The Guard Company LLC Privacy Policy


For residents, citizens or current visitors of the European Union Only

We take the privacy of our customers very seriously and are committed to protecting your privacy. This policy explains how we collect, use and transfer your personal data, and your rights in relation to the personal data stored by us when you use our website or otherwise engage with our services.

This policy sets out the following:
  • What personal data we collect about you and how;
  • How the data is used;
  • Our legal basis for collecting your information;
  • Who we share your data with;
  • Where we transfer your information;
  • How long we retain your information;
  • Your rights and choices in relation to the data held by us;
  • How to make a complaint in relation to the data held by us; and
  • How to contact us with any queries in relation to this notice, or the personal data held by us.
  • It also contains information about how we use cookies on our website.
Who is The Guard Company LLC?

Visitor Guard® provides the best value in travel insurance for visitors to the USA, Canada, and other foreign countries. The website VisitorGuard.com is operated by The Guard Company, LLC., based in Virginia, USA. The company focuses on protecting the health, life, and interests of visitors to the USA, new immigrants, and exchange students.

The company functions as an insurance agency to design, market, sell and service insurance plans from many insurance carriers and plan administrators. The company and (or) its employees are licensed to offer the insurance products. The insurance professionals here at The Guard Company, LLC are experienced and focused on finding each client the best solution to meet their individual needs.

What is personal data?

In this privacy notice, references to “personal information” or “personal data” are references to data that can be used to identify you. Some examples of personal data are your name, address, and telephone number but it may also include information such as your IP address and location.

What personal data do we collect?
  • Information that you provide involuntarily

In order to provide services to you we may ask you to provide personal information. This may include, amongst other things, your name, email address, postal address, telephone number, gender, date of birth, passport number, bank account details, credit history and claims history. The personal information that you are asked to provide and the reasons why you are asked to provide it, will be made clear to you at the point at which we ask you for it.

Some of the information that you provide may be “sensitive personal data”. “Sensitive personal data” includes information relating to your physical or mental health, racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, sexual life, criminal history, trade union membership, or religious beliefs.

  • Information that we collect automatically

When you visit our website, we may collect certain information automatically from your device. In some countries, including countries in the EEA, this information may be considered personal information under applicable data protection laws.

Specifically, the information we collect automatically may include information like your IP address, device type, unique device identification numbers, browser-type, broad geographic location (e.g. country or city-level location), and other technical information. We may also collect information about how your device has interacted with our Website, including the pages accessed and links clicked.

Collecting this information enables us to better understand visitors to our website, where they come from, and what content on our website is of interest to them. We use this information for our internal analytics purposes and to improve the quality and relevance of our website to our visitors.

Some of this information may be collected using cookies and similar tracking technology, as explained further under the heading “Cookies” below.

  • Information that we may obtain from third party sources

From time to time, we may receive personal information about you from third-party sources but only where we have checked that these third parties either have your consent or are otherwise legally permitted or required to disclose your personal information to us.

For example, if you are an individual who is obtaining insurance from us via an insurance broker, we may obtain data about you from your broker in order to help us prepare your quote and/or your insurance policy. For information about how your broker uses and shares your personal data, please refer to the broker’s own privacy statement.

We may also collect personal data from the following sources in order to provide services to you:

  • Credit reference agencies;
  • Anti-fraud and other databases;
  • Government agencies;
  • Electoral register;
  • Court judgments;
  • Sanctions lists;
  • Family members; and
  • In the event of an insurance claim: the other party to the claim, witnesses, experts, loss adjusters, solicitors, and claims handlers.
How is personal data used?

We may need to use your personal data in order to carry out the following activities:

  • To set you up as a new client (including carrying out ‘know your customer’ checks);
  • To provide you with an insurance quote;
  • To accept payments from you;
  • To communicate with you about your policy;
  • To renew your policy;
  • To obtain reinsurance for your policy;
  • To process insurance and reinsurance claims;
  • For general insurance administration purposes;
  • To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
  • To model our risks;
  • To defend or prosecute legal claims;
  • To investigate or prosecute fraud;
  • To respond to your inquiries; or
  • When you sign up for an online account;
Our legal basis for collecting your information

If you are from the EEA, our legal basis for collecting and using your personal data will depend on the personal data concerned and the specific context in which we collect.

However, we will normally collect personal data where we need the information to provide you with our services / perform a contract with you, where the processing is in our legitimate interests and not overridden by your data protection interests or fundamental rights and freedoms, or with your consent.

In some cases, we may use your personal data for a legal obligation, e.g. in order to complete ‘know your customer’ and money laundering checks before taking you on as a new client.

If we ask you to provide personal information to comply with a legal requirement or to perform a contract with you, we will make this clear at the relevant time and advise you whether the provision of your personal information is mandatory or not (as well as of the possible consequences if you do not provide your personal information). You are under no obligation to provide personal data to us. However, if you should choose to withhold requested data we may not be able to provide you with certain services.

Similarly, if we collect and use your personal information in reliance on our legitimate interests (or those of any third party), we will make clear to you at the relevant time what those legitimate interests are.

If you are a UK resident, we may collect and use your personal information, including sensitive personal information, on the basis of the substantial public interest of insurance purposes, as regulated in the UK Data Protection Bill.

If you have questions about or need further information concerning the legal basis on which we collect and use your personal information, please contact us using the contact details provided under the “Contact Us” section below.

Who is your personal data shared with?

We may disclose your personal information with the following categories of recipients.

  • To our group companies, third-party service providers and partners who provide data processing service (for example, to assist in the performance of our services) or who otherwise process personal information for purposes that are described in this Privacy Notice (see “How does The Guard Company LLC use my personal data?”). A list of current service providers according to the plan can be viewed at https://ppo-network/;
  • To any competent law enforcement body, regulatory, government agency, court, or other third parties where we believe disclosure is necessary (i) as a matter of applicable law or regulation, (ii) to exercise, establish or defend our legal rights, or (iii) To protect your vital interests or those of any other person;
  • To a potential buyer (and its agents and advisers) in connection with any proposed purchase, merger, or acquisition of any part of our business, provided that we inform the buyer it must use your personal information only for the purposes disclosed in this Privacy Notice;
  • To any other person with your consent to the disclosure.
International Transfers

Your personal data may be transferred to, and processed in, countries other than the country in which you are a resident. These countries may have data protection laws that are different to the laws of your country.

Specifically, the servers of The Guard Company LLC. are located in the United States. However other insurance companies are registered elsewhere, including in the EEA, and operate around the world. This means that when we collect your information when you purchase a plan it may be processed in any of these countries.

However, we have taken appropriate safeguards to require that your personal data will remain protected in accordance with this Privacy Notice. These include implementing the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses for transfers of personal information between our group companies, which require all group companies to protect personal information they process from the EEA in accordance with European Union data protection law.

Our Standard Contractual Clauses can be provided on request. We have implemented similar appropriate safeguards with our third-party service providers and partners and further details can be provided upon request.

How long is personal information retained?

We will keep your personal data on our records for as long as we have an ongoing legitimate business need to do so. This includes providing you with a service you have requested from us or to comply with applicable legal, tax, or accounting requirements. It also includes keeping your data for so long as there is any possibility that you or we may wish to bring a legal claim under your insurance contract, or where we are required to keep your data for legal or regulatory reasons. Please contact us using the contact details provided under the “Contact Us” section below should you require further information on our Record Retention procedures.

We may also retain your personal data where such retention is necessary in order to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of another natural person.

Your Rights as a Data Subject

Your principal rights under data protection law are as follows:

  • The right to access;
  • The right to rectification;
  • The right to erasure;
  • The right to restrict processing;
  • the right to object to processing;
  • The right to data portability;
  • The right to complain to a supervisory authority; and
  • The right to withdraw consent.
  • In addition, if you are a resident of the European Union, you can object to the processing of your personal information, ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information, or request portability of your personal information.
  • You have the right to opt-out of the marketing communications we send you at any time. You can exercise this right by click on the “unsubscribe” or “opt-out” link in the marketing e-mails we send you or contact us using the details provided under the “Marketing” heading below.
  • Similarly, if we have collected and processed your personal information with your consent, then you can withdraw your consent at any time. Withdrawing your consent will not affect the lawfulness of any processing we conducted prior to your withdrawal, nor will it affect the processing of your personal information conducted in reliance on lawful processing grounds other than consent.
  • You have the right to complain to a data protection authority about our collection and use of your personal information. For more information, please contact your local data protection authority. (Contact details for data protection authorities in the European Economic Area, Switzerland, and certain non-European countries (including the US and Canada) are available here.)

We respond to all requests we receive from individuals wishing to exercise their data protection rights in accordance with applicable data protection laws.

You may exercise any of your rights in relation to your personal data by contacting us via our contact page.

Automated decision making

In some instances, our use of your personal information may result in automated decisions being taken (including profiling) that legally affect you or similarly significantly affect you.

Automated decisions mean that a decision concerning you is made automatically on the basis of a computer determination (using software algorithms), without our human review. For example, in certain instances, we may use automated decisions to establish whether we will offer insurance coverage to a prospective insured. We have implemented measures to safeguard the rights and interests of individuals whose personal information is subject to automated decision-making.

When we make an automated decision about you, you have the right to contest the decision, to express your point of view, and to require a human review of the decision.

Marketing

As mentioned above, we may use your personal data to send you marketing materials.

If you would like to stop receiving marketing information from us, please unsubscribe by clicking the “unsubscribe” link in the relevant marketing email, or write us at:

The Guard Company LLC
4870 Sadler Road,
Suite 300, Glen Allen, VA 23060
Phone: (804) 325-1385
https://www.visitorguard.com/contact/

Security

The Guard Company LLC places great importance on the security of all personal data associated with our customers. We have security measures in place to attempt to protect against the loss, misuse, and alteration of personal data under our control.

For example, our security and technology policies are periodically reviewed and enhanced as necessary, and only authorized personnel have access to user information. We use Secured Socket Layer (SSL) to encrypt the financial information you input before it is sent to us. The servers we use to store personal data are kept in a secure environment.

Whilst we cannot ensure or guarantee that loss, misuse, or alteration of data will not occur, we use our best efforts to prevent this.

Cookies

Our sites use cookies (a small piece of information that is placed on your computer when you visit certain websites) to distinguish you from other users, to track your browsing pattern, and to build a profile of how you and other users use our sites. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse any of our sites and also allows us to improve our sites. If you have an online account with us, The Guard Company LLC also uses cookies to recognize you to pre-fill forms to save you time. The Guard Company LLC does not mandate Cookies for you to access our sites and you may freely set your browser to reject all Cookies or prompt you to accept or reject them. Some of the cookies we use are session cookies and only last until you close your browser, others are persistent cookies that are stored on your computer for longer. We may collect information through web beacons about your web browsing activities such as the address of the page you are visiting, the address of the referrer page you had previously visited, the time you are viewing the page, your browsing environment, and your display settings. We do this in order to optimize your browsing experience, the use of web-based services and provide you with relevant information on The Guard Company LLC products and services when you have opted-in to receiving such correspondence. For further information about The Guard Company LLC’s use of cookies, see The Guard Company LLC’s Cookie Policy.

Updates to this Privacy Notice

We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time in response to changing legal, technical, or business developments. When we update our Privacy Notice, we will take appropriate measures to inform you, consistent with the significance of the changes we make. We will obtain your consent to any material Privacy Notice changes if and where this is required by applicable data protection laws.

Updates to this Privacy Notice

We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time in response to changing legal, technical, or business developments. When we update our Privacy Notice, we will take appropriate measures to inform you, consistent with the significance of the changes we make. We will obtain your consent to any material Privacy Notice changes if and where this is required by applicable data protection laws.

You can see when this Privacy Notice was last updated by checking the “last updated” date displayed at the top of this Privacy Notice.


Guard Company LLC Privacy Policy

For non-European Union citizens

The Guard Company LLC respects individual privacy and values the confidence of its customers, employees, business associates, and others. This Privacy Policy informs you of the way your information is collected online, how that information is used, and how we protect this information.

Collection of Information

When visiting our website, you are an anonymous visitor. The Guard Company LLC only recognizes a visitor’s IP address and does not collect any information without the visitor voluntarily providing such information.

When requesting a quote, The Guard Company LLC may ask for basic information about you (e.g. date of birth, citizenship, home country). Only after you have decided to complete an Application for Insurance do we ask for more detailed personal information (e.g. name, social security number, address).

User Information

The Guard Company LLC uses the information collected in one or more of the following ways:

  • Process orders/applications and to make and fulfill requests for additional information
  • Provide customer service and/or support
  • Provide you with insurance documents
  • Communicate with you and/or your agent about your application or policy
  • Update you on new products, services, or benefits
  • Verify the identity of an insured or applicant
  • Aggregate site visitor analysis

The Guard Company LLC will not give or sell your personal information to third parties outside The Guard Company LLC unless ordered to do so to comply with the law of the countries in which we do business or when complying with the legal process.

Security

To ensure that online transactions and data are protected, The Guard Company LLC uses advanced encryption technology through the use of 128-bit Secure Socket Layer. This technology allows The Guard Company LLC to use advanced encryption tools to protect all important information transmitted between the outside source and the internal server.

The Guard Company LLC restricts access to personal information to employees who need to know that information in order to perform their jobs. Any employee that The Guard Company LLC determines is in violation of this policy will be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination and criminal prosecution.

Data Integrity

The Guard Company LLC will use personal information only in ways that are compatible with the purposes for which it was collected and in accordance with this Policy. The Guard Company LLC will take reasonable steps to ensure that personal information is relevant to its intended use, accurate, complete, and current. However, we depend on our policyholders, producers, and users to update their personal information when necessary.

Cookies

Cookies are tiny files that are placed on your computer to uniquely identify your internet browser. The Guard Company LLC only utilizes cookies to track session information after an insured or producer has logged into one of The Guard Company LLC secure zones of our website (e.g. ClientZone, ProducerZone, StudentZone). You can configure your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, doing so will prevent you from accessing these secure areas.

Access and Correction

Upon request, The Guard Company LLC will grant individuals reasonable access to personal information that it holds about them. In addition, The Guard Company LLC will take reasonable steps to permit individuals to correct, amend, or delete information that is clearly demonstrated to be inaccurate or incomplete except where the burden or expense of providing access would be disproportionate to the risks to the individual’s privacy in the case in question, or where the rights of persons other than the individual would be violated.

Important Privacy Choices

You have the right to opt out of or prevent the disclosure of non-public personal financial information to non-affiliated third parties, other than those permitted by law. This option applies to the insurance products and services that The Guard Company LLC provides to you. Presently, The Guard Company LLC does not share or exchange such information. If you would like more information about your options and rights to opt out of information sharing, please call The Guard Company LLC at 804-325-1385, or write to The Guard Company LLC at the address provided below. If you have previously opted out, please be assured that your election will remain effective. You do not need to call unless you wish to change your selection.

Contact Information

Questions or comments regarding this Privacy Policy should be submitted to the Compliance Department of The Guard Company LLC by mail or e-mail as follows:

The Guard Company LLC
Attention: Compliance Department
4870 Sadler Road

Suite 300, Glen Allen, VA 23060
https://www.visitorguard.com/contact/

Changes to this Policy

This Policy may be amended from time to time. A notice will be posted on the web page for The Guard Company LLC (www.visitorguard.com) for 60 days whenever this Privacy Policy is changed in a material way.