Privacy Policy for Benefit Reviews

Benefit Reviews (“we,” “us,” or “our”) respects your privacy and is committed to protecting the personal information of our visitors and users (“you”). This Privacy Policy describes how we collect, use, disclose, and protect your information in accordance with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), and other applicable laws.

We are a private educational organization and are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of any government agency.

We collect personal and non-personal information when you visit our website, fill out forms, request information, or otherwise interact with Benefit Reviews.

The categories listed below reflect our practices in the past 12 months.

• Identifiers: Name, email address, phone number, IP address, and postal address.
• Internet Activity: Browsing history, search activity, and interactions with our website or emails.
• Professional Information: Employment title, employer type (federal, state, local, or private), and similar context you provide.
• Geolocation Data: Approximate location derived from IP address for compliance and marketing analytics.
• Form Submissions: Information you voluntarily submit through contact, guide download, or consultation request forms.
• Calculator Inputs and Sponsored Access Information: The figures you enter into our sponsored educational calculators (such as date of birth, years of service, employment sector, retirement plan, military service dates and basic pay amounts, or sick leave balance) are used only in your browser to produce your estimate and are not transmitted to us. Separately, unlocking a sponsored calculator requires you to provide an email address and accept the sponsored-access terms; that email address, your acceptance details, and your optional newsletter preference are transmitted to us and may be associated with profile information previously collected from you, such as your name, email address, and phone number.

Sources of Information: We collect personal data directly from you (form submissions, email, phone), automatically through your device (cookies and analytics tools), from service providers that help operate our website, and, in some cases, from business partners as described below.

Contacts Supplied by Partners: Separately from the information you give us directly, a business partner may provide us with contact information for people on its own list so that we can send newsletters or invitations to marketing events on that partner's behalf. We treat those partner-supplied contacts differently from information collected directly from you: we use them for the communications the partner arranged, and any reporting we return to that partner is limited to engagement with those communications and derived only from that partner's own supplied contacts. If you received a communication from us and did not sign up on our website, it may be because a partner supplied your contact information. You can opt out of those communications at any time using the unsubscribe option in the message or by contacting us as described in Section 12.

We do not collect sensitive personal information (such as financial account numbers, biometric data, or precise geolocation) unless expressly provided by you for a specific purpose.

We use collected information to:

• Provide and improve our educational services.
• Respond to inquiries or requests you submit.
• Deliver digital materials, guides, or communications you request.
• Personalize your website experience and content.
• Analyze website traffic and performance.
• Comply with legal or regulatory obligations.

We do not sell personal information for money. We disclose your personal information to a partner or calculator sponsor only with your explicit consent, as described in Section 4. Any third-party analytics or service providers (e.g., Google Analytics, HubSpot) are used strictly for service delivery and operational purposes.

Benefit Reviews uses cookies, web beacons, and similar tools to enhance your experience and measure performance.

• Essential Cookies: Required for site operation and form submission.
• Analytics Cookies: Measure site usage and performance (e.g., Google Analytics).
• Preference Cookies: Remember your choices, such as form data or region.

Google Analytics and general HubSpot site tracking remain off until you select “OK” or close the cookie notice. You can opt out from the notice or reopen Tracking Preferences from the footer at any time. We also treat an enabled Global Privacy Control signal as an opt-out choice. The embedded Retirement Roadmap request form is an exception: it loads HubSpot directly so its spam protection and form workflow can operate. Opting out does not prevent you from using the site's other forms or calculators.

We disclose your personal information only in the following limited cases:

• With Service Providers: Hosting providers, analytics vendors, and email delivery services that act on our behalf and under contract.
• For Legal Compliance: When required by law, subpoena, or government request.
• With Your Explicit Consent: We share your personal information with a partner or independent professional only after you have given us your explicit consent to do so — for example, when you ask us to connect you with an independent, licensed professional. We do not share your personal information with a partner without that consent.

Calculator Sponsorship (1plus1equal3, Inc.): Our retirement age, military buyback, and sick leave conversion calculators are sponsored by 1plus1equal3, Inc., a separate company that is not part of Benefit Reviews. Each of these calculators is a sponsored resource: before you can use it, a notice asks you to provide a valid email address and affirmatively accept our Terms and Conditions, this Privacy Policy, and the sponsored-resource terms. Accepting authorizes Benefit Reviews to share the email address you provide, together with profile information we previously collected from you such as your name, email address, and phone number, with 1plus1equal3, Inc. for sales outreach; this sharing happens automatically, in real time, through our HubSpot system, immediately after your acceptance is recorded. The figures you enter into a calculator itself (for example, date of birth, service dates, pay amounts, or sick leave balance) are used only in your browser and are not transmitted to us or to the sponsor. We verify that your acceptance cites our current disclosure terms before any sharing occurs — an acceptance made under outdated or altered terms is recorded as an attempted consent but is not shared with the sponsor, and the calculator remains locked. Every sponsor transfer retains evidence of the applicable consent, recipient, purpose, and covered data categories. If you decline the sponsored-resource terms, no information is shared and the calculator simply remains locked; the rest of our website, guides, and articles stay available to you. Newsletter enrollment is always a separate, optional choice and is never required for calculator access. Depending on your state's law, this consent-based disclosure may qualify as a "sale" or "sharing" of personal information; you may decline or withdraw consent at any time, and you may opt out or make a privacy request as described in Section 5.

Engagement Reporting to Partners: When a partner supplies its own contacts for newsletters or marketing events (see Section 1), we may report back to that partner how those communications performed. That reporting is derived only from the contacts that partner supplied. It does not include personal information about our other website users, and it does not include information from any other partner's contacts.

We have not sold personal information for money in the preceding 12 months. Apart from the consent-based sharing (including the calculator sponsorship described above) and partner-reporting practices described in this section, we have not otherwise disclosed personal information for a partner's independent use during that period.

Under the CCPA/CPRA, California residents have the right to:

• Know: Request a copy of the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected.
• Delete: Request deletion of your personal information, subject to legal exceptions.
• Correct: Request corrections to inaccurate information.
• Opt-Out: Decline any sale or sharing of personal information. We do not sell personal information for money, and we disclose it to partners or calculator sponsors only with your explicit consent or as part of the partner engagement reporting described in Section 4. You may decline calculator-sponsor sharing by declining the sponsored-resource terms (the calculator then remains locked and nothing is shared), and you may withdraw consent or request deletion of previously shared information at any time by contacting us as described in Section 12.
• Limit Use of Sensitive Data: You may request we limit use of any sensitive information (though we typically do not collect it).
• Non-Discrimination: Exercise your rights without discrimination or changes to service quality.

To exercise your rights, email us at info@benefitreviews.com or complete our Privacy Request Form below (also linked in the footer of our website). We will verify your identity before processing requests.

Appeal Process: If we deny your request, you may appeal by emailing info@benefitreviews.com with “Privacy Appeal” in the subject line.

You may also designate an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf.

We retain each category of personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfill the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, comply with applicable laws, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements. When data is no longer needed, we securely delete or de-identify it in accordance with 11 CCR §7011(e)(6).

We implement reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect your data against unauthorized access, loss, misuse, or disclosure. However, no electronic transmission or storage method is completely secure. You use our site at your own risk.

Our site is not directed toward children under the age of 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from them. If we learn that we have inadvertently collected such information, we will promptly delete it.

Our website may include links to third-party sites (e.g., government resources or educational partners). We are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of those external sites. We encourage you to read their privacy policies.

Our website is intended for U.S. audiences. If you access it from outside the United States, your information may be transferred to and processed in the U.S.

We may update this Privacy Policy periodically. Any material changes will be posted on this page with an updated “Effective Date.” Continued use of our website after updates constitutes your acceptance of the revised policy.

If you have any questions, privacy concerns, or wish to exercise your rights, contact us at:

Accessibility: This Privacy Policy is designed to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1 AA).