Privacy Policy

HoundDog is committed to safeguarding your Personal Information. This Privacy Policy explains our privacy commitment to you-- what information we collect, how we collect information from you, who we disclose information to, and how we protect your information. This Privacy Policy applies to your use of the Services within the United States in accordance with applicable laws.

You should read the entire Privacy Policy below for full details.  If you do not agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy, then we cannot provide our Services to you, and you should stop accessing the Services and deactivate any HoundDog Account which you have created.

‍Information We Obtain

In the normal course of our business, we may store and process Personal Information that you make available to us when accessing or using our Services including;

  • Registration, Enrollment, and Account Information.  When you create a HoundDog Account and access our Services or update the details of your HoundDog Account, you are voluntarily giving us Personal and Business Information. Personal Information may include your business name, personal name, address, email address, account number with HoundDog, financial information and any other information provided on a certificate of insurance or general insurance application.
  • Information pertaining to your business or employment, including your business name (both its legal name and your “DBA” name); business ownership structure; length of time in business; the type of work you do; the number of employees or contractors you employ; the types of work your subcontractors do; type of work your employees do; estimated payroll (overall business and per employee); the time of day your employees work; employee names; business owners’ and officers’ names (state/location, name, date of birth, title, ownership percentage, duties, class code, payroll); location of workers and employees; concentration of employees and group transportation; employee turnover; employee activities with higher risks, background checks, safety, and hiring; FEIN and other state unemployment identifications and/or tax identifications; employee age(s); whether employees are seasonal or volunteers; the types of employees you hire; whether you lease or lease out employees; your company’s business and other business revenue metrics; the insurance status for workers and subcontractors; and other information required for general review and underwriting decisions.  If the information you provide includes Personal Data of individuals (including your employees), you represent that you have provided notice to that third party and have obtained his or her consent.
  • Information pertaining to your business vehicles and equipment. The type of vehicles and equipment you have, the number of vehicles you have, your vehicle identification number(s) (VIN), the address where the vehicle is registered (with the DMV), the address where the vehicle is parked overnight, the name of the vehicle’s registered owner, the ownership status of the vehicle (i.e., leased, financed, owned), the name of the leaseholder (if applicable), the primary use of the vehicle and annual miles driven, the year you were first licensed in the United States, any previous auto accidents and/or incidents, your driver’s license number.
  • Current and Past Insurance Information. Generally we're tracking down current insurance information but on a case by case basis we may need past insurance history information.
  • Any Information Provided In Communication with the HoundDog team: Information you provide or submit to the HoundDog team via in person, contact form, social media, email, chat, phone or other means of communication.
  • ‍Social Network Services Information:  When you sign in, or engage, with our Services through Social Network Services, you are agreeing to give us on-going access to your Personal Information that you have provided to the Third-Party Account, to the extent allowed by your settings with the Third-Party Account and authorized by you.  This may include, your public profile, friend list, people you follow or who follow you, your email address, birthday, work history, education history, interests, current city, religious and political views, website, personal description, and likes, and your friend’s birthdays, education histories, personal descriptions, and likes. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of Third-Party Accounts that are linked from our Services.
  • Your Events On Our Website. We will collect information regarding your account activity, page views, and other information regarding your Account. Information is also collected using automated technologies, including web server logs that compile IP addresses, web beacons, and cookies.
  • Third Party Social Plugins:  Our Platform may use social plugins which are provided and operated by third parties (e.g., Facebook’s “like” button).  As a result, you may send to that third party the information that you are viewing on a certain part of our Platform.  If you are not logged into your account with the third party, the third party may not know your identity, but if you are logged into your third party account, then the third-party may be able to link information about your visit to our Platform to your account with them. Similarly, your interactions with the plugin may be recorded by the third party. Please refer to the third party’s privacy policy to find out more about its data practices.
  • ‍Survey Information:  From time to time, we may ask you to complete surveys relating to your experiences with the Services.  In connection with same, we may obtain your demographic information (e.g., city, state, account ID, date of birth) and other Personal Information.
  • Information from Other Sources or Combined by Us:  We may combine information from outside sources to customize your experience using the Services.
  • Mobile Information:  We may collect additional information from you if you use our Platform through a mobile device (e.g., your unique device identifier, location, geospatial or GPS/geolocation).
  • Log Data Information:  We may also receive, store and process “log data”, which is information that is automatically recorded whenever you access or use the Platform, regardless of whether you are registered with HoundDog or logged into your HoundDog account, such as your IP address, the date and time you accessed the Platform, the hardware and software you are using, referring and exit pages and URLs, the number of clicks, device event information, pages viewed and the order of those pages, and the amount of time spent on particular pages.
  • Cookies and Technical Usage Information:  Like many companies, we use cookies and other tracking technologies to enhance your experience with HoundDog or for a variety of other purposes. These may include HTTP cookies, HTML5 Local Storage, web beacons/GIFs, embedded scripts and e-tags/cache browsers. We use both session and persistent tracking technologies.  Tracking technologies (e.g., cookies) can either be persistent (i.e., they remain on your computer or mobile device until you delete them) or temporary (i.e., they last only until you close your browser or mobile application).

We may also obtain other Personal Information about you if necessary from consumer reporting agencies, insurance agents, insurers and unaffiliated third parties, public records and other sources.  Information collected about you may include information related to your marital status, employment history, income, assets, credit score, credit history, open lines of credit, the size of your household, health, or transactions with us or others.

‍How We Use Your Information

HoundDog collects information from you for a variety of purposes including:

  • For account creation and logon purposes. If you have chosen to link your HoundDog account to a third party (such as an insurance agent), we use the Personal Information you allowed us to collect from those thier parties to facilitate account creation and/or logon purposes.
  • ‍To Verify Insurance and Track Insurance on Your Behalf. HoundDog uses machine learning and automation using your Personal Information to facilitate and improve insurance verification and tracking process.
  • ‍To Provide Continual Improvement With Our Products and Services. We use your Personal Information to provide superior products and services to you, to make sure that what we know about you is correct and complete, to conduct analysis for our business, to prevent crimes, for other normal business administration and related services, and as otherwise required or permitted by applicable law.
  • To Provide Complementary Services and Products. The HoundDog team will continually improve our insurance verification and tracking platform. As we continually improve, to provide a better experience for our customers, we will use your information to help develop complementary additional products and services.
  • When Assisting Agents, Brokers, and Carriers. HoundDog may, from time to time, help agents, brokers, agencies, brokerages and carriers solve insurance procurement, verification, and tracking challenges. For example, a HoundDog teammate may contact an agency on behalf of one of our HoundDog customers, to assist in insurance verification we're having trouble tracking down. ‍
  • When HoundDog engages Third Parties. We may, either directly or through third parties we engage to provide services to us, review, scan or analyze your communications with our Services for fraud prevention, risk assessment, regulatory compliance, investigation, product development, research and customer support purposes.
  • To Respond To Legal Requests. If we receive a legal request, we may need to inspect the data to determine how to respond appropriately.

Your information is retained for as long as we need it for our business and to provide you with insurance distribution and other services as well as in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.  When it is no longer necessary for us to retain your information, we will discard the information in accordance with the applicable law.

‍To Whom We (May) Share Your Information‍

  • Within the Affiliates of HoundDog. We may share Personal Information with HoundDog and it's affiliates in order to service and process your transaction with us, to offer you other products that may be of value to you, and for other reasons we have noted above.  
  • To Non-Affiliated Third Parties. We may share Personal Information to insurers, reinsurers, insurance intermediaries, brokers, underwriters, insurance reference bureaus, medical service providers, fraud detection agencies, our advisers, loss adjusters, lawyers, accountants, and others involved in the claims handling process (“Disclosure”).  Additionally, to guaranty funds or agencies, applicable rating agencies of the financial institution, persons assessing our compliance with industry standards, and our attorneys, accountants, and auditors.
  • When Engaging with Service Providers and Insurers in the U.S. We may disclose the Personal Information to companies that perform services on our behalf and to the insurers with whom we work.  We ask all service providers and insurers not to disclose your Personal Information other than to perform the specific services which we have requested
  • When Engaging Service Providers in Other Countries. We may transfer, store, use and process your information, including any Personal Information to other countries.  Please note that laws vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and so the privacy laws applicable to the places where your information is transferred to or stored, used or processed in, may be different from the privacy laws applicable to the United States.
  • If There is an Acquisition or Merger Event. If HoundDog is sold or merges with another company not owned by HoundDog, you should expect that some or all of your Personal Information may be transferred, sold to, or assigned to the purchaser. In such a case, HoundDog will seek to obligate the acquiring company to use any Personal Information transferred in a manner consistent with our Privacy Policy, but cannot guarantee that it will be imposed by the acquiring company.
  • If Required By Law To Do So. HoundDog may access, preserve and disclose your Personal Information if required to do so by law or in a good faith belief that such access, preservation or disclosure is reasonably necessary:  (a) to respond to claims asserted against HoundDog; (b) to comply with legal process (e.g., subpoenas and warrants); (c) to enforce and administer our agreements with users; (d) for fraud prevention, risk assessment, investigation, customer support, product development and de-bugging purposes; or (e) to protect the rights, property or personal safety of HoundDog, its users or members of the public.

‍How We Protect Your Information

HoundDog utilizes Amazon Web Services ("AWS") for data storage. Information regarding Amazon Web Services data management and security measures can be found on their website. https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/data-privacy-faq/

We treat what we know about you confidentially and protect your personal information using security measures, including encryption of Personal Information.  We maintain physical, electronic and procedural safeguards to protect your information in accordance with applicable state and federal law.  We restrict access to your information to those persons who have a business need for such information.

Despite all our safeguards, no electronic transmission or information storage technology can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. So we cannot promise or guarantee that cybercriminals or other unauthorized third parties will not hack through our security and improperly access, steal or modify your information.

If your information is accessed by unauthorized entities, we will seek to notify you in compliance with the applicable law.

We will make every effort to safeguard your Personal Information in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy.  If you terminate your relationship with us, we will continue to limit the disclosure of your Personal Information as if you were still a customer in accordance with our then current version of this Privacy Policy.

‍Requesting, Updating and Deleting Your Information

‍If you wish, or need, to update or delete your account or Personal Information, you may do so through the HoundDog Platform or otherwise contacting HoundDog.  

‍Residents of California‍

HoundDog may collect Personal Information from sources other than the individual applying for insurance coverage through the Services.  Such Personal Information may, in certain cases, be disclosed to third parties without your authorization as permitted by law.  If you would like additional information about the collection and disclosure of Personal Information, please contact HoundDog.  You may also act upon your right to see and correct any Personal Information in HoundDog’s files by writing to us to request this access. HoundDog will not share Personal Information it collects about you with affiliates or third parties, except as required or permitted by your state’s law.

Updates To This Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to change this Privacy Policy at any time at our discretion.  If we change this Privacy Policy, we will post the current Privacy Policy on the Platform.  Any changes to our Privacy Policy will be effective as of the day they are posted online.  You may request a copy of our current Privacy at any time by contacting HoundDog.

Most recent update: 10/20/2021.

‍