Personal Information Statement for employers’
Group Benefits plans

In this Statement, “you” and “your” refer to the plan member or holder of rights under the contract, the insured and the parent or guardian of any child named as insured who is under the legal age for providing consent. “We”, “us”, “our” and “the Company” refer to The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company and our affiliated companies and subsidiaries.

Updates to this Statement and further information about our privacy practices are posted to www.manulife.ca.

We collect, use, verify and disclose your personal information for identified purposes, and only with your consent, or as permitted or required by law. By clicking below, you give your consent for us to collect, use, and disclose your personal information, as set out in this Personal Information Statement. Any alterations to the consent must be agreed to in writing by the Company.

What personal information do we collect?

Depending on the product you have applied for, we collect specific personal information about you and our family such as:

  • Identifying information such as your name, address, telephone number(s), email address your date of birth
  • Social Insurance Number (SIN) where required for purposes such as income reporting and identification purposes if used as my certificate number
  • Information about how you use our products and services, and information about your preferences, demographics, and interests
  • Based on our relationship with you, other personal information we may require administering our business with you
  • Medical information, banking and employment data as appropriate to administer benefits

We use fair and lawful means to collect your personal information.

Where do we collect your personal information from?

Depending on the product you have applied for, we collect specific personal information about you and your family from these sources when required:

  • Your completed applications and forms
  • Other interactions between you and the Company,
  • Other sources, such as:
    • Your advisor or authorized representative(s)
    • Third parties with whom we deal in issuing and administering your benefits, now and in the future
    • Public sources, such as government agencies, and internet sites
    • Your Employer/Plan Sponsor
    • Health care professionals, including medical practitioners, health care institutions, pharmacy and any other medically-related facility
    • Other insurance carriers to coordinate benefits
    • Administrators of government benefits and other benefit programs

What do we use your data for?

We will use your personal information to:

  • Help us properly administer the products and services that we provide and to manage our relationship with you
  • Perform independent medical assessments pursuant to the terms of your benefits plan,
  • Confirm your identity and the accuracy of the information you provide
  • Evaluate your application, and issue and administer your benefits
  • Comply with legal and regulatory requirements
  • Perform audits and investigations
  • Understand more about you and how you like to do business with us
  • Analyze data to help us make decisions and understand our customers better so we can improve the products and services we provide
  • Determine your eligibility for, and provide you with details of, other products or services that may be of interest to you

Who do we disclose your information to?

  • Persons, financial institutions and other parties with whom we deal in issuing and administering your benefits, now and in the future
  • Authorized employees, agents and representatives
  • Your advisor and any agency which has entered into an agreement with us and has supervisory authority, directly or indirectly, over your advisor, and their employees
  • Any person or organization to whom you gave consent
  • People who are legally authorized to view your personal information
  • Service providers who require this information to perform their services for us (for example data processing, programming, data storage, market research, printing and distribution services and investigative agencies)

Absent any contractual obligations or legislative requirements that may apply to your plan, the abovementioned people, organizations and service providers are both within Canada and jurisdictions outside Canada and would therefore be subject to the laws of those jurisdictions.

Where personal information is provided to our service providers, we require them to protect the information in a manner that is consistent with our privacy policies and practices.

How long do we keep your information?

The longer of:

  • the time period required by law and by guidelines set for the financial services industry, and
  • the time period required to administer the products and services we provide.

Withdrawing your consent

You may withdraw your consent for us to use your SIN if applicable, for non-tax administration purposes. You may also withdraw your consent for us to use your personal information to provide you with other service or product offerings, excluding plan statements.

You may not withdraw your consent for us to collect, use, retain or disclose personal information we need to issue, administer and adjudicate your benefits the plan/contract/account/policy, unless federal or provincial laws give you this right. If you do so, your benefits may not be issued and will not be payable under the plan/contract/account/policy or we may treat your withdrawal of consent as a request to terminate benefits.

If you wish to withdraw your consent, phone our customer service centre at 1-800-268-6195, or write to the Privacy Officer at the address below.

Accuracy and Access

You will notify us of any change to your contact information. You have the right to access and verify your personal information maintained in our files, and to request any factually inaccurate personal information be corrected, if appropriate. If you have a question, a concern, wish to receive more information about parties who have access to your information or about our privacy policies and procedures, and/or wish to review your personal information in our files or correct any inaccuracies, you may send a written request to:

Privacy Officer
Manulife
500 King Street N
Waterloo, ON N2J 4C6

Privacy_office_canadian_division@manulife.ca

Please note the security of email communication cannot be guaranteed. Do not send us information of a private or confidential nature by email. By contacting us via email you are authorizing us to communicate with you by email.