Privacy Policy

1About this policy

EGE Insurance is a licensed insurance brokerage regulated by the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario (FSRA). We have operated from Toronto since 2015, at 200 Yorkland Blvd, Toronto, Ontario M2J 4Y7, by appointment only.

This policy covers egeinsure.ca and its translated sections, our online quote forms, your EGE online account at egeinsure.ca/app, EGE AI (our website assistant), text messages and email we send you, telephone contact with an advisor, and the ongoing relationship if we place a policy for you. We follow Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and the applicable provincial privacy laws.

We serve clients in Ontario and across Canada, including visitors, newcomers and international students. This policy is published in English; where a translated version differs, the English version governs.

2We are a brokerage, not an insurer

This distinction decides who holds your information, so it comes first.

We act for you. We shop the market on your behalf and arrange coverage. The insurance contract itself is between you and the insurer. The insurer underwrites the risk, prices it against its own rate tables, issues the policy and decides claims. We do none of those things.

That means two privacy policies apply once you buy: ours, and the insurer's. Read the insurer's before you apply, because from the moment your application reaches them, their policy governs the information they hold.

The person who contacts you is a licensed advisor employed by EGE Insurance.

3What personal information means

Personal information is information about an identifiable individual. In this policy it means the details you give us and the details we record about you.

Two things are not personal information for our purposes:

• Business contact information used purely in a business capacity, such as a company name and office phone number.
• Aggregated or de-identified data from which no individual can be identified, such as a count of how many people read a guide. We do not attempt to re-identify de-identified data.

4What we collect

We collect only what you give us, plus the standard technical information any website receives. We do not buy personal information from data brokers.

Rating information, used to price a quote. Age or date of birth, gender, smoker status, a general health category you select, province, coverage amount, policy term, deductible, and for travel and visitor products your trip dates and destination.

Identity and contact information, so an advisor can reach you. First name, last name, email address and telephone number.

Your EGE online account. Your email address (your username), your Canadian mobile number if you give one, the consent you gave when you signed up, and the family members you add to the account (their first name, their relationship to you and, if you give it, their date of birth). See section 7.

Applications you complete online. The answers on the application form, which can include your date of birth, home address, legal status in Canada, country of birth, the date you came to Canada, your beneficiaries and the declarations you accept. For life insurance applications, the health questions the insurer requires.

What you tell us in conversation. Messages you send through your account, email correspondence, questions you ask EGE AI, and the notes an advisor makes about what you need.

Collected automatically. IP address, browser and device type, pages viewed, timestamps, referring page and language preference. For your account, the date and time of each sign-in.

Two things we want to be explicit about. We collect no payment card, bank account or banking information through this website or your account. No payments are taken here: you pay the insurer on its own secure website, and for Manulife insurance your advisor arranges payment with you. And we collect no medical records, no attending physician statements and no medical exam results. At quote stage the only health-related items we collect are smoker status and a general health category you choose yourself; health questions are asked only on an application that requires them.

Health-related information is collected only where it genuinely affects eligibility or price, and we treat it as sensitive.

5How we collect it

• Directly from you: quote forms, your EGE online account, applications, messages, EGE AI, email and telephone calls with an advisor.
• Automatically: through our web server logs and the website technologies described in section 13.
• From someone acting for you: occasionally a family member arranges coverage for a parent, grandparent or student. If you provide someone else's information, please make sure they know and agree.

6How quoting works, and what does not leave this website

Most people assume that asking an advisor for quotes broadcasts their details to a dozen insurance companies. That is not how this works. Your information moves in three distinct stages, and it stops at the first one unless you decide otherwise.

Stage 1 · Getting a quote. Premiums are calculated from insurers' published rate tables. The rate service receives only rating factors: age or date of birth, gender, smoker status, health category, coverage amount, term and province. It does not receive your name, your email address or your phone number, and no insurance company receives anything at all.

Stage 2 · Asking us to contact you, or opening an account. When you ask to be contacted or open an EGE online account, your name, email and phone number are stored in EGE Insurance's own customer records and a licensed EGE Insurance advisor gets in touch. There is no outsourced call centre. Your enquiry is not sold, rented, routed or referred to another brokerage or a lead buyer.

Stage 3 · Applying for a policy. An insurance company receives your personal information only when you decide to apply, and only the insurer you chose. Not every insurer we quoted. Not before you authorise it. From that point the insurer's own privacy policy also governs what it holds.

7Your EGE online account

Your EGE online account at egeinsure.ca/app keeps your quotes, applications, messages and, once a policy is issued, your policy documents in one place. It is optional: you can always deal with us by phone or email instead.

How you sign in. There is no password. Your email address is your username, and each time you sign in we send you a 6-digit code that works once and expires after 5 minutes. For life insurance, Super Visa, travel and ACCI 7 PLUS accident insurance, the code is sent by text message to your Canadian mobile number. For visitors to Canada and international student insurance, and whenever there is no Canadian mobile on your account, the code is sent by email from cs@egeinsure.ca. We will never ask you for a code.

How long a visit lasts. You are signed out after 30 minutes without activity, after 8 hours at most, and when you close your browser. Opening a policy document asks for a fresh code, because documents hold personal details.

Applications. When you complete an application online, your answers are encrypted and stored in your account, and a licensed EGE advisor reviews them. They are shared with the insurer only so it can underwrite and issue your coverage, and only once you decide to go ahead. No payment information is collected online: you pay the insurer on its own secure website, and for Manulife insurance your advisor arranges payment with you.

Messages. Messages between you and your advisor are encrypted and kept in your account and in our customer records. Please do not send your SIN or bank details in a message.

Family on your account. You can add family members to your account and name them by their relationship to you. Only add someone who knows and agrees.

Closing your account. You can ask us to close your account at any time (section 18). We keep the records a licensed brokerage must keep (section 16).

8Why we collect it

• To calculate and present quotes.
• To work out your eligibility and the premium that applies to you.
• To have a licensed advisor contact you and give advice, in the language you prefer.
• To run your EGE online account: to confirm it is you when you sign in, and to keep your quotes, applications and messages.
• To prepare and submit an application to the insurer you select.
• To service the policy afterwards: questions, changes, renewals, refunds and helping you with a claim.
• To answer general questions through EGE AI.
• To meet our record-keeping obligations as a licensed brokerage.
• To improve the website using aggregate statistics that do not identify you.

9Consent

You consent by giving us your information and asking us to act. When you open an EGE online account, you agree that EGE Insurance and its licensed advisors may contact you by phone, text or email about your quotes, applications and policies, and we record the sentence you agreed to and when. Because insurance involves sensitive details, we ask for clear, express consent before submitting an application containing health information to an insurer.

You can withdraw consent at any time, subject to legal and contractual limits and reasonable notice. If you withdraw it we may be unable to complete a quote, submit an application or continue servicing a policy, and we will tell you plainly what the consequence is before you decide.

10Who we share it with

11What we do not do with your information

• We do not sell your personal information.
• We do not rent or trade contact lists.
• We do not pass your enquiry to an outside call centre, lead-generation company or another brokerage.
• We do not give your details to anyone for their own advertising or marketing.
• We do not send your information to an insurer before you decide to apply.
• We do not make decisions about you by automated processing alone. A licensed advisor reviews every file. EGE AI answers questions; it does not decide anything about you.
• We do not send your name, SIN, bank or card numbers, phone number or email address to an AI provider.

The people who actually see your enquiry are the licensed advisors and support staff at EGE Insurance. Your quote is prepared here, and the call, text or email you receive comes from us.

12Where your information is stored, and transfers outside Canada

Your EGE online account, its database and the applications and messages in it are stored on our own servers in Toronto, Canada. Policy documents shared to your account are stored in Amazon Web Services' Canada (Central) region. Our customer records are held in EGEAN, our customer records system, hosted in Toronto, Canada. Email we send you goes through Zoho Mail's Canadian data centre.

Some providers named in section 10 operate outside Canada. Text messages, including sign-in codes, pass through Twilio in the United States. Google may process website usage data outside Canada. EGE AI uses an artificial intelligence service provider, which may process questions outside Canada, including in the United States. Everything is filtered by our own server before it is sent: names, SIN, bank and card numbers, phone numbers and email addresses are removed first, and the provider does not use what we send to train its models.

When information is stored or processed in another country it may be accessible to the courts, law enforcement and national security authorities of that country under its laws. By using our forms and your account you consent to that transfer. We use contractual protections with our service providers to require a comparable level of protection.

13Cookies, analytics and website technologies

We use Google Analytics 4 to understand how people find and use the site, for example which guides get read. We have configured it so that the page addresses it records do not carry your quote answers. We have not enabled Google's advertising features, and we do not run advertising retargeting pixels.

These services may set cookies or store data in your browser:

• Google Analytics, for the aggregate statistics above.
• Google reCAPTCHA, on quote forms, to block automated spam.
• Google Maps and Google Fonts, where a map or typeface loads.
• Our quoting tools, which may keep your quote inputs in your browser so results survive a refresh.
• Your EGE online account, which sets one cookie that keeps you signed in during a visit. It is strictly necessary, is deleted when you close your browser, and cannot be read by any website but ours. Your account pages load nothing from Google or any other outside service.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings, though the quote tools and your account may stop working. You can also opt out of Google Analytics using Google's browser opt-out add-on.

14Marketing and electronic communications

When you ask for a quote, open an account or send us a message, you are asking us to reply, and we will. Sign-in codes and messages about your account, an application or a policy you hold are service messages. If we later send you commercial messages such as a renewal reminder or a rate update, we do so in line with Canada's anti-spam legislation, we identify ourselves, and you can unsubscribe at any time. Unsubscribing from marketing does not stop the service messages about a policy you hold.

15How we protect your information

• The whole website and your account are served over an encrypted HTTPS connection.
• Your account has no password to steal: every sign-in needs a fresh one-time code sent to you, and visits end after 30 minutes without activity.
• Application answers, messages and family details in your account are encrypted at rest, with keys held only on our servers.
• Your account's server cannot be reached directly from the internet; our website server reaches it over a private, encrypted network.
• Form submissions travel to our systems over encrypted connections, and the credentials that connect our systems are stored outside the public website directory.
• Access to customer records is limited to the licensed advisors and staff who need it to do their work, and every sign-in and application is recorded in an audit log that holds no answers or contact details.
• Our forms carry spam and bot protection so automated systems cannot harvest them.
• Safeguards are matched to sensitivity, so health-related information is handled more restrictively than a name and phone number.

No method of transmitting information over the internet is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security. Please do not email sensitive documents such as passport scans or financial statements. Ask your advisor for a secure method.

16How long we keep it

We keep personal information only as long as we need it for the purposes in this policy, and as long as insurance and business record-keeping obligations require. A quote enquiry that never becomes a policy is kept for a limited period so an advisor can follow up and so we can answer questions about the quote you were given. Records connected to a policy we placed are kept longer, because insurers and our regulator expect a brokerage to produce them. Sign-in codes are deleted from use the moment they are used or expire. When information is no longer needed it is deleted or anonymised.

17Keeping your information accurate

Insurance decisions turn on accurate information, and an error in a date of birth or a health answer can affect a claim. We keep your information as accurate and complete as is necessary for the purposes it is used for. Tell us if anything changes and we will correct it, and where the change matters we will pass the correction to the insurer holding your policy.

18Your rights: access, correction and more

• Know what personal information we hold about you and how it has been used and disclosed.
• Access a copy of it. We respond within 30 days, and will tell you if we need more time or if a legal exception applies.
• Correct anything inaccurate or incomplete.
• Withdraw consent, subject to legal and contractual restrictions and reasonable notice.
• Ask us to delete information we no longer have a legal or business reason to keep, or to close your EGE online account.
• Unsubscribe from commercial messages at any time.

Contact us using the details in section 24. We may need to verify your identity first, so that we do not disclose your information to someone else.

19If something goes wrong: privacy breaches

If a breach of our safeguards creates a real risk of significant harm to you, we will notify you and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada as the law requires, and we keep records of breaches as required. We will tell you what happened, what information was involved, and what you can do about it.

20Quebec residents

If you live in Quebec, provincial privacy legislation gives you additional rights, including the right to receive your information in a structured, commonly used technological format, and rights concerning decisions based solely on automated processing. As stated in section 11, we do not make insurance decisions about you by automated means alone. Contact us at the address in section 24 to exercise these rights.

21Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal information, tell us first. We will investigate and respond to you in writing.

If our answer does not satisfy you, you can contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada at priv.gc.ca or 1-800-282-1376. Complaints about our conduct as a licensed brokerage can go to the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario at fsrao.ca.

22Links to other websites

Our guides link to government pages, insurer websites and other sources so you can check the facts yourself. Once you follow a link away from egeinsure.ca this policy no longer applies, and the other organisation's privacy practices govern.

23Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as our services, our providers or the law change. The date at the top shows when it was last revised. If a change materially affects how we handle information you have already given us, we will take reasonable steps to tell you.

24How to contact us

Questions about this policy, or a request to access, correct or delete your information:

EGE Insurance 200 Yorkland Blvd, Toronto, Ontario M2J 4Y7 Email: cs@egeinsure.ca Phone: (416) 477-1516

We will acknowledge your request and respond within the time the law allows.

How this policy maps to PIPEDA

For readers who want to check this document against Canada's ten fair information principles.