which pages you visit and how you interact with our websites;
• to remember your language preference;
• to assist us in authenticating you and your computer and administering our secure websites;
• to personalize your site experience:
• to assist us with application support issues; and
• to determine how many people visit our websites and which sections of the websites are visited most frequently. 

Essential cookies – We use these cookies to enable basic features for the functioning of the site you are browsing, such as providing secure log-in or remember which pages you have visited.

Functional cookies – These cookies allow us to analyze your use of the site to evaluate and improve our performance. They may also be used to provide a better customer experience on the site you are browsing. For example, remembering your preferences or log-in details, or providing us information about how you are using our site.

We do not use advertising cookies. 

Managing cookie preferences is available on all of our sites. You can manage your cookie choices and preferences by clicking the “Cookie Preferences” link on the site you are visiting. Disabling certain cookies may result in certain parts of the website not operating correctly or prevent you from taking full advantage of some of the features of our website.

We will store your cookie preferences on a device for up to 6 months. After this time, we will ask you for your preferences again. Please note that your cookie preferences are stored on the browser you are using. If you use another browser or clear the cookies, you will need to re-consent.

In addition, if you change your mind regarding the cookie preferences you chose, you can update your preferences by clicking the “Cookie Preferences” link on the site you are visiting.

Our websites may contain links to other websites that may have online information practices different from ours.  We are not responsible for the privacy, content, and security practices of those websites.  If you make use of any links, we encourage to learn about the privacy and security practices of those websites.

If you would like access to your personal information, forward a written request to the address of the Privacy Officer appearing at the end of this Privacy Policy. If requested, we will assist you in making your request.  We will advise you in advance if a minimal charge will be required for searching and retrieving your personal information. We will respond to your written request within 30 days.  

We will not be able to provide information from our records about you if those records contain references to other persons, are subject to legal privilege, contain confidential information proprietary to Assurant Canada, or cannot be disclosed for other legal reasons.

If you have questions regarding decisions made about you, we will tell you the reasons for those decisions. If we relied on information from a third party to make the decision, we will provide you with the name and address of the third party.

We will make every reasonable effort to keep your information accurate and up-to-date.

Please keep us informed of any changes in your personal information, such as a change of name, address, or telephone number. If you find any errors in our information about you, please tell us and we will correct and update your file, if warranted. For information that remains in dispute, we will note the dispute in your file.

We are committed to responding to your privacy requests promptly, fairly, and with respect.

Step 1:  Questions, complaints, and updating your information

If you have a question or complaint about our privacy practices or this Privacy Policy, or you would like to update your name, address, credit card, telephone, or other account information, please contact one of our customer service representatives at:

Assurant
Claims & Customer Service Department
1945 King Street East,Suite 100
Suite 100, Hamilton, 
Ontario L8K 1W2
1-800-361-5344 (English) or 1-800-661-5800 (French) If you have a privacy complaint that we did not resolve to your satisfaction in Step 1, you may escalate the matter to our Privacy Officer at the below address under Step 2.

Step 2: Complaints and access to your information

If you have a privacy complaint that was not resolved to your satisfaction in Step 1, or you would like to request access to your information, please contact our Privacy Officer in writing.  In your written request, please provide your name, address, telephone number, and account number, along with any other details with respect to your complaint or access request that are helpful to understand your matter. Our Privacy Officer may be contacted at:

Assurant
Attention: Privacy Officer
5000 Yonge Street – Suite 2000, Toronto, ON, M2N 7E9

Step 3: Additional resources

If your complaint, or your request to access your information, remains unresolved after contact with our Privacy Officer, you may choose to contact the following external resource:

Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada 
30 Victoria Street, Gatineau, Quebec, K1A 1H3
Inquiries: 1-800-282-1376 (toll-free)
[email protected] 
www.priv.gc.ca

We may change the Privacy Policy at any time and the most current version will be posted on our website.