The Medicare Resource Center's Privacy Policy for California Residents

Revised: September 2020

Introduction

Thank you for your interest in The Medicare Resource Center (“The Medicare Resource Center,” “we,” “us,” or “our”). This Privacy Policy for California Residents (“California Privacy Policy”) applies to personal information of California residents relating to the following websites owned and operated by The Medicare Resource Center, and our other websites where we post this document as a supplement to the applicable Privacy Policy, along with any related websites, networks, applications, insurance agent and representative services, and communication channels (including online chat and telephone call centers), and other services provided by us:

We adopt this California Privacy Policy to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”) and other California privacy laws. This California Privacy Policy supplements the information and disclosures in our Privacy Policy. Any terms defined in the CCPA have the same meaning when used in this policy.

Please note that certain personally identifiable information, specifically Protected Health Information (“PHI”), is governed by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”) and is not subject to the CCPA. If you wish to exercise your rights under HIPAA, you should contact your health insurance carrier to make that request.

If you are receiving communication from The Medicare Resource Center about our products or services and do not wish to do so, please let us know by emailing us at [email protected] or calling us at 888-601-6334.

Categories of personal information we collect

We may collect the following types of personal information from you or from third parties that identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly with a particular consumer (i.e., you) or household (“personal information”). Specifically, we may have collected the following categories of personal information within the last twelve (12) months since this policy was last updated:

Please note personal information does not include:

Publicly available information from government records.
De-identified or aggregated consumer information.
Information excluded from the CCPA’s scope, like:
health or medical information covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and the California Confidentiality of Medical Information Act (CMIA) or clinical trial data;
personal information covered by certain sector-specific privacy laws, including the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FRCA), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) or California Financial Information Privacy Act (FIPA), and the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act of 1994.

How do we collect personal information?

We collect your personal information in a variety of ways, often directly or indirectly from you. This may occur by:

The use of forms or direct interaction with you where you provide personal information to us;
Your interaction with our website(s), including page clicks, time spent, or other automatically collected meta-data; and
Internet cookies;

We may also collect your personal information from third parties, including:

Data brokers or lead generators;
Social media services, like Facebook;
Publicly available databases;
Affiliates;
Business partners

We may receive your personal information about you from third parties like these 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.

How do we use personal information?

We collect personal information in the normal course of business in order to process your insurance application and to serve you better. We may use or disclose the personal information we collect for one or more of the following business purposes:

To fulfill or meet the reason for which the information is provided. For example, if you provide us with personal information in order for us to shop for a health plan, we will use that information to prepare information about various plans for you.
To provide you with information, products or services that you request from us.
To provide you with email alerts, event registrations and other notices concerning our products or services, or events or news, that may be of interest to you.
To carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contracts entered into between you and us, including for billing and collections.
To improve our website and present its contents to you.
For testing, research, analysis and product development.
As necessary or appropriate to protect the rights, property or safety of us, our clients or others.
To respond to law enforcement requests and as required by applicable law, court order, or governmental regulations.
As described to you when collecting your personal information or as otherwise set forth in the CCPA.
To evaluate or conduct a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of our assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which personal information held by us is among the assets transferred.

We will not collect additional categories of personal information or use the personal information we collected for materially different, unrelated, or incompatible purposes without providing you notice.

Sharing personal information

We may disclose your personal information to a third party for a business purpose. When we disclose personal information for a business purpose, we enter a contract that describes the purpose and requires the recipient to both keep that personal information confidential and not use it for any purpose except performing the contract.

In the preceding twelve (12) months, we may have disclosed the following categories of personal information for a business purpose:

We disclose your personal information for a business purpose to the following categories of third parties:

Our affiliates.
Service providers.
Third parties to whom you or your agents authorize us to disclose your personal information in connection with products or services we provide to you.

In the preceding twelve (12) months, we have not sold any California resident’s personal information.

Your rights and how to exercise them

Beginning January 1, 2020, the CCPA provides California residents with specific rights regarding their personal information. This section describes your rights under CCPA and explains how to exercise those rights.

Access to specific personal 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 right to know and right to delete

To exercise the rights described above, please submit a verifiable consumer request to us by either:

Calling us at 1-888-601-6334
California Consumer Request Form

Only you or a person 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 total), we will inform you of the reason and extension period in writing. We will deliver our response by mail or electronically, at your option. Any disclosures we provide will only cover the 12-month period preceding our receipt of your request. The response we provide will also explain the reasons we cannot comply with a request, if applicable. For right to know requests, we will select a format to provide your personal information that is readily usable 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.

Changes to our California Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to amend this privacy notice at our discretion and at any time. When we make changes to this privacy notice, we will notify you by email or through a notice on our website homepage.

Contact information

If you have any questions or comments about this notice, our California Privacy Policy, the ways in which we collect and use your personal information, your choices and rights regarding such use, or wish to exercise your rights under California law, please do not hesitate to contact us at:

Phone: 1-888-601-6334
Website: www.medrecen.com
Email: [email protected]

Postal Address
Customer Service
The Medicare Resource Center
16750 Hedgecroft Dr. Suite 500
Houston, TX 77060

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.

Should you have general questions about our privacy practices, please see our Privacy Policy.