Our Terms of Business Agreement
West Norfolk Insurance Services Ltd, 24 Tuesday Market Place, King’s Lynn, PE30 1JJ
Telephone: 01553 774301.
Website: www.westnorfolkinsurance.co.uk
The Regulator
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is an independent watchdog that regulates financial services. OurFinancial Services Register number is 308373 and you can check our status and permissionsat https://register.fca.org.uk/ or by contacting the FCA on 0800 111 6768.
Law and Language
This Terms of Business Agreement is subject to English Law and the jurisdiction of the English Courts. 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.
Our activities
The FCA has authorised us to advise, arrange, deal in and assist with the placing and administration of all types of General Insurance policies and pure protection policies. We are also authorised to undertake the following Consumer Credit Activities: Credit broking (where we act as a credit broker), Debt administration and Debt collecting.
Our service to you
We are an independent insurance intermediary who can act both as agent of insurer and on behalf of you, the customer in sourcing and placing insurance. Our services include: advising you on your insurance needs, arranging your insurance cover with insurers to meet your requirements, helping you
with any on-going changes you have to make. As part of our service, we will assist you with any claims you need to make and advise you of your responsibilities in relation to making a claim. 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 (see “Money” section).
We will ask questions to enable us to assess reasonably your insurance requirements which may include checking information we already hold about you and your existing arrangements with us and other parties.
We will provide you with advice and guidance, after assessing what you want and need and recommend a suitable policy based on our experience of dealing with similar risks.
We will confirm to you the level of 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. 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.
Demands and Needs
You will be provided with a statement of your demands and needs as part of our sales process and you can request a copy at any time during the lifecycle of your insurance arrangement with us.
Our Product Selection (Fair and Personal Analysis)
We usually offer products from a range of insurers, representing a fair and personal analysis of the market. For some products such as legal expenses and breakdown insurance and non-standard risks we may only offer products from a single insurer. We will advise where this is the case. In certain circumstances, we may use the services of another intermediary to place your insurance, and we will advise you where this is the case.
If you would like to see a list of the insurance companies that we deal with, please ask. To make sure you get the best offers from insurers, and to protect you from fraud and verify your identity, some of our insurers may use publicly available data from a variety of sources, including credit reference agencies. This has no impact on your creditworthiness although a record of the search may appear on your record, and the information is dealt with in total confidentiality by them. If you have any objections to this being carried out, please let us know.
Method of Communication
Whilst you do have a choice in the way we communicate with you, we will principally provide you with information using postal means. During the process of dealing with us you can request to receive information in a different way, meaning if you would like information in an electronic format, we will be happy to provide it. We may also send reminders in the format of SMS text messages.
Conflict Management
Whilst we act in the capacity of agents for our product providers (i.e., the insurance companies we do business with) we are required to have in place appropriate governance controls to help us meet our regulatory objectives, and have in place effective organisational controls, including appropriate supervision to ensure we manage any and all conflicts of interests which may arise or may be identified from time to time, including gifts and benefits granted and accepted, which may damage the interests of our relationship with either our distributors one or more customers.
Our Customers Best Interests
Our primary aim is to ensure, for any customer (or potential customer) that we act honestly, fairly and professionally and in the customers best interest including giving customers information they might need to understand the relevance of any information we provide, as well as objectively giving that information when it is most useful to a customer to enable informed decision making.
Financial Strength
We regularly assess the financial strength of the Insurance Companies and other intermediaries that we deal with. The process usually involves general observation of the financial ratings applied by independent rating agencies such as Standard & Poor’s and A M Best published with other readily available information within industry guides, newsletters, and press releases. Whilst we take care to deal with companies that maintain reasonable solvency margins, we cannot guarantee their financial ability to pay claims.
Money
Under the terms of our agreements with the insurance companies with whom we place business, we normally accept money as agents of the insurer. In most cases you have the additional protection of insurance companies accepting that monies you pay to us are treated as being received by them (Risk Transfer). 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 that 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. 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 consumer transactions we receive 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 in this way, means that in the event that this firm becomes insolvent your money remains protected.
By holding your money in this way, means that in the event that this firm becomes insolvent your money remains protected.
In cases where risk transfer has not been granted to us, we will ask you to pay the insurer directly. We will advise you where this is the case and help arrange this for you. Additionally, in arranging your insurance, we may employ the services of other intermediaries who are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, and your premium may be passed to these intermediaries for payment to insurers.
Insurance Premium Tax (IPT)
Your premium detailed in the policy will include IPT at the prevailing rate. Should the rate of IPT be amended by the Government, your premium will be amended by the insurer to reflect the change.
Important Information Consumers: You must take reasonable care not to make a misrepresentation to the insurer. This means that all the answers you give and statements you make as part of your insurance application, including at renewal and when an amendment to your policy is required, should be honest and accurate. If you deliberately or carelessly misinform the insurers, this could mean that part or all of a claim may not be paid.
Commercial customers: If the insurance is arranged wholly or mainly for purposes related to your trade, business or profession, you have a duty to disclose all material facts whether or not the insurer asks for specific information. This duty applies throughout the life of your policy and when you renew your insurance. Material facts are any facts which may influence the insurer’s decision to accept the policy and / or what terms are applied. Failure to disclose a material fact may invalidate your insurance and could mean that your claim will not be paid.
No claims discount
If you advise us that you are entitled to a no-claims discount on your insurance, you will be given 30 days from the inception of the policy to provide us with evidence of this. If you are unable to provide us with this evidence, we will ask you to pay an increased premium. If we cancel your policy because you have failed to provide us with proof of no-claims and failed to pay the higher premium, the time on risk charge will be based on what the premium would have been without any no-claims discount.
Cancellation
During cooling off period: You have the right to cancel up to 14 days after receiving your policy documentation if the policy does not meet your requirements. If you cancel within the cooling off period, you will be charged a pro-rata time on risk charge as well as your insurer’s administration fee if applicable. We will also make an administration charge equal to the commission we would have earned on your policy.
After cooling off period: If you wish to cancel your insurance after the cooling off period you may be entitled to a return of premium for the unused part of the policy (in accordance with your insurer’s cancellation scale) from your insurer. We will make an administration charge equal to the commission we would’ve earned on your policy. In both instances, if you make a claim on your policy no refund will be allowed and if any payments are outstanding, they will still be payable. If you owe money on another policy, we have the right to use any refund against that. The 14-day cooling off period does not necessarily apply to commercial customers.
Fees, charges and our remuneration
We usually receive a commission from the insurance provider with whom we place your business, and this is expressed as a percentage of the premium you pay 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. This means that the amount you pay for credit and the overall cost of arranging your insurance will vary according to the interest charged by the lender and the amount of commission we earn.
Using premium finance makes the overall cost of the insurance more expensive. A full breakdown of the cost of your insurance and the cost of credit will be provided as part of your new business or renewal quotation before you make a decision whether to proceed.
In addition to the commission paid to us by the insurer and your premium finance provider (where applicable), we will make an administration charge of £15 for consumer products and up to £50 on commercial products for the following: new business, renewals, mid-term adjustments. Policy cancellations will be subject to a cancellation fee of £25. In the event of you cancelling your policy, our commission will also be deducted from any refund which you may be entitled to.
Commission on a commercial business
You may request details of commission we receive from insurers and on request, we will also provide you with a list of those insurers with whom we are able to place the particular product arranged.
Payment by instalments
You can pay your premium by instalments if you require. 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 arrangement, your details will be passed to a third party (insurer or lender) to enable them to contact you and you should contact us at the address given in this document if you do not want your details passed to that party. This finance arrangement 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 contract 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 finance 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 or the insurer.
It is important that you read the finance agreement that is sent to you before you agree to enter into such an agreement. We do not charge any fees to you for introducing you to a credit provider. If you are a consumer as defined under the Consumer Credit Act, you will have the benefit of a 14 day cooling off period. Please note that we only use Premium Credit for the provision of premium finance facilities.
Please Note: Your policy cover will cease if you fail to keep up payments on an installment agreement or premium finance facility related to it.
Ownership
There is no ownership between any insurer and ourselves.