Scotia Insurance | BNS Insurance Agency Inc. Privacy Policy

BNSIA is an insurance agency that arranges for a variety of insurance solutions for individuals and groups in conjunction with our partners. By purchasing a BNSIA product, you agree to be bound by this Privacy Policy, the Scotiabank Digital Privacy and Interest Based Advertising Policy and/or the privacy statements/policies of our insurer partners, as applicable. If you purchase an insurance product through BNSIA, the insurer of that product will provide you with their privacy statement. You can also access each insurer’s privacy statements/policies on their websites or by contacting them directly.

Personal information is information that identifies you or can be used to identify you. Examples of personal information include: first and last name, mother’s maiden name, mailing address, telephone number (including mobile), email address, date of birth, social insurance number (SIN), government-issued identification, credit history, information about your employment and education, annual income, assets and liabilities and financial transactions.

We collect, use/share and disclose your personal information for the purpose of providing insurance products and services. More specifically, we collect, use and disclose personal information about you to and from other external sources including other insurers, public and private sector underwriting or claims or fraud information databases. If permitted by law, we may obtain your credit information from the following credit reporting agencies; you can contact them to access or rectify, or to obtain a copy of your credit report: 

• Equifax Canada Inc.:  https://www.equifax.ca 
• TransUnion Canada Inc.: https://www.transunion.ca

The personal information is collected and used in order to: 

• assess your application for insurance and provide you with insurance quotes;

• communicate with you about the insurance quotes;

• issue and manage your insurance quotes and insurance policies;

• promote, offer or provide personalized products and services and information about products and services that may be of interest to you;

• personalize your experience with us, including to better understand your needs and preferences (for example, through data analytics);

• personalize your experience on our websites and mobile applications;

• process claims involving you;

• analyze the information we collect to better understand our clients, improve products and services we offer and to prevent and detect fraud; or

• act as required or authorized by law. BNSIA, Scotiabank and our Canadian, US and foreign service providers may disclose personal information where we are required or permitted to do so by applicable law. This may be:

  • to other organizations for the purposes of investigating a breach of an agreement or contravention of law or to detect, suppress or prevent fraud;

  • to establish, exercise or defend legal claims;

  • to protect the rights, property and safety of BNSIA, Scotiabank and others;

  • to courts, law enforcement and regulatory authorities in the jurisdictions in which we or our service providers operate, including to respond to a local or foreign court order, search warrant or other demand or request which we believe to be valid;

  • to comply with the rules of production of a local or foreign court; or

  • to satisfy legal and regulatory requirements that we believe are applicable to us, including the requirements of any self-regulatory organizations to which we belong.

• Hospitals and health care professionals, government insurance plans, insurance companies and insurance service bureaus.

• Members of the Scotiabank group of companies, who provide operational, administrative and support services on our behalf, to meet legal and regulatory obligations, and for fraud prevention purposes. Members of the Scotiabank group of companies may be located outside of your province of residence or outside of Canada and may access and process your personal information from the United States or other jurisdictions. For a list of Scotiabank’s principal affiliates and subsidiaries enterprise-wide, please refer to the most recent Annual Report.

• Other members of the Scotiabank group of companies so that they may contact you for the purposes of marketing, including telemarketing. You can withdraw your consent to the use of your personal information by BNSIA and the disclosure of your personal information to other Scotiabank companies for marketing at any time. See “How to update your marketing choices” below for more information.

• Our third-party service providers to process or handle personal information on our behalf. Our service providers assist us with various services such as printing, postal and electronic mail distribution, marketing (including by telephone and electronic means), advertising, analytics, customer service, and processing, authorizing and authenticating your transactions. When personal information is provided to our service providers, we will require them to protect the information in a manner that is consistent with our privacy and security practices and standards. Some of our service providers are located outside of your province or residence or outside of Canada and may access and process your personal information from the United States or other jurisdictions.

• Other trusted business partners for marketing or other servicing purposes. For example, if you sign-up to receive communications from our trusted business partners, we share your personal information with our trusted business partners so that they may contact you for the purposes of marketing, including telemarketing. You can withdraw your consent to the disclosure of your personal information for these optional marketing purposes at any time. See “How to update your marketing choices” below for more information.

• Your joint policy account holders and persons insured under policies you hold (“Joint Account Holders”), representatives (such as a legal guardian, power of attorney or lawyer), executors and beneficiaries.

• Joint Account Holders will each have access to all of the account history and transaction details for the account. We may also share personal information with your (or your Joint Account Holder’s) estate representatives or beneficiaries where reasonably necessary to administer the estate.
  

Your personal information is not sold or inappropriately disclosed to third parties.

We have implemented measures designed to safeguard the personal information in our custody and control against theft, loss and unauthorized access, use, and disclosure. We restrict access to personal information to employees and authorized service providers who require access to fulfil their job requirements. We may keep and use information about you in our records for as long as it is needed for the purposes described above, or to otherwise meet our legal obligations, even if you are no longer a customer.

We require accurate, complete and up-to-date records to provide our products and services, and we have implemented processes to help ensure this. We also rely on you to provide us with information that is true and complete. If any personal information changes or becomes inaccurate or out of date, please advise us using the contact information set out below so we can update our records.

You can refuse to consent to BNSIA’s collection, use or disclosure of personal information, or you may withdraw your consent to our further collection, use or disclosure of your personal information at any time by giving us reasonable notice, subject to limited exceptions. If you wish to withdraw consent, you may do so at any time by contacting the office with which you are dealing or by calling us toll-free at the telephone numbers listed below. You can also contact the Privacy Office as set out at the end of this Privacy Policy.

Scotia Insurance | BNS Insurance Agency Inc.: 1-866-725-0428

Scotiabank: 1-800-4SCOTIA

Depending on the circumstances, your withdrawal of consent may prevent us from providing you, or continuing to provide you, with some products and services, the ability to access certain products and services, or information that may be of value to you. In addition, we may have legal, regulatory or contractual obligations to collect, use or disclose certain of your personal information, in which case you may not withdraw your consent.

You also cannot refuse to consent to our collection, use and disclosure of personal information required by our regulators, including self-regulatory organizations. We will act on your instructions as quickly as possible but there may be certain uses of your information that we may not be able to stop immediately.

You can update your marketing communication preferences at any time by calling us toll free at 1-866-725-0428.

You can also withdraw your consent to receive specific types of communications as set out below:

• To opt-out of email communications, click on the “unsubscribe” link included in each of our email communications.

• To opt-out of receiving SMS text messages, respond to any message by texting “STOP”. 
  

• To opt-out of interest-based advertising, see our Digital Privacy and Interest-Based Advertising Policy.

• To opt-out of the use by BNSIA of your personal information for marketing purposes or the sharing of your personal information with trusted partners or members of the Scotiabank group of companies for marketing purposes, contact us using the contact information set out above.

• To opt-out of direct mail and phone marketing communications, contact us using the contact information set out above.

You may continue to receive certain types of communications, including electronic messages or offers from us, even after you have withdrawn your consent or unsubscribed to emails. These include, for example, messages sent in response to specific inquiries, messages to satisfy a legal obligation or for debt collection purposes or to enforce or provide you with notice of an existing or pending right. In addition, if you contact us by telephone or online, we may make certain offers to you.

You can request to access or update the personal information we hold about you. Much of this information may be accessible by you, for example: through your account or policy statements or through the Customer Contact Centre. However, to access any other personal information about you, please send your request in writing to the Scotiabank Privacy Office using the contact information included at the end of this Privacy Policy.

To process your request, we may ask you for information to validate your identity and confirm the scope of your request, such as your account number, and clarification on the specific information or time period you are requesting. We may not be able to provide you with access to your personal information in certain circumstances, such as where your request includes personal information about a third party that cannot be removed, or when the information you are requesting is protected by legal privilege. Scotiabank may charge you a nominal access fee depending on the nature of your request. We will advise you of the fee, if any, prior to proceeding with your request.

If you have a sensory disability, you may request that your personal information be made available in an alternative format.

We may amend this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our personal information practices. We will post the revised Privacy Policy on our website. We may also notify you of any changes to this Privacy Policy in any of the following ways: (i) an announcement through an automated telephone message or a digital channel, or ii) a notice on the Scotia Insurance website.

If you have an inquiry about our privacy practices or how we and our service providers treat your personal information, please contact us at insurance.operations@scotiabank.com or call us toll free at 1-866-725-0428. 

If the office is not able to resolve your concern to your satisfaction, you can contact the Scotiabank Privacy Office c/o the Escalated Customer Concerns Office: 

Telephone: 1-877-700-0043
Fax: 1-877-700-0045
Email: escalatedconcerns@scotiabank.com
Letter: Privacy Office c/o Escalated Customer Concerns Office
44 King Street West
Toronto ON M5H 1H1

BNS Insurance Agency has policies and procedures to receive, investigate, and respond to your privacy complaints and questions. We will investigate all complaints we receive and if we find a complaint justified, we will try to resolve it. If you are not satisfied, you may file a complaint with the provincial privacy regulator in your province of residence, or with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada:

30, Victoria Street
Gatineau, Quebec
K1A 1H3
Toll-free: 1-800-282-1376
Phone: (819) 994-5444
TTY: (819) 994-6591
www.priv.gc.ca