Our Business Continuity Plan addresses data back up and recovery; all mission critical systems; financial and operational assessments; alternative communications with customers, employees, and regulators; alternate physical location of employees; critical supplier, contractor, bank and counter-party impact; regulatory reporting; and assuring our customers prompt access to their funds and securities if we are unable to continue our business.
Our clearing firm, First Clearing, LLC, backs up our records in a geographically separate area. While every emergency situation poses unique problems based on external factors, such as time of day and the severity of the disruption, we have been advised by First Clearing that its internal objective is to restore its own operations and be able to complete existing transactions and accept new transactions and payments within three hours. Your orders and requests for funds and securities could be delayed during this period.
Privacy Statement
Summit Brokerage Service, Inc.1 ("Summit") is committed to safeguarding the confidential information of its clients. This information includes all personal data that we collect from you in connection with any of the services provided by Summit.
We collect personal information about you for business purposes, such as evaluating your financial needs, processing your requests and transactions, informing you about products and services that may be of interest to you and providing customer service. We collect non-public information about you from the following sources:
- Information we receive from you on applications and other forms (including, but not limited to, your name, date of birth, address, telephone number, e-mail address, social security number, employment information, assets, income, investment experience, and health information);
- Information about your transactions with us, our affiliates and others;
- Information we receive from consumer reporting agencies and other entities not affiliated with Summit.
We limit access to non-public personal information to those employees, representatives and agents who need to know in order to conduct our business, service your account, keep you informed, and help you accomplish your financial objectives, such as providing you with a broad range of services and products. Our employees, representatives and agents are required to maintain and protect the confidentiality of your personal information and must follow established privacy procedures. We maintain physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to protect your personal information.
In the regular course of our business, we may disclose some or all of the non-public personal information described above with our affiliates and with non-affiliated third parties as necessary to effect, administer or enforce transactions that you request or authorize, or in connection with processing or servicing a financial product or service that you request or authorize.
Summit is a fully disclosed introducing securities broker-dealer, and a member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority ("FINRA") and the Securities Investors Protection Corporation ("SIPC"). Our affiliates are companies controlled by us, or companies controlling or under common control with us, including registered investment advisors and insurance agencies, their representatives and agents. Our affiliates currently are Summit Financial Group, Inc., an SEC Registered Investment Adviser; and our affiliated insurance agencies1. Due to the complementary services offered by these affiliates based on the types of investment of the client, non-public client information is necessarily shared between these affiliates as necessary to effect, administer or enforce a transaction, or to process or service a financial product or service that you request or authorize.
The non-affiliated third parties with which we may share non-public client information include financial service providers such as clearing firms, mutual fund companies, investment money managers and insurance companies with whom we have contracted, and in many cases, with whom the client has contracted. Their involvement is essential to the provision of overall service provided by Summit to its clients. The information shared with these non-affiliated companies is not sold or rented to them, nor is it shared with them for marketing or solicitation purposes. We will share non-public information with non-affiliated companies only when they agree to uphold and maintain our privacy standards when handling a customer's personal information.
In addition, we may disclose non-public information with non-affiliated companies and regulatory authorities as permitted or required by applicable law. For example, we may disclose personal information to cooperate with regulatory authorities and law enforcement agencies, or with attorneys, accountants or auditors as necessary to protect our rights and property. Except as described in this privacy policy, we will not use your personal information for any other purpose unless we describe how such information will be used at the time you disclose it to us or we obtain your permission to do so.
Personally identifiable information about you will be maintained during the time you are a client, and for the required time thereafter that such records are required to be maintained by federal and state securities and insurance laws. After this required period of record retention, all such information will be archived or destroyed. In all other respects, the information about former clients is treated in the same manner as information about current clients.
We strive to keep our customer records complete and accurate. We will give you reasonable access to information we have about you. Most of this information is contained in account statements that you receive from us and applications that you submit to obtain our products and services. We encourage you to review this information and notify us if you believe any information should be corrected or updated. If you have any question or concern about your personal information or this privacy notice, please contact our Compliance Department at 1-800-677-8664, or by mail at 980 N. Federal Hwy. Suite 310, Boca Raton, Florida 33432.
1 This is a joint privacy statement applicable to Summit Brokerage Services, Inc. and its affiliates. All policies stated herein apply equally to Summit Brokerage Services, Inc., Summit Financial Group, Inc., SBS Insurance Agency of Florida, Inc., and all affiliated insurance agencies.
Legal Disclaimer
Securities are not FDIC insured, are not guaranteed against market risk and may lose value. All illustrations used on this website are hypothetical and assume certain facts, figures or rates of return. Some illustrations may show how a market index has performed. An investor cannot invest in an index, although there are some investments designed to mirror index performance. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results.
Any guarantees for insurance products are based on the claims paying ability of the issuing insurance company. Annuities are long-term contracts intended for retirement purposes, and should not be purchased with funds for which there will be an immediate or short-term need, as early withdrawals can result in tax penalties and/or surrender charges.
Neither Summit nor any of its registered representatives are permitted to give legal or tax advice on behalf of Summit, its subsidiaries or affiliates. Some individuals who are registered representatives of Summit may be attorneys or accountants and may separately provide tax advice or services under a name other than Summit, its subsidiaries or affiliates. For purposes of an investor's overall financial, estate or retirement plan, Summit highly encourages its investors to obtain the independent advice and services of legal and tax professionals.
