Important Information

Privacy Policy

The insurance industry has a solid track record of respecting your right to privacy and safeguarding your personal information. As a result of federal legislation, we’ve further strengthened our privacy commitment by informing you of why and how we collect, use and disclose your personal information. You can be assured that we’ll only handle your personal information in a manner that a reasonable person would consider appropriate in the circumstances.

Personal Information Collected

Depending on the purpose(s) for which we need to collect it, we may ask for the following personal information about you including:

• Basic information such as your name, address, telephone and fax numbers, e-mail, address, date of birth
• Marital status
• Claims history
• Credit and past payment records
• Details about your property such as the value of your home and its contents
• Medical information such as any condition that may affect the operation of a vehicle
• Employment information

We may obtain this information from:

• You
• Your lawyer
• Insurance companies
• Other insurance brokers or agents
• Credit organizations
• Financial institutions
• Medical professionals

Why do we collect personal information?

When you first become a client or whenever you acquire or renew a product from us, we need to collect some of your personal information. Common purposes for which we collect your personal information are to:

• Enable us to acquire or renew an insurance policy for you
• Assist you and assess your ongoing needs for insurance
• Assess your need for other products, such as financial products, and to offer them to you
• Ensure your information is accurate and up-to-date
• Protect us both against error or fraud

Who do we disclose your personal information to?

For many of the purposes identified above, we will need to share your personal information with others in order to serve your needs. These other parties commonly include:

• Insurance companies
• Other insurance brokers or agents
• Credit organizations
• Professionals working with us such as adjusters or lawyers
• Financial institutions. For example, the organization that carries your mortgage

How we protect your personal information

In order to protect your personal information and right to privacy, we will:

• Not collect, use or disclose your personal information for any purpose other than those that we identify to you
• Keep your personal information only for as long as we need it to fulfill the stated purpose or as required by law
• Maintain your personal information in as accurate, complete and up-to-date a form as possible
• Safeguard your personal information to the best of our ability
• Respond to any request you may make to access or correct the personal information we hold about you
• Obtain the appropriate consent from you for the collection, use or disclosure of your personal information

Privacy Internet Communication

As the privacy of communication over the Internet cannot be guaranteed, we do not assume any responsibility for any harm, loss, or damage that might occur by the sending of personal and confidential information.

Consent

In using this site, you signify your consent to our privacy policy. If you are not in agreement, please do not use the site. We reserve the right, at our discretion, to update, change, modify, add, or remove this policy from time to time, as appropriate. Should we make changes, we will publish these on the site in a timely fashion.

Please do not hesitate to contact our Privacy Officer should you have any questions.

Our Privacy Officer may be contacted as follows:

Upon request, an individual will be informed of the existence, use, and disclosure of his or her personal information which is under our control, and may be given access to, and challenge the accuracy and completeness of that information.

Service Statement

Our role is to provide our clients with the highest level of customer service to provide excellent service and price from the insurers that we represent.

Insurer Representation

We represent an exclusive supplier, Economical Insurance, for the executor liability insurance product line. Economical Insurance also underwrites commercial surety bonds that are required by Judicial Courts in Canada for the administration of estates, collateral for lost securities, and other circumstances where proof of financial responsibility may be required.

We also represent the Waterloo Insurance Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Economical Insurance, for personal home and automobile insurance.

From time to time we may underwrite speciality products with insurers with which we have no customary brokerage contract. We transact such business either directly through the underwriting insurer, or alternatively through brokers that are referred to as Managing General Agents which provide underwriting and/or policy issuance functions on behalf of certain insurers.

Broker Compensation

We are typically paid a percentage of the total premium, excluding tax, as commission compensation for the service which we provide.

Our commission levels range from a low of 3% in respect to home and auto insurance to a high of 30% for surety; we perform many of the administrative functions of an insurance company in respect to commercial liability and surety insurance, with the exception of claims administration and our commission levels include a provision for these functions within the numbers shown above.

We also manage the distribution of executor liability insurance through licensed insurance agents and brokers nationally, and we pay a sales commission to those agents and brokers.

We may undertake speciality underwriting projects on what is termed Fee for Service arrangements; in these cases we will negotiate the applicable fee with the client in advance of the project.

Contingent Commissions

Economical Insurance has made a financial advance to marketing expenses which will be offset against contingent profit commissions; these are amounts that we are paid in the event that underwriting profit earned on the portfolio of insurance meets certain targets arranged at the commencement of our underwriting contract. Contingent profit statements are included within the websites of our underwriting insurers.

Financial Relationships

We are privately owned however the existence of the marketing advance that we have received for Economical Insurance constitutes a loan by current accounting rules; customers may deem this to constitute a potential conflict of interest since it is information that is required to be disclosed under the Registered Insurance Brokers Act.