Privacy Policy

The privacy policy outlined below discloses the specific ways in which RetireGuide.com functions, how you should use it or can use it, how we collect user information and how that information is handled and protected. Your privacy is important to RetireGuide.com, and we’re committed to making sure it is protected. This privacy policy only applies to RetireGuide.com. We use your information only in the ways described below. The examples in this privacy policy are for illustration.

Agreement to This Policy

By using this website, you consent to this privacy policy, including your consent to our use and disclosure of information about you in the manner described in this privacy policy.

Information Collection and Use

The information we collect about you we get directly from you through applications, contracts, documents and forms that you completed or signed. Information from our telephone conversations with you is also compiled.

With your authorization, we may obtain additional information about you or others who may have an interest in your insurance policy, annuity contract or primary residence, from additional sources, including your insurance company, insurance producer, health care providers, creditors, credit reporting agencies and your representatives or advisors. With your authorization, we may also obtain information about you from public records and other persons.

We may also obtain the following types of non-public, personal information about you:

1. Personal information, such as your name, address, social security number, driver’s license number, occupation and employer
2. Financial information, such as assets, income, credit history, banking information and account numbers
3. Legal information, such as judgments, liens, bankruptcies, divorces, probate, and other civil and criminal court proceedings
4. Other identifying information, such as birth date, telephone and fax numbers, and email, street, and mailing addresses
5. Insurance or annuity policy information, including the policy terms, conditions and limits, the named beneficiaries, and your premiums and payment history
6. Medical information, such as your current health status and prior health care treatments

Disclosure About Sharing Your Information

Only with your consent will RetireGuide.com rent or sell your non-public personal information to anyone. If required by law, we will disclose your information. Only with your permission will we disclose your non-public personal health information to our affiliates and non-affiliated companies that provide services for us related to a transaction you request.

Also with your authorization, we will disclose your nonpublic personal health information to entities that provide us with financing or financial support for a transaction that you request. As permitted by law and with your authorization, we may disclose your health information to allow our authorized representative to contact you for purposes of determining your current health status.

Sharing Regarding Products and Services

If you submit a request for information or services concerning annuities, structured settlements, insurance and cash advances, you will be asked to provide your personal information (such as your full name, email address and phone number). We share your information with non-affiliated businesses within our network of partners that provide a product or service that you desire. If we share with one or more of these non-affiliated entities in order to fulfill your request, the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information is subject to the privacy policy of that entity. Our partner business may contact you by phone, email or regular mail based on information you provided. This is true even if you opted into the national Do Not Call List administered by the Federal Trade Commission or if you opted into a state equivalent of the Federal Do Not Call List. If one of our partner businesses contacts you by phone and you do not wish to be called again by that entity, you should follow the guidelines set up by the Do Not Call List and specifically request not to be called again. Please note that our partner businesses may maintain the information you provided even if you do not elect to use their services. We will share your information with 3rd parties, including Senior Market Sales (SMS), GoHealth and/or an independent insurance agency or agent if you have indicated you are interested in purchasing annuities and/or insurance products.

As permitted by law or with your authorization, we will share your non-public personal financial information (1) with our affiliates and non-affiliated companies that provide services for us related to a transaction you request and (2) under the following additional circumstances:

1. To establish or exercise our legal rights or defend against legal claims: We reserve the right to disclose your personally identifiable information, as required, to comply with the law, applicable regulations, governmental and quasi-governmental requests, judicial proceedings, court orders or subpoenas, to enforce our Legal Notices or other agreements, or to protect our rights, property or safety or the rights, or to protect the property or safety of our users or others (e.g., to a consumer reporting agency for fraud protection etc.), and to ensure the security of our network and services.
2. In connection with a proposed or actual sale, merger, transfer, exchange or consolidation of any portion of our business: In the event RetireGuide.com goes through a business transition, such as a merger, acquisition by another company, or sale of all or a portion of its assets, your personally identifiable information will likely be among the assets transferred to the extent that you voluntarily provided it. You will be notified via e-mail and/or a prominent notice on our website for 30 days of any such change in ownership or control of your personal information.
3. To secure services and advice from our attorneys, accountants and auditors.

As required or permitted by law, we may also disclose your nonpublic personal financial information for other purposes or to other persons with your authorization.

Your Computer Cookies

For better and faster service when you return to our website, cookies may be placed on your browser. A cookie is coded data that is stored on your hard drive, which enables us to understand your use of our website. With these tools, we can determine the number of unique users accessing the various pages on the site and improve flow and content for your future visits. A cookie cannot obtain information from your hard drive, destroy files, or transmit viruses. Each website can send its own cookie to your browser, if your browser’s preferences allow it. To protect your privacy, your browser normally only permits a website to access cookies that it has previously sent to you, but not the cookies sent to you by other sites.

We do track users who come to our site. We use cookies to evaluate what browser you are using, what pages you land on and read and how long you are on these pages. If you go away from RetireGuide.com and then return again, we can track you over time as a repeat visitor unless you have cleaned out the cookies from your computer. This cleaning is also known as clearing your computer cache. If you do clear your cache – or if your browser is set up so that it does not utilize cookies – we will not track your navigation on our site. We do not share this user data with partners, affiliates or affiliate websites.

Choices about Cookies

You can normally configure your browser to accept all cookies, reject all cookies, or notify you when a cookie is set. (Each browser is different, so check the Help menu of your browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences.) If you reject all cookies, you will still be able to use RetireGuide.com services. Cookies are used only as an option selected by you that allows us to recall your email address from the cookie that we sent to your computer.

Our Former Customers

Information about our former customers is used in the same manner as we use information about our current customers.

Transfer of Ownership and Sales of Assets

In the event that RetireGuide.com goes through a business transition, such as a merger, acquisition by another company, or sale of all or a portion of its assets, your personally identifiable information will likely be among the assets transferred to the extent that you voluntarily provided it. 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.

Spam, Spyware

We do not tolerate spam or spyware coming to our website or going to our users through our website. If you suspect you received spam or spyware because you used RetireGuide.com, please make us aware of the issue by alerting us with an email to webmaster@RetireGuide.com. You are not permitted to use our website to spam or send spyware to a third party.

Confidentiality and Security

Non-public personal information we receive about you has restricted access. Only the employees of RetireGuide.com who need to know your information to provide products or services have access to your information. We maintain physical, electronic and procedural safeguards, in accordance with applicable state and federal standards, to protect your personal financial information against risks such as loss, destruction or misuse. These measures include computer safeguards, secured files and buildings, and restrictions on who may access your personal information. In the event of a system compromise, RetireGuide.com will implement all reasonable measures to ensure the integrity of the website’s database is protected and ensure proper notice is provided under the law.

Your privacy and confidentiality is protected by non-affiliated companies to whom we disclose your nonpublic personal information do not have any independent right to use your information under privacy and confidentiality agreements.

The accuracy of your information is a responsibility of you and RetireGuide.com. We maintain the accuracy of the information you provide us and when you notify us of a change we will update your information. Please contact us at the address below or, for faster service, email us at webmaster@RetireGuide.com when information concerning you changes.

Testimonials

If you submit a testimonial to us, we will ask for your permission to post your testimonial prior to any public use. We will post your name as given to us in your testimonial. If we use a photograph of you, we will only use one that you provide to us. We do not use stock photos with testimonials. Please be aware that any personally identifiable information you submit as a testimonial to be posted can be read, collected, or used by the general public and could be used to send you unsolicited messages. We are not responsible for the personally identifiable information you choose to include in any testimonial you choose to submit. If at any time you decide to remove your testimonial, please contact us via email or postal mail.

Contacting Us

If you have any questions, concerns or suggestions about our Privacy Policy or anything else about RetireGuide.com, you can send and email to:

webmaster@RetireGuide.com

Any information sent to us through email is not encrypted by us.

Data Storage/User Information

All RetireGuide.com account information (including names, phone numbers, and mailing addresses) and content of email messages are stored on multiple redundant disk storage systems. No removable offline copies or backups are made. If you request deletion of your email address or any other identifiable information, your information will be deactivated and removed from our user registration database within 30 days.

In reviewing the information above, please keep in mind RetireGuide.com cannot and does not assume any responsibility for any actions or omissions of third parties, including other website users, including the manner in which they might use information received either from RetireGuide.com or independently.

Content on RetireGuide.com

We work hard to ensure the articles on RetireGuide.com are quality ones. We research all of our articles and quality-control them to make sure we have accurate facts. If you find errors on the site, feel free to contact us and let us know what you found.

Linked Websites

We cannot control the content of sites linking to or from RetireGuide.com. As a result, we are not responsible for that content, nor can we make representations to the content of those websites or their individual privacy policies.

Notice to California Residents

Residents of the State of California may request a list of all third parties to which this website has disclosed certain information during the preceding year for those third parties’ direct marketing purposes. If you are a California resident and want such a list, please contact us at webmaster@RetireGuide.com.

For all requests, you must put the statement “California Shine the Light Privacy Request” in the body of your request, as well as your name, street address, city, state, and zip code. Please note that we are not responsible for requests that are not labeled or sent properly, or that do not have complete information.

Notice to Users Outside of the United States

This privacy policy is intended to cover collection of information on our websites from residents of the United States. If you are visiting our websites from outside the United States, please be aware that your information may be transferred to, stored and processed in the United States where our servers are located and our central database is operated. The data protection and other laws of the United States and other countries might not be as comprehensive as those in your country. By using our services, you understand that your information may be transferred to our facilities and those third parties with whom we share it as described in this privacy policy.

Updates to our Privacy Policy

RetireGuide.com updates or modifies this privacy policy from time to time. If we make material changes to this privacy policy or to how RetireGuide.com will use your personal information, we will post those changes here. We reserve the right to make changes in this policy at any time. Please check the policy each time you use our website to ensure that you are aware of any changes in our privacy practices. Our privacy policy will indicate the date when it was updated. Your continued use of our website will signify your acceptance of the changes to our privacy policy. If you do not agree with the changes to how your information will be used, please do not continue to use our website. By using this website, you signify your consent to the RetireGuide.com privacy policy. If you do not agree to this policy, please do not read or use RetireGuide.com. When you request rate quotes or other information through RetireGuide.com, you are authorizing us to share your information with our business partners, affiliates or associates who will contact you by phone, email, or mail. If you do not want further communication from them, please notify the business associates directly.

From time to time, we may add new websites that may or may not be listed in this privacy policy. Please note that this policy applies only to the information collected through this website and not to websites maintained by other companies or organizations to which we link. In addition, this policy applies only to information collected by RetireGuide.com online or offline.

CCPA

This PRIVACY NOTICE FOR CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS supplements the information contained in our current Privacy Statement and applies solely to visitors, users, and others who reside in the State of California (“consumers” or “you”). We adopt this notice to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”) and other California privacy laws. Any terms defined in the CCPA have the same meaning when used in this notice.

Your Rights and Choices

The CCPA provides consumers (California residents) with specific rights regarding their personal information. This section describes your CCPA rights and explains how to exercise those rights.

Access to Specific Information and Data Portability Rights

You have the right to request that we disclose certain information to you about our collection and use of your personal information over the past 12 months.

Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request, we will disclose to you:

• The categories of personal information we collected about you.
• The categories of sources for the personal information we collected about you.
• Our business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling that personal information.
• The categories of third parties with whom we share that personal information.
• The specific pieces of personal information we collected about you (also called a data portability request).
• If we sold or disclosed your personal information for a business purpose, two separate lists disclosing:
  • sales, identifying the personal information categories that each category of recipient purchased; and
  • disclosures for a business purpose, identifying the personal information categories that each category of recipient obtained.

Deletion Request Rights

You have the right to request that we delete any of your personal information that we collected from you and retained, subject to certain exceptions. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request, we will delete (and direct our service providers to delete) your personal information from our records, unless an exception applies.

We may deny your deletion request if retaining the information is necessary for us or our service providers to:

• Complete the transaction for which we collected the personal information, provide a good or service that you requested, take actions reasonably anticipated within the context of our ongoing business relationship with you, or otherwise perform our contract with you.
• Detect security incidents, protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, or prosecute those responsible for such activities.
• Debug products to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality.
• Exercise free speech, ensure the right of another consumer to exercise their free speech rights, or exercise another right provided for by law.
• Comply with the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (Cal. Penal Code § 1546 seq.).
• Engage in public or peer-reviewed scientific, historical, or statistical research in the public interest that adheres to all other applicable ethics and privacy laws, when the information’s deletion may likely render impossible or seriously impair the research’s achievement, if you previously provided informed consent.
• Enable solely internal uses that are reasonably aligned with consumer expectations based on your relationship with us.
• Comply with a legal obligation.
• Make other internal and lawful uses of that information that are compatible with the context in which you provided it.

Exercising Access, Data Portability, and Deletion Rights

Only you, or a person registered with the California Secretary of State that you authorize to act on your behalf, may make a verifiable consumer request related to your personal information. You may also make a verifiable consumer request on behalf of your minor child.

You may only make a verifiable consumer request for access or data portability twice within a 12-month period. The verifiable consumer request must:

• Provide sufficient information that allows us to reasonably verify you are the person about whom we collected personal information or an authorized representative.
• Describe your request with sufficient detail that allows us to properly understand, evaluate, and respond to it.

We cannot respond to your request or provide you with personal information if we cannot verify your identity or authority to make the request and confirm the personal information relates to you. Making a verifiable consumer request does not require you to create an account with us. We will only use personal information provided in a verifiable consumer request to verify the requestor’s identity or authority to make the request.

Response Timing and Format

We endeavor to respond to a verifiable consumer request within 45 days of its receipt. If we require more time (up to 90 days), we will inform you of the reason and extension period in writing. If you have an account with us, we will deliver our written response to that account. If you do not have an account with us, we will deliver our written response by mail or electronically, at your option. Any disclosures we provide will only cover the 12-month period preceding the verifiable consumer request’s receipt. The response we provide will also explain the reasons we cannot comply with a request, if applicable. For data portability requests, we will select a format to provide your personal information that is readily useable and should allow you to transmit the information from one entity to another entity without hindrance.

We do not charge a fee to process or respond to your verifiable consumer request unless it is excessive, repetitive, or manifestly unfounded. If we determine that the request warrants a fee, we will tell you why we made that decision and provide you with a cost estimate before completing your request.

Non-Discrimination

We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your CCPA rights.

Unless permitted by the CCPA, we will not:

• Deny you goods or services.
• Charge you different prices or rates for goods or services, including through granting discounts or other benefits, or imposing penalties.
• Provide you a different level or quality of goods or services.
• Suggest that you may receive a different price or rate for goods or services or a different level or quality of goods or services.

PLEASE PRINT AND RETAIN A COPY OF THIS PRIVACY POLICY FOR YOUR RECORDS.