AUTHORISED AND REGULATED BY THE FINANCIAL SERVICES AUTHORITY

Terms of Business / Customer Charter

This document contains important information about the services we provide and how we transact business with you. This includes a £5m limitation of Burrow Humphreys liability. Please read carefully and retain.

  1. Regulation. Burrow Humphreys Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) to sell general insurance products. We are an independent company owned by the directors, no outside organisations or individuals having a holding, direct or otherwise. Our FSA register number is 308504 and you can check this on the FSA’s register by visiting the FSA’s website, www.fsa.gov.uk/register or by contacting the FSA on 0845 606 1234.

  2. Commission. You are entitled at any time to request information regarding commission we receive as a result of placing your insurance business plus income we earn in connection with arranging instalment facilities.

    Other Earnings. We may also earn income in a number of different ways. Some insurers may provide efficiency fees or production over-riders periodically to reflect the benefit of receiving large amounts of business from a single source that has been handled promptly and efficiently. Occasionally certain insurers may wish to reflect the profitability of our account with them by way of payment to us. Burrow Humphreys Limited may also earn interest in the processing and collection of premiums.

  3. Our Service To You. In arranging insurance for our customers we act as an independent intermediary and act on your behalf when advising on and arranging your insurance. Our service includes:-

    • Advising you on your insurance needs. (N.B. All sales include advice as to the suitability of the contract. We do not offer information only).
    • Arranging your insurance cover with insurers to meet your requirements.
    • Helping you with any ongoing changes you have to make.

    We offer general insurance products and have access to a wide range of insurers for most commercial and personal insurance policies. We will give you details of these insurers when we discuss your individual requirements.

    Please note however that, for Travel Insurance, we only use a carefully selected panel of insurers:-

    • Tokio Marine
    • AXA
    • Ageas (formerly Fortis)
    • Chartis
    • SunWorld Plus
    • Chubb

    Our Motor Uninsured Loss Recovery and Family Legal Expenses policies are underwritten by just one insurer, AmTrust Europe Limited.

  4. Limitation of Liability. We are not liable for direct or indirect losses, damages, costs or expenses incurred or suffered by you as a result of or in connection with any service we provide unless arising directly from our negligence, wilful default or fraud (or that of our directors, officers or employees).

    In respect of losses, damages, costs or expenses incurred or suffered as a result of our negligence, our total liability to you for such losses shall not exceed £5m.

    Nothing in this document will however limit our liability for death or personal injury resulting from our negligence, neither does it exclude or restrict any duty or liability that we may owe to you under the regulatory system as defined in FSA rules.

    We will not be liable to you for any partial or non-performance of our obligations to you by reason of any cause beyond our control including without limitation breakdown, malfunction or failure of transmission, communication or computing facilities, industrial action, natural causes, Acts and Regulations of government bodies or authorities or the failure of any third party to perform its obligations to us.

  5. Professional Indemnity Insurance. Cover is mandatory under FSA regulations and Burrow Humphreys Limited carries insurance which exceeds these requirements, currently £5m (in line with Limitation of Liability Clause 4 above).

  6. Disclosure of Information. It is important that you understand that any information, statements or answers made by you to us, or your insurer, are your responsibility and must be correct. Any failure to disclose facts material to the insurer or any inaccuracies in your answers may invalidate your insurance cover in part or in whole. Facts material to the insurance are matters or information which may influence your insurer as to the acceptability or otherwise of your Proposal or Renewal and must be disclosed immediately. You are advised to keep copies of documentation sent to or received from us for your own protection. Please do consult us if you are in doubt on any aspect. The disclosure of information not only applies at commencement and renewal of your policy, but also at anytime during the period of insurance.

  7. Awareness of Policy Terms. When a Policy is issued, you are strongly advised to read it carefully, as it is that document, the schedule and any certificate of insurance that is the basis of the insurance contract you have purchased. If you are in doubt over any of the policy terms and conditions, please seek our advice promptly.

  8. 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 a director, either verbally or in writing, who will take details of your concerns. We will promptly acknowledge in writing, advising you who is dealing with your concerns and attempt to address your concerns within five working days. If our investigations take longer, we will keep you informed, explain our position and provide timescales for a full response. It is our expectation that most complaints will receive a final response within a maximum of eight weeks. If we cannot satisfy your complaint you may be entitled to refer it to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Please refer to www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk or telephone 0845 080 1800 for more information.

  9. Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). We are also covered by the FSCS. You may be entitled to compensation from the scheme if we cannot meet our obligations. This depends on the type of insurance and the circumstances of the claim. Insurance advising and arranging is covered for 90% of the claim without any upper limit. For compulsory classes of Insurance such as Employers Liability or Road Traffic Act Liability, advising and arranging is covered for 100% of the claim without any upper limit.

    Further information about the compensation scheme is available from the FSCS at 7th Floor, Lloyds Chambers, 1 Portsoken Street, London, E1 8BN, by referring to www.fscs.org.uk or by contacting the FSCS on 020 7892 7300.

  10. Charges. We may apply an administration fee (min £10) to each policy arranged or renewed (details will always be advised to you in advance). We may also charge a similar fee for handling mid-term amendments or mid-term cancellations. We do not, however, make a charge for duplicate Certificates or duplicate No Claims Bonus proofs.

  11. Cooling Off Period. We will give you enough information and help so you can make an informed decision before you make a final commitment to buy your insurance policy. However, you will have 14 days to change your mind and cancel the insurance contract from the date you receive the policy documentation. N.B. This does not apply to commercial customers or mixed use policies (i.e. policies covering both private and commercial risks).

  12. Premiums and Financial Aspects. In order to be able to offer you credit facilities, we are registered under the Consumer Credit Act, Licence Number 440018.

    We accept payment by cheque, BACS or cash. Cash payments are, however, limited to a maximum of £1,000. Payment terms will be agreed prior to cover commencing, subject to a maximum of 30 days.

    You may also be able to spread your payments through insurers’ instalment schemes or a credit scheme that we have arranged with a third party finance provider. We will give you full information about your payment options when we discuss your insurance in detail. It should, however, be noted that, if cover is withdrawn because an instalment has not been paid, we do not accept any liability arising from this action.

    We may keep certain documents, such as your insurance policy documents or Certificate, while we are waiting for full payment of premiums. In these circumstances, we will ensure that you receive full details of your insurance cover and will provide you with any documents that you are required to have by law.

    We hold monies received from customers in an FSA approved statutory trust account, interest earned on the account being retained by ourselves. We then remit such monies to insurers in line with our agreements with them. On a return premium, we repay commission on the amount to your insurer and this may be deducted from the final amount refunded to you. If a policy is cancelled, we will refund any return premium due (after deduction of commission).

  13. Claims. When we receive notification of an incident that may give rise to a claim under your policy, we will inform the insurer as soon as possible. We will also offer a service to assist you with any claim you need to make, including, if required, the recovery of any uninsured losses you may incur.

  14. Confidentiality. All personal information about our customers is treated as Private and Confidential. To this end we are registered under the Data Protection Act 1998 and undertake to comply with the Act in all our dealings. We only use and disclose personal information we have about private individuals in the normal course of arranging and administering their insurances, and will not disclose personal information to any other parties without your consent. Information we hold about our customers may, however, be used to provide them with information about other products and services, which we feel may be appropriate to them. If you prefer not to receive such information, please write to us at the above address.

    You should also be aware that insurers pass information to the Claims and Underwriting Exchange and the Motor Insurance Anti-Fraud and Theft Register. The aim is to check information provided and prevent fraudulent claims.

    Motor Insurance details are added to the Motor Insurance Database run by the Motor Insurers’ Information Centre which has been formed to help identify uninsured drivers and may be searched by the Police to help confirm who is insured to drive. In the event of an accident the database may be used by insurers and the Motor Insurers Bureau to identify relevant policy information.

    Under the Data Protection Act 1998, private customers have a right to see personal information about them that we hold in our records. If you wish to exercise this right, or have any other related queries, you should write to us at the above address.

  15. Insurer Security. As brokers we utilise only insurers authorised to transact business in the UK, taking into account a variety of factors including financial statements of the Insurer in question. However, we cannot guarantee the ability of an insurer to meet policyholder obligations. If you have any concerns about the security offered, please contact us.

    In addition, we may place insurance for customers via another intermediary and not direct with the insurer concerned. In such cases we endeavour to exercise appropriate skill, care and judgement in selecting third party intermediaries to whom we transfer client money.

  16. Acceptance of this Terms of Business Agreement. This Terms of Business Agreement does not affect your normal legal rights. The Agreement will apply to all transactions, including renewals. The Agreement sets out the entire Agreement between the customer and Burrow Humphreys Limited, and replaces any previous Agreement which has been issued.

  17. Termination of this Agreement. You or we may terminate our authority to act on your behalf at any time without penalty. Notice of this termination must be given in writing. The termination will be without prejudice to the completion of transactions already initiated.

  18. Further Information. If you have any queries arising from this Terms of Business Agreement or require additional advice or information, please do not hesitate to contact us.

 

Date: December 2011