Privacy

Gore Mutual Insurance Company is committed to protecting the privacy of the personal information of its customers, which includes insureds, former insureds, applicants, claimants and other individuals involved in a claim. Our customers have trusted us with their insurance needs and it is important to us to maintain a high degree of integrity.

Collecting, Using and Disclosing Information About You

Gore Mutual Insurance Company (“Gore Mutual” or “We”) collects, uses and discloses your personal information in order to provide you with the insurance protection that you have requested or in the case of a claimant to process and adjudicate your claim. In order to do this, we use your personal information for the purposes of: establishing specific rates and terms and conditions best suited for you, establishing and maintaining communications with you; underwriting risks on a prudent basis; investigating and paying claims; detecting and preventing fraud; offering and providing products and services to you including promotional information from us or other organizations; analyzing our business, compiling statistics, acting as required or authorized by law and other purposes that are identified to you from time-to-time (all of which we refer to in this privacy statement as the “Identified Purposes”).

We take a global view of the Identified Purposes. In other words, we are not collecting personal information just for any one of the purposes, e.g. underwriting your policy. We are collecting the personal information for all of the Identified Purposes, so although we may initially use the data for underwriting your policy, we may later use it for claims purposes. Similarly, claims information may affect future underwriting of your policy.

The personal information collected will be limited to what is necessary to fulfill the Identified Purposes. We obtain personal information primarily from you, but also from others including other insurance companies, brokers, agents, and underwriting or claims information networks. The type of personal information that we collect, use and disclose depends upon the type of your dealings with us, but may include: name, address, telephone number, date of birth, family status, marital status, occupation, medical and health records, assets, liabilities, income, credit rating, whether or not credit was extended or refused, credit and payment records, an individual’s previous insurance experience including claims history, and an individual’s driving record. We only use such information for the Identified Purposes.

By providing your broker or us with personal information, we consider that you do so with the knowledge and understanding that it is collected, used and disclosed for the Identified Purposes. The collection of personal information may be required in order for us, or our agents and brokers, to provide you our products or services. If this information is not obtained, it may not be possible for us to determine the basis for insurance coverage or to adjudicate a claim and, therefore, we would not be able provide insurance to you or to process your claim.

We record telephone calls received from customers in order to investigate claims and determine customer satisfaction and attainment of quality service levels. If you do not wish to have your telephone call recorded, you can communicate with us in writing by email or mail.

Given the nature of the general insurance industry, your consent may not always be in writing. For example, we sometimes provide insurance or amendments to existing policies at your request over the telephone, on short notice or with little written documentation. In these circumstances, we may rely on your oral request rather than your written request. If it is impossible to obtain express written consent from you, consent may be implied in some circumstances.

We may also obtain consent on your behalf from your authorized representative (power of attorney or legal guardian). We may also obtain consent from an applicant for automobile insurance to the collection, use and disclosure of personal information about the applicant’s family members who will also be covered by the insurance policy. By applying for insurance coverage for family members, the applicant warrants to us that he or she has the authority to provide such consent on their behalf.

There may be times where consent is not required to collect, use or disclose your personal information, including situations where we are legally required to comply with subpoenas, search warrants or other court or government orders. Consent may not be required to prevent or detect fraud that is likely to be committed if obtaining consent would compromise the detection or prevention of fraud. Consent may not be required to transfer personal information to lawyers retained by us to defend legal actions on behalf of our customers.

You may withdraw your consent subject to legal or contractual obligations and on reasonable notice. Withdrawal of consent may limit our ability to provide you with the requested product or service. If you want to withdraw your consent, you should contact the Privacy Officer first to understand the implications of such withdrawal, and then if you choose to proceed, to give the requisite notice.

Collection, use and disclosure of your personal information for optional purposes

We may wish to use the personal information you provide to communicate with you for the purpose of offering you other products and services or allowing select organizations to offer you other products and services. The collection use and disclosure of your personal information for such marketing purposes is entirely optional and not required as a condition of doing business with us. You may withdraw your consent and opt-out of receiving promotional and other marketing information from us or other organizations at any time. Because of distribution schedules, you may continue to receive marketing communications for a short period of time while your request is processed.

Independent Agents and Brokers

We sell our insurance products through independent agents and brokers. While agents and brokers may sell insurance products on behalf of Gore Mutual, they are not employees of Gore Mutual and as such have their own privacy policies and procedures that cover the personal information they collect, use and disclose. We encourage you to request and review their policies and procedures.

Protecting Your Privacy

Your personal information is kept in strict confidence. We retain your information either on our premises or outside of our premises (such as in the Cloud) in secure facilities. We maintain physical, electronic and procedural safeguards to protect your information from unauthorized access. We review our policies and practices, monitor our computer networks, test the strength of our security and monitor our compliance with relevant laws in order to help us protect your personal information. We restrict access to your personal information to those employees whom we have determined need to know that information to provide products or services to you. In addition, all our employees are bound by a Code of Conduct and Ethics and a Privacy Policy, both of which include confidentiality and security policies, and are trained on our privacy policies and procedures. Personal information is retained only as long as it is needed, or to meet any legal, regulatory or tax requirements. We also require our third party service providers to provide comparable safeguards to protect your information.

There are situations where we will share, transfer or disclose personal information to third parties, some of whom may be located outside of Canada. Depending on the product or service, we may share, transfer or disclose your personal information to:

People, financial institutions, affiliates, and other parties we work with to administer the products and services we provide;
Our authorized employees, agents, and representatives who need the information to perform their duties for us;
Your insurance advisor and any agency that has direct or or indirect supervisory authority over your advisor, and their employees;
Any person or organization you give consent to;
People who are legally authorized to view your personal information;
Service providers who need this information to perform their services for us. Examples of the services include data processing, programming, data storage, market distribution services, and investigative agencies.
People, organizations, and investigative bodies who work to prevent, detect, or investigate suspected fraud, breaches of agreement, or contravention of law.

In some case, we provide your personal information to people, organizations, and service providers in provinces or jurisdictions within or outside Canada. They are therefore subject to the laws of those provinces or jurisdictions, and law enforcement authorities in such jurisdictions, under applicable laws in that jurisdiction, may access such information. When we share personal information with our service providers, they must protect it in ways that are consistent with our privacy policies and practices.

For example: As part of the underwriting handling process, we may transfer personal information to other insurance companies including reinsurance companies which share in the risk. We may disclose personal information to information services for underwriting, claims, classification and rating purposes, and for the detection and prevention of fraud. We may also disclose personal information to businesses that provide goods and services to insurance companies and their customers, such as claims adjusters, appraisers, repair shops, data storage providers (such as Cloud server providers), and data processing providers. As well, we may disclose personal information to insurance intermediaries, such as your broker. Only the information necessary for these services will be provided by us to these services providers, and it is done on the basis that they will maintain the confidentiality of the information. We may make personal information available to affiliated organizations, such as subsidiaries, in connection with the Identified Purposes.

Accessing Your Personal Information

You have a right to submit a written request to access your personal information that is in our possession and make corrections to it. Such a request is to be made to the address listed below. We will respond to your request within thirty days or advise you if additional time is required to respond to your request. There may be situations in which we are legally prohibited from allowing you access to your personal information. For example, we would be so prohibited if allowing you access to your personal information would likely reveal personal information about another person or other confidential information. If this is the case, we will advise you why, subject to any legal restrictions. We may also charge you for providing you with copies of your personal information. However, we will only do so after first advising you of the approximate cost. We will amend personal information that is demonstrated to be inaccurate or incomplete.

Further Information and Contact

If you have a question or complaint regarding our privacy policies or procedures, you may contact the individual accountable for our personal information protection compliance:

Gore Mutual Insurance Company
Attention: Privacy Officer

252 Dundas Street North
Cambridge, Ontario
N1R 5T3
1-800-265-8600 ext.: 2423

Or by email at: privacy@goremutual.ca

If you make an inquiry or lodge a complaint, and are not satisfied with the outcome, you may challenge that outcome by writing a letter to our President, 252 Dundas Street North, Cambridge, Ontario, N1R 5T3, requesting reconsideration of your matter. Gore Mutual’s commitment is to promptly open a dialogue with you. If your complaint is not resolved to your satisfaction, you may address your concerns to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, 30 Victoria Street, Gatineau, Quebec, K1A 1H3.

This Privacy Policy applies to customers, insureds, former insureds, applicants and claimants of Gore Mutual. If you are an employee of, or applicant for employment with, Gore Mutual, please refer to our Employee Privacy Policy, which you can obtain from our Privacy Officer.