Terms of Business Agreement

We recommend that you carefully read these Terms that apply to our appointment by you and the services we will provide.

Our Service

Our service includes advising and making a recommendation on your insurance needs, arranging cover with insurers in accordance with your requirements and helping you with on-going changes. We act as your agent (except to the extent that insurers have given us permission to incept cover and issue documents on their behalf) and can offer a wide range of insurance products and have access to leading insurers in the marketplace. For some types of insurance we deal predominantly with a single or limited number of insurers which we have selected as offering value for money and quality service. We will give you details of these arrangements before you make any commitment on any product we offer you and a list of the insurers used in these cases, will be available on request.

We will explain the main features of the products and services that we offer you including details of the provider, main details of cover and benefits, any unusual restrictions or exclusions, any significant conditions or obligations and the period of cover. We will make a recommendation for you after we have assessed your needs, or advise you if we are unable to place your insurance. In some circumstances we provide information only and do not therefore make a personal recommendation.

Important Information (Consumer Customers only)

Under the Consumer Insurance (Disclosure and Representation) Act 2012 (‘the Act’) it is your duty as a consumer to take reasonable care not to make a misrepresentation to an insurer. Under the Act a consumer is defined as an individual who enters into an insurance contract wholly or mainly for purposes unrelated to the individual’s trade, business or profession.

A failure by the consumer to comply with the insurer’s request to confirm or amend particulars previously given is capable of being a misrepresentation for the purpose of this Act. It is important that you ensure all statements you make on proposal forms, claim forms and other documents are full and accurate and we recommend that you keep a copy of all correspondence in relation to the arrangement of your insurance.

Please note that under the Act an insurer has a remedy against a consumer in respect of qualifying misrepresentations in breach of the consumer’s duty of reasonable care where the insurer deems the misrepresentation to be deliberate, reckless or careless.

If in doubt about any point in relation to your duty to take reasonable care and subsequent qualifying misrepresentations please contact us immediately.

Your Duty to Disclose Information (Commercial Customers only)

It is your responsibility to provide complete and accurate information to insurers when you take out an insurance policy, throughout the life of the policy, and when you renew your insurance. It is important that you ensure all statements you make on proposal forms, claim forms and other documents are full and accurate and we recommend that you keep a copy of all correspondence in relation to the arrangement of your insurance.

Please also note that any renewal of insurance will be made in reliance upon the information provided by you in connection with your previous insurance policy – we will assume that such information remains correct unless you tell us otherwise.

Please note that if you fail to disclose any material information to us and your insurers, this could invalidate your insurance cover and could mean that part or all of a claim may not be paid. You should take particular care to check the accuracy of all information you provide.

If in doubt about any point in relation to material facts please contact us immediately.

Financial Crime/Fraud Prevention

Please be aware that current UK money laundering regulations require us to obtain adequate ‘Know Your Client’ information about you. We are also required to cross check you against the HM Financial Sanctions List as part of the information gathering process.

We are obliged to report to the Serious Organised Crime Agency any evidence or suspicion of financial crime at the first opportunity and we are prohibited from disclosing any such report. We will not permit our employees or other persons engaged by them to be either influenced or influence others in respect of undue payments or privileges from or to insurers or clients.

To prevent and detect fraud we may at any time:
1.Share information about you with other organisations and public bodies including the Police;
2.Check and/or file your details with fraud prevention agencies and databases. We and other organisations may also search these agencies and databases to help make decisions about the provision and administration of your insurance.
3.Undertake credit searches and additional fraud searches.
We can supply on request further details of the databases which we use including:
a)Claims and Underwriting Exchange Register (CUE) – insurers pass information to CUE to help check claims information provided and also to prevent fraudulent claims. Under the conditions of a policy you must tell the insurer about any incidents which may give rise to a claim and these details will be added to the Register.
b)Motor Insurance Database (MID) – insurers will add motor policy details to the MID which is used by the Police and other authorities to establish whether valid insurance is in force.

Who regulates us

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is the independent watchdog that regulates financial services. Well Dunn Limited trading as Well Dunn Insurance Services is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Our FCA Register number is 582576. You can check this on the FCA’s Register by visiting their website www.fca.org.uk/register or by telephoning the FCA on 0845 606 1234.

Terms of Payment

Payment terms will be agreed with you on or before the inception date of the policy and confirmed in writing. We offer various long term instalment plans via insurers and/or third party finance companies. In these circumstances the charges will be advised to you separately including any arrangement fee which we may charge.

If payment is not received from you in accordance with the terms agreed, we, or your insurer may be forced to cancel or lapse the relevant policy/policies, which could mean that part or all of a claim may not be paid.

If any direct debit or other payment due in respect of any credit agreement you enter into to pay insurance premiums is not met when presented for payment or if you end the credit agreement we will be informed of such events by the credit provider.

If you do not make other arrangements with us to pay the insurance premiums you acknowledge and agree that we may, at any time after being so informed, instruct on your behalf the relevant insurer to cancel the insurance and to collect any refund of premiums which may be made by the insurer and if any money is owed under your credit agreement pay it to the credit provider or if we have already been debited with the amount outstanding use it to offset our costs.

You will be responsible for paying any time on risk charge and putting in place any alternative insurance and/or payment arrangements you need.

Any payment we receive from you will be held by The Broker Network Limited, which pays insurers on our behalf, in a Non Statutory Client Trust Bank Account held with RBS. In some cases the payment we receive will be held on behalf of the provider with whom we arrange your policy as their agent. This means that any payment you make to us will be regarded as having been paid to the provider. This is known as risk transfer. By operating a Non Statutory Trust, The Broker Network Limited is permitted to, and may use such monies to cross fund clients premiums and claims.

Please make all cheques payable to “BNL re. Well Dunn Limited”.

By instructing us to place insurance on your behalf you give your informed consent to these Client Money procedures. If there are any matters which you do not understand, or do not accept, you should discuss them with us before proceeding.

We may pass the money you pay us to another intermediary. We will only do this where it is a necessary part of the process of arranging cover for you. Where this includes intermediaries outside the UK, the legal and regulatory regime may be different from that of the UK. In the event of the intermediary failing, money may be treated differently than if it was held by an intermediary in the UK. You may notify us if you do not wish your money to be passed to a person in a particular jurisdiction.

No interest will be payable to customers in respect of the client account. Any interest earned will remain in the ownership of The Broker Network Limited.
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Notification of Incidents/Claims

It is essential to notify us immediately of all incidents that may result in a claim against your insurance policy. You must do so whether you believe you are liable or not. Any letter or claim received by you must be passed to us immediately, without acknowledgement.

Only by providing prompt notification of incidents can your insurance company take steps to protect your interests. Your policy summary and/or policy document will provide you with details on who to contact to make a claim. Please contact us for guidance on claiming under your policy.

Cancellation

Your policy document will detail your rights to cancel your insurance once you have taken it out. If you are a Consumer as defined by the FSA (persons taking out insurance not related to their trade or profession) then you are entitled to a 14 day cooling off period. You may cancel the policy during this period for whatever reason and only a fee to cover administrative costs and the cost of any insurance actually used will be charged. Otherwise, you may cancel your policy at any time during the period of insurance but the premium refund (if any) might be disproportionate to the insurance actually used. Please see the Refunds section.

To enable your insurer to process the cancellation, you will need to return certificates and any official documents to us.

Charges/Fees

In addition to the amount charged by insurers we also make charges to cover the administration of your insurance. Any applicable insurance premium tax will be shown on the documentation we provide to you. These fees are non-refundable.

Mid Term Adjustments / Cancellations up to £250
Duplicate certificates £15
Green cards £15
Credit plan arrangement fee £30
Credit Card payments 2.5%
Late payments/bounced cheques/direct debit defaults £25

These fees may be subject to change. Where there are changes, we will confirm this clearly and the actual amount will always be disclosed to you before you commit to purchasing the product. As insurance brokers our remuneration may be as a fee agreed with you or from commission paid to us by insurers based on the amount they charge you. You are entitled, at any time, to request information regarding any commission which we may have received as a result of placing or renewing your insurance cover. We take any commission once we receive your payment as cleared funds and prior to payment of the premium to the insurer.

We may receive additional remuneration from finance providers, claims management services and others. Please ask us should you require further information.

Where you choose to pay your premium by instalments, we may use a scheme operated by your insurer, or we may use a single Finance Provider or a Finance Provider selected from a limited panel, and we may receive a commission for introducing you to them.

Refunds

Where a policy is cancelled mid-term, insurers charge to cover their costs, with the balance refunded to you, subject to no claim having been made. Full details will be available in your policy. In the event of an adjustment giving rise to a return of premium the amount may be refunded or held to credit.

Your attention is specifically drawn to the following: Where you cancel your policy after the expiry of the cooling off period or where you request a mid-term adjustment which results in a refund of premium, we reserve the right to charge you for our time and costs. This will usually result in us reducing the amount refunded to you by the FULL amount of the commission and fees we would have received had you not cancelled. The reason for this is that the majority of our costs are incurred either in initially finding and setting up your policy or in the annual renewal process when we might check the ongoing suitability of the cover the policy offers. These costs are recovered through the commission we earn. If you cancel, this does not give us an opportunity to recover the costs we incurred and would often result in us making a loss. However, any charge made will not exceed the cost of the commission and fees we would have earned.

For certain commercial insurance policies, insurers will only provide cover where the premium is due in full on inception of the policy. This means that no refund will be paid if the policy is cancelled before renewal. We will advise you if this affects you.

In view of the cost involved in making changes to your policy, we will not issue refunds of less than £10.

Complaints

It is our intention to provide you with the highest possible level of customer service at all times. However we recognise that things can occasionally go wrong, and if this occurs we are committed to resolving matters promptly and fairly.

Should you wish to complain please contact us:

• In writing to the Managing Director • By telephone on 0330 808 1500
• By e-mail at customer.services@welldunn.biz • In person by visiting our office

Should you not be satisfied with our final response, you may be entitled to refer the matter to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). Further details will be supplied at the time of responding to your complaint.

Solvency of Insurers

We cannot guarantee the solvency of any insurer with which we place business. This means that you may still be liable for any premium due and not be able to recover the premium paid, whether in full or in part, should an insurer become insolvent.

Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS)

We are covered by the FSCS and you may be entitled to compensation from the scheme if we cannot meet our obligations. This depends on the type of business 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, insurance advising and arranging is covered for 100% of the claim, without any upper limit. Further information about compensation scheme arrangements is available from the FSCS at www.fscs.org.uk

Confidentiality and Data Protection

We are registered under the Data Protection Act 1998 and we undertake to comply with the Act in all our dealings with your personal data.

All information about you of a sensitive or personal nature will be treated as private and confidential. For example, you may have to give us information about medical history, criminal convictions or driving offences. If you take out an insurance policy through us we will treat you as having given consent for us to use any sensitive personal data in connection with the administration of your policy and we will disclose the information we have about you in the course of arranging, placing and administering your insurance. This may involve passing information about you to insurers, other intermediaries, risk management assessors, uninsured loss recovery agencies and other third parties involved (directly or indirectly) in your insurance.

To make sure you get our best deal and to ascertain the most appropriate payment options for you and to protect you from fraud, we use public and personal data from a variety of sources, including credit reference agencies and other organisations. Our search will appear on your credit report and will be visible to other credit providers whether or not your application proceeds. If you do not proceed it will be clear the search was for quotation purposes. By agreeing to the terms and conditions you agree to these uses of your information.

We may also pass information about you to credit reference agencies and premium finance providers in connection with the assessment of your financial standing generally and, in particular, where you have requested a premium instalment plan, this may include details of your payment record with us.

We may also pass information about you to other companies with which we are associated. We or they may also use the information we hold about you to provide you with information on other products and services we or they can offer and which we or they feel may be of interest to you. Please notify us promptly in writing if you do not wish your details to be used for any of these purposes otherwise we shall treat the issue of these Terms as evidence of your informed consent.

In the interests of security and to improve our service, all of our telephone calls may be monitored and/or recorded.

Communications/Documentation

We will issue all documentation to you in a timely manner. Documentation relating to your insurance will confirm the basis of the cover and provide details of the relevant insurers. It is therefore important that the documentation is kept in a safe place, as you may need to refer to it or need it to make a claim. A new policy/policy booklet is not necessarily provided each year, although a duplicate can be provided at any time upon request. You should always check the documentation to ensure all the details are correct and if this is not the case you should contact us immediately.

General

If any provision of these Terms is found to be invalid or unenforceable, in whole or in part, the validity of the other provisions of these Terms and the remainder of the provision in question shall continue to have full force and effect. These Terms shall be construed in accordance with the laws of England and Wales and shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.

These Terms supersede all proposals, prior discussions and representations (whether oral or written) between us relating to our appointment as your agent in connection with the arranging and administration of your insurance. These Terms constitute an offer by us to act on your behalf in the arranging and administration of your insurance. In the absence of any specific acceptance communicated to us by you (whether verbal or written) you are deemed to accept our offer to act for you on the basis of these Terms, by conduct, upon your instructing us to arrange, renew or otherwise act for you in connection with insurance matters.