Terms of Business
The Regulator
UK Special Risks Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. Our FSA Register Number is 300289. You can check this on the FSA Register by visiting www.fsa.gov.uk or by telephone to 0845 606 1234. Our permitted business is arranging General Insurance Contracts.
Status
UK Special Risks Ltd is an independent insurance broker acting on your behalf in arranging insurance.
Service
Our service includes advising you on your insurance needs, arranging your insurance cover with insurers to meet your requirements and helping you with any ongoing changes you may have to make. Headstone insurance is a non-advised product sourced from a single provider. For our mutual protection and training purposes telephone calls may be monitored or recorded.
Products
- We offer products from a range of insurers from across the wider market place and will advise and make a recommendation after we have assessed the information you have provided.
- We may offer products from a limited number of Insurers, Lloyds Syndicates or specialist brokers for certain types of insurance including contractors, designers and the medical/health industry. Please ask us for a list of those Insurers.
- For some types of insurance such as travel, legal benefits and headstone insurance, we deal exclusively with a single insurer, which we have selected as offering good service and value for money.
We may pass client money to another broker who we may use to arrange a specific type of cover. We will make it clear to you where our proposals include these facilities or arrangements and where we have not investigated alternatives on your behalf. We will give you full details of any such arrangement before you make any commitment on any product we recommend.
We normally accept payment by cheque, Debit Card or by Premium Finance agreement. We are registered under the Consumer Credit Act under reference 521221
Remuneration
In the normal course of our business we receive commission from Insurance Companies with whom we place business. We shall only withdraw commission after we have received the premium from you, and in accordance with FSA regulations and agreements held with Insurers.
The amount of commission earned in respect of the insurance contract will be disclosed to commercial clients upon request.
Where we make a charge to cover the administration of your insurance this would normally be in the region of £15 - £100 dependant upon the type of insurance and the work involved. In all cases, this will be notified to you before you make any commitment on any product we offer.
Other taxes, costs or both may exist in respect of products and services that we offer which are not paid through or imposed by us.
For return premiums (usually arising if an insurance risk is cancelled) we repay commission on the refund to your insurer and this amount will be deducted from the final amount refunded to you.
Quotations
Unless otherwise stated, quotations are valid for 30 days.
Proposal Forms
The information contained in the proposal form is your responsibility. If a form is completed on your behalf, you should check that the answers given to any questions are true and accurate before signing the document. You will have the opportunity of amending any information if it is not correct. We strongly advise that you keep a record of all documentation supplied in relation to arranging your insurance.
Market Security We use both UK and overseas Insurers to obtain the best terms and conditions available for our clients. However, the levels of regulation differ in each jurisdiction and if non-EU or non-UK insurers participate in insurance contracts, your future ability as an insured to issue legal proceedings and/or execute judgement may also vary.
Your Duty of Disclosure
It is your responsibility to provide complete and accurate information to our insurer when you take out your insurance policy, throughout the life of the policy and when you renew your insurance. It is important that you ensure that all statements that you make on the proposal form and other documentation are full and accurate.
Please note that if you fail to disclose any material information to your insurers this could invalidate your insurance cover and could mean that part or all of a claim may not be paid. If you are in any doubt about whether information is material, you should disclose it.
Client money (general)
We may operate one or more of the following types of account:-
- Client Money Segregation (non-statutory trust)
Premiums that we collect from you will be segregated into and held in a client money bank account and held by us as trustee on your behalf. The client money bank account is set up as a trust governed by FSA rules. We may agree to extend credit to other customers using client money from the client money bank account. We maintain systems and controls to ensure that we monitor and manage client money transactions and any credit risk arising from the operation of the trust arrangement
Premiums that we collect from you and refunds of premiums are held in an insurance broking bank account specifically used for the purpose of holding client premiums. By virtue of agreements we hold with Insurers we collect premiums and make refunds as their agent. Therefore, once we have collected premiums from you, those premiums are treated as having been paid to the Insurer. Any refund of premium is treated as received by you when it is paid over to you. We will remit the premium to Insurers after deduction of our commission, in accordance with the terms of our agreements with those Insurers
Complaints & Disputes Procedure
It is our intention to provide you with a high standard of customer service at all times. If at any time you are dissatisfied with the service we provide, we have a formal complaints procedure.
In the event of you having a complaint please bring it to the attention of the Compliance Officer by telephone to 01634 862525 or in writing to us at the above address.
If you cannot settle your complaint with us, you may be entitled to refer it to the Financial Ombudsman Service who can normally deal with complaints from private individuals and from small businesses with an annual turnover of less than £1 Million (for a group of companies, this means a group annual turnover of less than £1m). Full details of our complaints procedures are available on request.
The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS)
We are covered by the FSCS. You may be entitled to compensation from the scheme if we cannot meet our obligations. This depends upon the type of business and the circumstances of the claim. Insurance advising and arranging is covered for 100% of the first £2,000 and 90% of the remainder of the claim, without any upper limit. Further information is available from the FSCS.
Cancelling Your Policy
Where a cancellation period is applicable to your policy this will be notified to you in writing and will usually start from the date of receipt of the policy documentation. If you cancel your policy within this period and the terms of the policy allow, you may receive a refund of your premium. In some instances, the Insurer will make a charge for the time the policy was ‘on risk’.
In the event that you default in paying the premiums due, for whatever reason, you understand that we reserve the right to cancel your policy to recover any balance of monies due to us. If any balance or premium is not paid on demand we may appoint a debt collection agency to collect the outstanding balance on our behalf. Any additional charges or costs incurred including those of the agency and any associated Court costs will be added to the debt.
Documentation
It is our normal practice to provide full policy documentation once any outstanding premiums have been paid in full.
Data Protection & Confidentiality
All personal information held by us in relation to you will be treated with the utmost respect and where appropriate in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998. Information provided by you, or obtained in the course of our dealings with you, may be used in the normal course of arranging and administering your insurance and will not be disclosed to any third party without your consent.
We may pass information about you to credit reference agencies for the purposes of arranging payments by instalments and may also pass to them details of your payment record with us. We may pass information about you to our Regulator so that monitoring or investigatory activities can be undertaken.
From time to time, UK Special Risks Ltd may provide you with information on other products or services that we feel may be appropriate.
If you do not wish to receive such information please write to us at our registered address.
By transacting business with us, you are agreeing to the above terms and conditions.
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