TERMS OF BUSINESS January 2006
Chelmsford Insurance Centre Corporate Services Ltd
47 Church Street, Great Baddow, Chelmsford Essex CM2 7JA
Tel No. 01245 243500
Our service
In arranging insurance for our customers, we act as an Independent Intermediary governed by the Financial Services Authority from January 2005. 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 have to make.
We can also issue policies on behalf of certain insurers.
We act on your behalf in arranging your insurance.
We offer a wide range of insurance products and have access to leading insurers in the market place. As your Independent Intermediary, we undertake to comply with the rules and regulations set down by the Financial Services Authority. Our registration number is 301037.
Please note that our Uninsured Loss Recovery Scheme is not an insurance product and is not covered by the Financial Services Authority. We will give you full details of any such arrangements before you make any commitment on any product we offer you.
We will send you documents confirming the full details of your cover and the insurer, and details of the premium(s) you have paid including any fees.
Disclosure
It is your responsibility to provide complete and accurate information to insurers when you take out your insurance policy, throughout the life of your policy, and when you renew your insurance. Failure to disclose information pertaining to your insurance, or any inaccuracies in information given, could result in your insurance policy being invalid or cover not operating fully.
It is important that you ensure all statements you make on proposal forms; claim forms and other documents are full and accurate. If a form is completed on your behalf, you should check that the answers shown to any questions are true and accurate before signing the document.
You are reminded that it is an offence under the Road Traffic Act to make any false statements or withhold any relevant information to obtain a Certificate of Motor Insurance.
Please note that under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 you are not required to disclose convictions regarded as "Spent".
You are advised to keep copies of any correspondence you send to us or direct to your insurer.
If you are in any doubt about whether information is material, you should disclose it.
Premiums and financial aspects
In order to be able to offer you credit facilities, we are registered under the Consumer Credit Act and our Licence Number is 496481.
We normally accept payment by guaranteed cheque or certain credit/debit cards
You may be able to spread your payments through insurers' instalment schemes, a credit scheme with a third party finance provider, or a facility we have arranged ourselves. We will give you full information about your payment options when we discuss your insurance in detail.
We will hold monies received from you in a designated Insurance Bank Account. We will remit such monies to insurers in line with our agreements with them.
Charges
As Independent Intermediaries, your insurance company, details of which are available on request, pays us commission and withdraws commission if cover is cancelled. We normally also make the following charges to cover the administration of your insurances: -
Arranging new policies £10.00
Mid term adjustments £10.00
Mid term cancellations £10.00
Renewals £10.00
Replacement/duplicate Certificates or cover notes £10.00
Paying by credit card 1.50%
Returned cheques £10.00
The specific charge and purpose of any additional charges will always be advised to you in advance.
Return premiums (usually arising if an insurance risk is reduced or a policy cancelled)
On a return/refund of premium, we repay commission on the amount to your insurer and this will be deducted from the final amount due to you.
In view of the costs involved, we will not issue any return premium that is less than £25.00 (after deducting reclaimed commission). An amount less than £25.00 will be held to your credit and can be utilised against any future insurance policy with us.
If a policy is cancelled or cover reduced, we will refund any return premium due (after deduction of the commission and our charge).
Quotations
All quotations are subject to change in respect of the amount of premium indicated, and/or the terms and conditions that are applied by insurers ie subject to proposal.
Cooling off period
Under the rules of the FSA, we have to give you certain information before you make your decision. If we have not given you this information when you buy your insurance (and you have not told us you do not want it) we will allow you a 'cooling-off' period of at least 14 days from the time you receive the information. If you do not want to continue with the insurance, you may cancel your cover within this period. Insurers will be entitled to charge for the cover provided and costs especially if a claim has been made
Choosing to receive limited information
If you want to buy your insurance without receiving all the information about the products and services that the FSA regulations require, we will keep a record of your agreement to this and there will not be a 'cooling-off' period.
Claims
When we receive notification of an incident that might give rise to a claim under your policy, we will inform the insurer without delay and, in any event, within three working days.
We will advise you promptly of insurers' requirements concerning claims, including the provision, as soon as possible, of information required to establish the nature and extent of a loss.
We will forward any payments received from insurers in respect of any claim, to you, without delay.
We will notify you of any request for information we receive from your insurers.
Please also refer to your policy document for the insurers claims help line numbers
The "Financial Services Compensation Scheme" also covers us and you may be entitled to compensation from them if we cannot meet our obligations. This will depend on the type of business and the circumstances of the claim-further information is available at http://www.fscs.org.uk/
Customer Protection information
It is our intention to provide you with a high level of customer service at all times. If there are occasions when we do not meet your standards, please contact the member of staff you were dealing with, either verbally or in writing.
They will take details of your concerns and we will then acknowledge in writing, advising you of who is dealing with the matter and attempt to address this within 5 working days. If our investigations take longer, we will provide a full response within 20 working days, or explain our position and provide timescales for a full response.
If you remain dissatisfied, please ask to speak to our Director/Compliance Manger
Deborah Norton.
If we find that your complaint is valid, we will agree with you a mutually acceptable form of redress.
As we are regulated by the F.S.A, should you feel the problem has still not been resolved to your satisfaction and you are a private individual or a company with a turnover of less than £1,000,000, you may wish to seek further assistance via referral to:
The Financial Ombudsman Service
South Quay Plaza
183 Marsh Wall
London
E14 9SR
Tel No. 0845 080 1800
Fax No. 020 7964 1001
Email. enquiries@financial-ombudsman.org.uk
Or http://www.fos.org.uk/
By making a complaint, you do not prejudice your rights to any legal proceedings. The parties to a contract of insurance covering a risk situated in the United Kingdom are permitted to choose the law applicable to the contract. English Law will govern your insurance.
Confidentiality and Data Protection
All personal and sensitive information about our customers is treated as Private and Confidential.
We will only use and disclose the information we have about private individuals in the normal course of arranging and administering their insurances, and will not disclose any information to any other parties without their written consent. Unless we are notified of any changes, we shall assume the personal and sensitive data we hold about our customers is correct, and shall use it to provide quotations when policies fall due for renewal.
In the interests of security and to improve our service, telephone calls you make to us may be monitored and/or recorded.
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.
Under the Data Protection Act 1998, private customers have a right to see personal information about them that we hold in our records. A charge may be made for this service. If you wish to exercise this right, or have any other related queries, you should write to us at: -
47 Church Street,Great Baddow,Chelmsford,Essex CM2 7JA
The Claims and Underwriting Exchange Register
Insurers share information with each other via the Claims and Underwriting Exchange Register, and the Motor Insurance Anti-Fraud and Theft Register, to aid the prevention of fraudulent claims.
In the event of a claim, the information you supply on the claim form, together with any other information relating to the claim, will be put on the Registers.
Motor Insurer Information Centre (MIIC)
Insurers are legally required to provide and maintain details of motor insurance policies to the Motor Insurance Database to which the police and others have access. This helps the pursuance of claims following accidents and aids detection of those who are in contravention of the law by not taking out insurance.
Use for marketing purposes
We may use information held about you, to provide you information about other products and services which we offer, and which we feel may be appropriate to you, by email, telephone, post or other means.
You may exercise your right to give notice to stop data being processed for marketing purposes by contacting us at any time. Please call us on Tel. No.01245 243500 or write to us at our office address
Policy terms and conditions and warranties
You should read through all policy terms, conditions and warranties shown on your policy documentation. Please ensure you understand them and are able to follow their requirements exactly. If not, please advise us immediately, as a breach of any terms, conditions or warranties may enable your insurer to terminate your policy from the date of that breach, and/or repudiate a claim under your policy.
Chelmsford Insurance Centre Corporate Services Ltd
www.cic-insurance.co.uk
Registration no: 4002469 at Companies House.
FSA Registration number 301037.
Page last updated: 9-may-08
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