Privacy Policy

HealthInsuranceBenefits.org thanks you for your interest. We are referred to as “we,” “us,” or “our” in this Privacy Policy. This Policy is applicable to several websites that are owned and operated by HealthInsuranceBenefits.org. Additionally, it applies to any related websites, networks, applications, insurance agent and representative services, and communications channels, including online chat and telephone call centers. This Policy is also applicable to other services that we provide. We may post this document as the applicable Privacy Policy on these websites.

This is HealthInsuranceBenefits.org Privacy Policy, which explains how we collect, use, and protect your personal information. We take your privacy seriously and employ advanced technologies to ensure the confidentiality and security of your information. Personal information includes details such as your name, phone number, email address, Social Security number, credit card number, as well as any health or medical history you provide in a health insurance application or financial information you provide to receive a subsidy from the government. We are committed to safeguarding your personal information in accordance with this Policy.

If you are a California resident, please see our California Privacy Policy for additional information on how we handle your personal information and how you can exercise your rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act. If you provide your information to third-party partners, their privacy policy will govern the use of your information. Throughout this Policy, we use the term “personal information” to refer to information that can identify you as an individual.

When and why we share personal information

Insurance Companies, Licensed Agents and Business Partners, HSA Trustees or Administrators, and Government-run Exchanges and Entities

If you submit an application for an insurance product offered by us, then we will disclose your personal information to your chosen insurance company to process your application. If you submit a request for information or an application for an insurance product offered through an insurance agent, agency, or other business partner with whom we associate or contract, then we may disclose your personal information to that agent, agency, or business partner to process your request for information or application or to otherwise provide you with information about insurance products (including contacting you by telephone, email, or otherwise to discuss insurance products in which you may be interested). If you complete an enrollment form for a health savings account (“HSA”) offered through an authorized HSA trustee or administrator with whom we have associated, then we may disclose your personal information to trustee or administrator to enroll you in HSA. If you complete an application with us that is processed through a government-run exchange or other government-run entity, we will disclose your personal information to that government-run exchange or entity. Please be assured that these partners are only allowed to use your personal information to process your requested quote, application or enrollment form and are legally obligated t o maintain strict confidentiality.

Service Providers

We may disclose your personal information to other companies that help us to process or service any application you begin, process, or submit through us, or correspond with you. For example, we may provide your personal information to a service provider to verify the validity or credit limit of your credit card. Please be assured that the companies we hire to process or service your insurance application or correspond with you are not allowed to use your personal information for their own purposes and are contractually obligated to maintain strict confidentiality.

Employers, Affinity Groups, and Benefits Administrators or Consultants

If you were referred to us by, or use our website in connection with, a current or former employer, affinity group, or other organization with which you may be affiliated (or a benefits administrator or consultant associated with such employer, group, or organization), we may disclose your personal information to such employer group, organization administrator and/or consultant. For example, we may inform such employer, group, organization, administrator and/or consultant whether or not you have enrolled in a plan. Please be assured that these parties are only allowed to use your personal information as permitted by applicable law.

Legal Obligations

In certain situations, HCS Help Online may be required to disclose personal data in response to lawful request by pubic authorities, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements. We may also disclose your personal information as required by law, such as to comply with a subpoena, or similar legal process. We may disclose or report your personal information when we believe, in good faith, that the disclosure is required or permitted under law, for example, to cooperate with regulators or law enforcement authorities, to resolve consumer disputes, to protect our rights, to protect your safety or the safety of others, to investigate fraud, or to otherwise respond to a government request.

Business Transition

If HCS Help Online is involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of all or a portion of its assets, you will be notified via email and/or a prominent notice on our website of any change in ownership or uses of your personal information, as well as any choices you may have regarding your personal information.

Your Consent

If you provide us an indication of your consent to disclose, share or use your personal information in connection with a third party, we may disclose, share or use your personal information in that manner. For example, if you opt in to our social media mailing lists and promotional updates, then we may disclose your relevant personal information to social media platforms where HCS Help Online has a corporate account for the purpose of adding you to HCS Help Online social media mailing and promotional update lists. Generally in such a situation, the social media platforms are not allowed to use your personal information for their own purposes unless you have a direct account on such social media platforms, in which case your personal information would be handled by the social media platforms in accordance with the social media platforms’ privacy policies.

Your Requests for Products

If you request to be contacted about any type of insurance product, request to be contacted by a licensed agent or other representative, request assistance with enrolling in any type of insurance product or make any other request for someone to contact you (such as by filling out an online request form), then our agents or representatives may contact you, or we may disclose your personal information to a third-party insurance agency, insurance agent, insurance company or other appropriate entity, so that such entity may contact you about any product in which you indicated interest or may assist you in enrolling in any such product. By requesting to be contacted, you expressly consent to receive e-mails, phone calls or text messages from a licensed agent or other representative at the email address and telephone number (including wireless) provided. Message and data rates will apply. While we aim to make it as easy as possible for you to talk directly with an expert, we will honor your request not be contacted further. You can easily opt-out of further communications from us by requesting to be placed on our Do Not Call list, by replying “STOP” to our text messages, or by unsubscribing from our email list. Any additional information that you subsequently choose to provide to any third-party entity will be governed by that entity’s privacy policy. Outside of these exceptions, we will not sell, trade or share your personal information with third parties.

Types of Information We Collect

We collect personal information in the normal course of business in order to process your insurance application and to serve you better.

Registering With Us

We begin collecting personal information from you when you register with us. You may register with us through our website by entering your email address and, if you are creating an account, choosing your password.

Applying for Health Insurance and Other Products

If you apply for a health insurance or other product through our website, we may ask you to provide us with personal information and/or health information relating to you and any family member who will be included on your application. This information will be used by your chosen insurance company, agent, HSA trustee or administrator, or government-run exchange or entity to process your application. Additionally, we may ask you to provide us with your credit card, bank information and social security number, which will be used by your chosen insurance company or HSA Trustee or Administrator to process your application or collect any fees associated with your application or insurance premiums upon approval of your application. If you apply through us for government health insurance subsidies or for health insurance sold through a government-run exchange, we will ask you for personal information, including financial, tax filing and household information, that we will pass on to government-run sites and entities responsible for processing such subsidies and applications.

Providing You With a Quote or Processing Your Application

We may use your personal information to get in touch with you when necessary to process your application or to provide you with a quote. For example, emails will be sent to you throughout the application process to inform you of the status of your application and to seek additional information that is requested as part of the application. We may also use phone numbers you provide to send you telephone or text messages about your application or account, and such messages may be automatically sent with an autodialer, an artificial or prerecorded voice, or other automation technology

Third Party Data

We may receive information about you from other sources, including publicly available databases or third parties from whom we have obtained data, and combine this data with information we already have about you. This helps us to update, expand and analyze our records, identify new customers, and provide products and services that may be of interest to you. Examples of the types of personal information that may be obtained from public sources or third parties and combined with information we already have about you, may include: (a) address information from third party sources to verify your address so we can properly communicate with you and to prevent fraud and/or (b) data about our customers from third parties that is combined with information we already have about you, to create more tailored advertising and products.

Customer Satisfaction, Referrals and Other Products

We or our wholly-owned subsidiaries may contact you to survey your satisfaction of our service, refer our products and services to other people, and/or to inform you of additional products and services. You may opt out of receiving these additional communications from us by following the opt-out procedures below.

The Collection and Use of Third Party Personal Information

You may also provide personal information about other people, such as their name, date of birth and gender. This information is only used for the sole purpose of completing your request or for whatever reason it may have been provided. The third party may contact us at (add email) to request that we remove this information from our database.

Aggregate and Non-directly Identifying Information

We gather non-directly identifying information about you for our internal purposes, and we may share this non-directly identifying information with third parties.

As is true of most web sites, we may gather certain information automatically or systematically and store it in log files. This information may include aggregate demographic information such as the number of visitors to our website from a particular state or browser information such as browser type, device type, geographic region, IP address, and other non-directly identifying information. We may combine this automatically or systematically collected data with other information we collect about you. We may do this to improve or optimize our services, marketing, analytics, site functionality, service offerings, or for other business needs.
The strict restrictions we have in place for personal information do not necessarily apply to non-directly identifying information. Because non-directly identifying information is designed to not directly identify individuals, if we change the way we use such information after we have collected it, we may be unable to contact you to notify you of such change.
We use non-directly identifying information primarily for marketing purposes and to improve our websites and the services we offer you, and we may disclose this information to third parties.
We may use cookies, clear gifs, Internet Protocol or IP addresses, tracking pixels, page tags and other similar monitoring technologies to gather non-directly identifying information. For a more detailed discussion on cookies and clear gifs, please see below. Because such technologies develop quickly, we are not limited to using only the technologies described in this policy for collecting or handling this type of information.

Security and Storage of Personal Information

We protect the confidentiality of your personal information

We maintain generally accepted standards for physical, electronic and procedural safeguards to protect your personal information.
For a more detailed discussion of the electronic safeguards on our website, please see below.

We continue to evaluate our efforts to protect your personal information and make every effort yo keep your personal information accurate and up to date.

Upon request HCS Help Online will provide you with information about whether we hold any of your personal information. If your personal information changes, or if you otherwise want to correct, update or delete your personal information held by us, you may contact us by email at (add email) or by phone at (add phone #).
Additionally, you may update your name, email address and password by clicking on the “Sign in” or “My Account” link on this website and signing in using your email address and password. We will respond to your request to access within a reasonable time frame.
We will retain your information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you services. We will retain and use your information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreement.
Please note that once your application has been submitted to your chosen health insurance company or any other relevant party (such as the federal government in the case of an application involving advanced premium tax credits) you may have to contact the insurance company or such other party directly to update your application.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

We will provide notice of changes in our personal information privacy practices.

If we are going to use your personal information in a manner materially different from that states at the time of collection, we will notify you via email or by means of notice on the website prior to changes becoming effective. You will have a choice as to whether or not we use your personal information in this different manor.

If we make any material changes to our privacy policy information practices that do not affect the personal information already in our database, we will notify users of the change in the privacy policy portion of our website.

Opting Out

You may opt out of receiving satisfaction surveys and/or information on additional products and services from us.

We may contact you to survey your satisfaction of our service and/or to inform you of additional products and services.
If you wish to subscribe to our newsletter(s), we will use your name and email address to send the newsletter to you. Out of respect for your privacy, you may choose to stop receiving our newsletter or marketing emails by following the unsubscribe instructions included in these emails, accessing the email preferences in your account settings page or you can contact us at (add email).
If you want to opt out of these surveys and/or notices, you may contact us by email at (add email).
Please note that you will still receive communications from us regarding your insurance quote, application, policy or advanced premium tax credit even if you opt out of receiving our surveys and/or notices of additional products and services.
We are available to answer any questions you may have about our privacy policy or our information privacy practices. If you have any questions, please email us at (add email). We will respond to your questions within 30 days.

Websites Where This Policy Applies

The information privacy practices described in this privacy policy apply only to information provided to us through this website and those websites listed above. Accordingly, all of the personal information you submit to us after initiating an application on this website shall be governed by this privacy policy. Additionally, all of the non-directly identifying information collected from this website shall be governed by this privacy policy.
If you are returning to complete an application that you initiated on another website that is owned or operated by Enhance Health (e.g., a partner co-branded website), this privacy policy may not apply. Please review the privacy policy of the website on which you initiated your application to learn about the information privacy practices that apply to the personal information you submit to us.
If you want your personal information to be subject to the information privacy practices described in this website’s privacy policy, you may initiate a new application on this website.

Tracking Technologies

Cookies or similar technologies are used by us and our business and marketing partners, affiliates, and/or analytics or service providers. These technologies are used in analyzing trends, administering this and other sites, tracking users’ movements around this site and other sites, customizing content on this and other sites, and gathering information about our user base. We may receive reports based on the use of these technologies by these companies on an individual as well as aggregated basis. We use cookies on our site for various purposes such as user authentication, user preferences, our shopping experience, and customizing user experiences. Users can control the use of cookies at the individual browser level. If you reject cookies, you may still use our site, but your ability to use some features or areas of our site may be limited.

Behavioral Targeting/Re-Targeting/Do-Not-Track

We partner with one or more third party ad networks to manage and display advertising to visitors on our website and to manage and display advertising viewed by visitors on other sites. Our ad network partner(s) may use cookies or similar technologies to collect information about your activities on this and other websites to provide you targeted advertising based upon your interests and browsing patterns. Such activity is often called behavioral targeting or re-targeting, and this may change the ads or other features you see on our website or other websites that you visit. Opt-out programs may not be designed to work for all advertising networks or methods. Your browser may also have settings to reduce re-targeting, such as switching to (In)private or incognito browsing mode or a mode that does not accept cookies.

Currently, our site does not change its behavior based on receiving your browser’s “do-not-track” setting or signal. Please note that opting out of re-targeting does not opt you out of being served advertising. You will continue to receive generic ads instead of tailored ads.

Browsers and Internet Security

Any time you enter or provide personal information and sensitive information (such as credit card number and social security number) in our website, we encrypt it using Secure Socket Layer (“SSL”) technology. SSL protects information as it crosses the Internet. To support this technology, you need an SSL-capable browser. HCS Help Online recommends using encryption at least as strong as the 128-bit encryption available in browsers such as recent versions of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer or Google’s Chrome browser. These browsers will activate SSL automatically whenever you begin shopping for a plan on our website and when you return to our website to complete an application.

In most browsers, you will see either a locked padlock or a key icon to indicate your session connection is taking place via a secure server. This icon indicates you are visiting a secure area within a website. If you need a strong encryption browser, you can go to the Microsoft website or the Google website to download the latest Internet Explorer or Chrome browser. We do not recommend the use of beta browser versions.

No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure, however. Therefore, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. If you have any questions about security on our Website, you can contact us at (add email).

Your Password and Other Security Issues

The password you enter when you begin an application on our website is your private entry key into your application. You should never share it with anyone.

If you forget your password, we can send your password through email (provided that you gave us your email address as your user ID when you created an account on our website) or we can help you retrieve your password by calling us toll free at (add phone #) or contacting us through the chat function on our website.

Security Risk of Using Non-Approved Software Applications

For security reasons to guard the safety of your data, access to this website is limited to SSL-capable browsers such as recent versions of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer or Google’s Chrome. Under no circumstance should you use any software, program, application or any other device to access or log-in to the HCS Help Online website, or to automate the process of obtaining, downloading, transferring or transmitting any content to or from our computer systems, website or proprietary software.

Links to Other Websites

Our website contains links to other websites. Please note that when you click on one of these links you are “clicking” to another website. HCS Help Online is not responsible for the information privacy practices or the content of such websites. We encourage you to read the privacy policies of these linked websites as their information privacy practices may differ from ours.

Miscellaneous

We reserve the right to change this Privacy Policy at any time. We will note within the Privacy Policy when it was last updated. Any changes to this Privacy Policy will be effective as of the day they are posted. Use of our Services following these changes signifies acceptance of the revised Privacy Policy.

This Privacy Policy describes our practices for collecting and using information we collect through this website and has been compiled to better serve those who are concerned with how their ‘Personally Identifiable Information’ (PII) is being used online. PII, as described in US privacy law and information security, is information that can be used on its own or with other information to identify, contact, or locate a single person, or to identify an individual in context. Please read our privacy policy carefully to get a clear understanding of how we collect, use, protect or otherwise handle your Personally Identifiable Information in accordance with our website and your use of the calls to action and enrollment platform (collectively the “Site”).

Information that we collect and process includes protected health information or PHI. The privacy and security of your PHI is protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, as amended, (“HIPAA”) and its implementing regulations, including its final privacy regulation, at 45 C.F.R. Parts 160 and 164 (known as the “Privacy Rule”), as administered by the federal Department of Health and Human Services. HIPAA places certain restrictions on the use and disclosure of PHI and requires us to protect the privacy and security of your PHI.

What Personal Information Do We Collect?

We receive and store any information you enter on our Site or give us in any other way. We also collect certain information automatically when you use or visit our Site. Information we collect from visitors of our Site includes information that will be collected automatically using cookies and similar technologies. We also collect information from you, including your name, address and email address and your phone number. We will also collect other demographic and personal information about you, including your PHI which is protected by HIPAA. If you choose to enroll with a health plan on our site, your PHI is transferred through the Site to the health plan you have chosen.

How Do We Use Your Information?

Any of the information we collect from you may be used to personalize your experience and to allow us to deliver the type of content and product offerings in which you are most interested, to improve our website in order to better serve you, and to allow us to better service you in responding to your questions and comments.

The information that is collected with the tools on this Site may be used to assist your enrollment in the health plan you have chosen. You consent to have that information provided to the Site and then transferred to that health plan.

We may also use your information to troubleshoot problems, comply with a legal obligation such as court orders, or other legal process; to establish or exercise our legal rights; to defend against legal claims; or as otherwise required by law, and to respond as required for a corporate transaction, such as a divestiture, investment, merger, consolidation, or asset sale, or other significant matter

How Do We Protect Your Information?

While no website can guarantee complete security, we use commercially reasonable efforts to protect your information, including maintaining adequate physical, procedural and technical security with respect to its offices and informational storage facilities so as to prevent any loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure or modification of your information under our control.

Do We Disclose Any Information to Outside Parties

We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties any of your personally identifiable information we collect from you during visit to the Site except for the transfer to the health plan that you have chosen. We may share your information for processing and storage with third parties that have agreements in place with us to protect the confidentiality and security of information that we transfer to them. This may include our development partners and third parties where the services are hosted.

How Do We Store and Encrypt Your Data?

None of your data is stored on a device. Your data is stored at secure locations that use encryption to protect your data when stored on these computer servers or when storing it with a third party. Your data is also encrypted while it is being transmitted.

Access to Other Data

None of our technologies will request access to other device data or applications, such as your phone’s camera, photos or contacts. None of our technologies share any data with your social media accounts, like Facebook.

California Privacy Policy

CCPA Notice

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), California residents have the right to know what personal information we collect, use, and share about them. California residents also have the right to request that we delete their personal information.

To make a request, please contact us using the information below. We will verify your request before responding.

Children’s Privacy

This website is not intended for use by children under the age of 18. We encourage parents to supervise their children’s activities online. HCS Help Online does not seek or knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13. If we learn that we have received information directly from a child who is under the age of 13, we will take appropriate action in accordance with applicable law.