Law and Language
This Terms of Business is subject to English Law and the jurisdiction of the English Courts. If you want to alter this to Scottish Law, the Law of Northern Ireland of any other jurisdiction then you must ensure that the rest of this TOBA is acceptable within those jurisdictions. We will use the English language for all communications, the contractual terms and conditions, and any information we are required to supply to you, before and during the duration of the contract.
Acceptance
The purpose of this agreement is to set out our professional relationship and detail the services we will provide to you. For your own benefit and protection, you should read all of the information carefully and in particular we would like to draw your attention to the “IMPORTANT INFORMATION” section. If you do not agree to any part of the information, please tell us. We assume that you accept the terms and conditions of this agreement unless we hear from you.
The Regulator
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is an independent watchdog that regulates financial services.
The FCA has authorised us to advise, arrange and deal in and assist with the placing and administration of all types of General Insurance policies.
Our FCA number is 306670 and you can check our status and permissions at www.fca.gov.uk/register or by contacting the FCA on 08456061234
Our Fees, Commission and Charges
We usually receive a commission from the insurance provider with whom we place your business, and in such a case, the commission will be paid to us either when we are in receipt of cleared funds from you (or the premium finance company, if one has been used) or, when the insurer has received cleared funds from us in respect of the premium due under your policy. The individual agreements we have with each insurer will determine which of the two methods above is used to make this transfer of commission. We also receive commission for arranging finance agreements for the payment of insurance premiums and this is usually expressed as a percentage of the individual loan and is paid to us directly by the premium finance provider. We may also receive a commission or fee for passing introductions to other professional firms.
In addition, we may make the following charges to cover the administration of your insurance:-
Retail Customers: The charges are as follows:-
New Policies £25.00
Mid term adjustments £25.00
Mid term cancellations £40.00
Duplicate documents £25.00
Commercial Customers:
Duplicate documents £25.00
All other transactions: We will confirm the amount of the administration fee to you, before we proceed with cover or amendment.
Please also note:
- That this fee is non-refundable
- There is a charge of £275 for mid term cancellation
- We reserve the right to charge an hourly rate of £60 per hour in respect of out-of-office client meetings to discuss insurance matters.
Return premiums – No refunds will be made for any sum less than £10 after deduction of our Administration charge. We repay commission to your Insurer and this amount will also be deducted from the sum refunded to you. Our commission is non-refundable
Policies voided or cancelled from inception by insurers will be treated as a cancellation and we will retain any commission and fees before returning the net premium to you. By accepting these terms of business, you agree that we may retain the portion of the premium that relates to commission that would have been due to us.
Specific charges, which apply to individual policies, will be advised to you prior to the commencement of each contract applicable to the policy. The specific charge and purpose of any additional charges will always be advised to you in advance.
You are entitled to request at any time, information about the commissions that we may receive in connection with you insurance, if you want this information please contact us.
Our Service
We can act both as agent of insurer, and on behalf of you, the customer. We have in place management controls to deal with any conflicts of interest that might arise. Unless we advise you otherwise, we are acting on your behalf.
We also act on behalf of insurers when collecting premiums under risk transfer.
We will ask questions to enable us to assess reasonably your insurance requirements, this may include checking information that we already hold about you and your existing arrangements with us and other parties.
We will confirm to you’re the level or service we are providing as part of our sales process.
In all cases our service will include arranging and administering your insurance, including helping you with on-going changes and assisting you if you need to make a claim, or where we outsource claims handling facilities to give you an enhanced service.
If we use the services of another intermediary to place your insurance we will advise you of the name of the intermediary we use and the name of the insurer.
If you mislay your policy at any time, we will arrange a replacement policy document, if you request it.
Our Selection (Fair Analysis)
We offer products from a wide range or insurance companies.
Our selection usually involves presenting to a reasonable number of insurance companies that will insure for the risk at hand, and this is called a fair analysis of the market.
Sometimes we may only approach two or three insurers and this is limited panel, or in some cases, we may only approach one insurer, in either case, we will tell you the basis as part of our selling process. You can also request a list of the companies that form the Panel we have approached.
Money
We will hold money that you pay to us in accordance with the regulators rules or under a risk transfer agreement with insurers. This will include holding your money in the following way:
A statutory trust client bank account that only allows us to use the money held in trust on behalf of a customer for paying that customers’ premium to an insurance company and to pay premium refunds or claims we receive from the insurance company to the customer, once the premium has been received from that insurance company. We cannot use that customer’s money to pay another customers premium or refund. Also for this reason it is not possible for you to offset the refund against premiums owed on another policy. We do not pay any interest on premiums held by us in the course of arranging and administering your insurance, unless, in the case of the consumer transactions we received more than £20 per transaction, and then we will ask for your permission to retain the interest. Unless you tell us otherwise, you are consenting to us holding your money in this way.
By holding your money this way means that in the event that this firm becomes insolvent your money remain protected.
In arranging your insurance we may employ the services of other intermediaries who are regulated by the FCA and your premium may be passed to these intermediaries for payment to insurers. These firms are also required to hold clients’ money in a separate trust account. We will also inform you if at any time we are required to pass your premiums to firms that operate outside the UK where the protection may be different. Should you not wish us to pass premiums to a firm outside of the UK, please inform us.
Payment Options
We will provide you with full details of all the payment options available to you when we provide you with your insurance premium.
If you choose to enter in a finance agreement, this will be subject to interest charges that we will confirm to you when providing the full details. Importantly, the arrangement you will enter into will be with the finance company not us. It is an entirely separate contact irrespective of the insurance contract. In the event of your failure to meet with the contractual obligations regarding payment the finance provider could approach the insurer to seek a termination of the insurance contract to recoup their outstanding financial arrears. You will be liable to pay their costs and charges if you do not keep up your repayments and cover is cancelled under your policy. This is because the agreement is between you, the policyholder and the finance company direct, not us the insurer.
Please note that we only use Close Premium Finance or Premium Credit for the provision of premium finance facilities.
Cancellation
Please contact us if you wish to cancel any policy that we have arranged for you. Customer acting outside their trade profession (consumers) will usually have a legal right to cancel policies for any reason, subject to no claims having occurred, within 14 days of receiving the full terms & conditions. You will always be advised where the Right applies. A charge may apply for the period of cover provided and, in addition, an administration charge will apply as shown in the charges section above, cancellation under this right must be in writing, prior to expiry of the 14-day cancellation period, to our usual office address.
Complaints
Our aim is always to provide customers with a first class service; however we are aware that, occasionally it is possible that we may fail to meet your expectations. If for any reason we have not met your expectations, let us know as soon as possible, by calling our main office telephone 02920 702333, or write to Mark Charles, Charles Insurance Consultants Ltd, 29 Hickman Road, Penarth, CF64 2AL or email mark@charlesinsurance.co.uk
If we are unable to resolve the issue to your satisfaction by the end of the next business day, we will formally investigate the matter. You will receive an acknowledgement of the matter together with a copy of our complaints process promptly and certainly within 5 working days. We will then aim to investigate and provide a resolution as quickly as possible, information you of the position at no later than 4 weeks and a final response no later than 8 weeks.
If you are not happy with our response, or the position after a period of 8 weeks, you may be eligible to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) for an independent assessment and opinion.
The FOS Consumer Helpline is on 0800 023 4567 (free for people phoning from a “fixed line” (for example, a landline at home) or 0300 123 9123 (free for mobile phone users paying monthly charge for calls to No’s starting 01 or 02). Alternatively you can contact them at Financial Ombudsman Service, South Quay Plaza, 183 Marsh Wall, London, E14 9SR. www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk
A full copy of our complaints procedure is available on request
Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS)
If we are unable to meet our obligations, you maybe be entitled to compensation from the FSCS. If we have advised or arranged insurance for you this will be covered for 90% of a claim, without any upper limit, however compulsory classes of insurance (such as motor insurance) is covered for 100% of a claim. Further information is available from the FSCS helpline on 0207 892 7300 and www.fscs.org.uk
The FSCS is the UK’s statutory fund of last resort for customers of authorised financial services firms. Compensation is usually payable if an authorised firm is unable or unlikely to pay claims usually because it has ceased trading or become insolvent.
Termination
You may cancel this agreement with us at any time. You must provide at least 30 days written notice of instructions. We also reserve the right to cancel this agreement at any time. In any event, we will provide you with reasonably sufficient time to re-arrange your insurance and we will notify you of termination in writing with an explanation if appropriate.