What we do with your information, in plain English.
We need personal information to arrange insurance for you. We use it for that, and for the records the law requires us to keep. We do not sell it. This page explains what we collect, where it goes, and what you can ask us to do about it.
LAST UPDATED 3 SEPTEMBER 2026 · APPLIES TO sandsinsurance.ca AND ALL S&S BRANCHES
How does S&S handle my personal information?
We collect only what is needed to quote, arrange and service your insurance, and to meet our obligations as a brokerage licensed in British Columbia. We share it with insurers and the markets that price your risk, and with service providers who help us operate. We do not sell it or rent it to advertisers. You can ask to see what we hold, correct it, or withdraw marketing consent at any time.
What we collect and why
What we collect through this website
Your name and contact details, what you want insured, when your current policy renews, how you would like us to reply, and anything you choose to tell us in your own words.
What we do not collect through this website
We do not ask for your date of birth, driver’s licence number, social insurance number, vehicle identification number, banking details or payment card details on any web form. If a quote needs those, a broker asks you directly.
Why we collect it
To answer your enquiry, quote and place your insurance, service the policy, help with claims, and keep the records that licensing rules require of a brokerage in British Columbia.
Who we share it with
Insurers, so they can price and underwrite your policy. Wholesale brokers and managing general agents where a specialist market is involved. Adjusters and other parties where a claim requires it. Service providers who help us operate, under contract. Anyone else only with your consent, or where the law requires it.
How we are paid
We are paid in two ways, and you are entitled to know about both.
For most policies we receive a commission from the insurer, calculated as a percentage of the premium. On some policies we may also receive additional or contingent commission, which depends on the volume or the claims performance of the business we place with that insurer over a year. On some policies we also charge you a broker fee on top of the premium. That fee is paid to us, not to the insurer, and it is not refunded if the policy is cancelled. If a fee applies to your policy, we will tell you the amount before you agree to buy it.
We disclose this because the rules we work under as a licensed brokerage in British Columbia require brokers to be open about how they are paid, and because you are entitled to know it. Commission does not change what you pay. Neither commission nor a fee decides where we place your business, that is decided by what covers your risk properly. If you want to know how we are paid on your own policy, ask your broker and we will tell you.
Where your information is kept
Our own systems are in Canada.
This website is hosted in Canada. Enquiries you send through the website are received and managed in HubSpot (opens in a new tab), our customer relationship system, which is configured to store its data in Canada.
Your policy records are held in Applied Epic (opens in a new tab), the broker management system we use to quote, issue and service insurance.
But some information can be held or handled outside Canada.
Two things can take your information beyond Canada. The first is placement: when we place your risk with an insurer or market that is foreign-owned or based outside Canada, your information goes to them and is handled under the laws of the country they operate in. That is how insurance placement works, and some coverage cannot be arranged without it. The second is the services we use, some of them are operated by companies based outside Canada, and parts of their systems may run outside Canada too.
Where information is held outside Canada, it may be accessible to the courts and authorities of that country. We say so plainly rather than leave you to assume otherwise.
We remain accountable for your information wherever it goes, and we require the parties we work with to protect it to a comparable standard.
If you would rather not send information through this website, call or visit any branch.
What happens when you use this website
Before you press submit.
Our enquiry forms send what you type directly from your browser to HubSpot. HubSpot also sets a cookie, so that if you come back later your new enquiry can be matched to your earlier one.
Cookies, and what they are for.
Necessary cookies keep the site working. They remember the cookie choice you made, and our hosting provider sets cookies that keep pages loading quickly and help block automated abuse. These cannot be switched off without breaking the site.
Analytics cookies are optional. We use Google Analytics and HubSpot to see which pages people find useful, how they arrive, and where they give up. Google Analytics reports on visits and is not used to identify you. HubSpot works differently in one way worth saying plainly: if you later send us an enquiry, it links the pages you read beforehand to that enquiry, so the broker picking it up can see what you were looking at. Neither is used to build advertising profiles, and we do not sell or share what either tells us.
If you decline the optional cookies, neither of these loads at all. Nothing about your visit is measured, and the site works exactly the same.
Our cookie notice gives you a real choice rather than a single button that means yes, and you can change that choice at any time from the link in the footer. Refusing the optional ones costs you nothing on this site.
The companies we rely on
We are a brokerage, not a software company, so we use established services to run parts of the business. Each publishes its own privacy policy, and you can read exactly what they do with information by following the links below.
HubSpot, receives and manages enquiries sent through this website. Configured to store its data in Canada. Their privacy policy: legal.hubspot.com/privacy-policy (opens in a new tab)
Applied Systems (Applied Epic), the broker management system that holds policy records. Their privacy policy: appliedsystems.com/en-ca/privacy-policy (opens in a new tab)
Kinsta, hosts this website, on servers in Canada. Their privacy policy: kinsta.com/legal/privacy-policy (opens in a new tab)
Google Analytics, reports on how the website is used, if you accept analytics cookies. Google’s privacy policy: policies.google.com/privacy (opens in a new tab)
These are large providers with their own security practices, and we do not control how their systems are built or where every part of them runs. What we control is what we send them, what we require of them by contract, and the fact that we stay accountable to you for your information wherever it sits. That accountability is not something we can hand off, and we would not want to.
Your rights, and how to use them
Under British Columbia’s Personal Information Protection Act you can ask us to:
See what we hold
Ask for a copy of the personal information we have about you, how it has been used, and who we disclosed it to. Put the request in writing, which an email meets. We respond within the time the law allows.
Correct it
Tell us anything wrong or out of date. Where we agree, we correct it and pass the correction to anyone we shared it with in the past year. Where we do not agree, the law says your requested correction must be noted on the record, and we do that.
Withdraw consent
Stop marketing at any time. Withdrawing consent we need in order to service a policy may limit what we can do for you, and we will tell you if that is the case.
How long we keep it
For as long as you are a client, and afterwards for the period our regulatory and legal obligations require. Then it is securely destroyed.
Marketing
We only send marketing to people who ticked a box saying yes. The box is never pre-ticked, we record when and how permission was given, and every message has a one-click unsubscribe.
If something is wrong
Talk to your broker first. Most concerns are a misunderstanding about what a policy covers, and the person who arranged it can often clear it up quickly.
If that does not resolve it, ask for the branch manager.
For anything about your personal information specifically (what we hold, how it has been used, or a request to correct it) write to our Privacy Officer at office@sandsinsurance.ca, or call 604-324-5711.
S&S Insurance Services Ltd., 6607 Main St, Vancouver, BC V5X 3H3
If we cannot resolve your concern, you may contact the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia.
If we change this policy, the date at the top changes with it.