TERMS OF BUSINESS

Client Agreement – How we are regulated

Advised

FSB Insurance Service Ltd, 5th Floor, Interchange, 81-85 Station Road, Croydon, CR0 2RD. Contactable on 0203 883 7976 or [email protected]

The Regulator

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is an independent watchdog that regulates financial services.

Our Financial Services Register number is 788654 and you can check our status and permissions at 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

We are an insurance distributor, which means the FCA has authorised us to advise, arrange, deal in and assist with the placing and administration or prepare in any other way the conclusion of all types of General Insurance policies.

This includes our website, as it allows you to conclude an insurance contract.

We are also authorised to undertake the following Consumer Credit Activities:

Credit Broking

Our Service

We can act both as agent of insurer, and on behalf of you, the customer. 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, this may include checking information that we already hold about you and your existing insurance 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

In assessing your demands and needs we will ask you a number of questions.

It is your responsibility to ensure you give us complete and accurate answers to any such questions, not only when you take out your policy, but also when you decide to renew or make any changes during any term of a contract of insurance (this applies to any changes in information relating to any individual named on the policy).

If you are dealing with us in a commercial capacity, you will be under a duty to make a fair presentation. You are therefore required to disclose any matter which you know or ought to know that would influence the judgement of an insurer in deciding whether to insure the risk and on what terms.

If you are unsure whether matter is relevant or not you should provide sufficient information so as to put an insurer on notice that it needs to make further enquiries if necessary.

We will make a specific personalised recommendation for product suitability based on our understanding and appraisal of your demands and needs requirements.

Where we provide you with specific advice, we will give you the relevant information you require, honestly, fairly, and professionally and in a way that is in your best interests (i.e., we will alert you to important terms and conditions about the contract of insurance, and we will provide you that information when it is most relevant).

This may include information about comparable products between different product providers, all of which will help you to decide whether to go ahead with any particular contract of insurance.

Our Product Selection (Fair and Personal Analysis)

We offer products from a wide range of product providers (i.e. insurance companies) and sometimes use other distributors (i.e. sub-agents) to access products.

Our selection usually involves presenting to a reasonable number of insurance companies that will insure for the risk at hand, and this is called a fair and personal analysis of the market.

Sometimes we may only approach a specified number of product providers (i.e. insurance companies) and this is a Panel, or in some cases, we may only approach one product provider, in either case, we will tell you the basis as part of our selling process.

The processes we have in place means that the characteristics of these products take account of our target customer’s demands and needs and include sourcing products from one or more of the product providers we deal with.

You can also request a list of the companies that form the Panel we have approached.

Our Product Selection (Panel)

We may also only offer products from a panel of insurers, that we have selected as appropriate for the cover you require. You may request details of the panel we have used.

Our Product Selection (Single Insurer)

Or we may only offer this product from one insurer, and so do not approach other providers.

We will advise you on the level of service that we have provided.

Product Oversight and Governance

All of the products we offer are ultimately manufactured by product providers (usually the Insurance Companies providing cover.) As a distributor we have measures in place to:

Obtain information about the product, the product approval process and understand the identified target market.
Ensure that they understand the value assessment that the manufacturer has undertaken, so that they can distribute the product accordingly.
Consider the impact that their distribution strategy and process has on the value of the product. This includes considering any remuneration they receive as part of the distribution strategy and ensuring that it does not result in the product failing to offer fair value to the end customers.
Provide information to support the manufacturer in their product reviews. This includes information on remuneration where this has an impact on the value of the product.
Amend their distribution processes if they identify it results in harm to customers. This should include taking appropriate remedial action.
Carry out annual product reviews for all products.

Method of Communication

Whilst you do have a choice in the way we communicate with you, we will principally provide you with information using email to allow you to access all information electronically. If you would like information in a paper format, we will be happy to provide it.

Call Recording

Your call may be recorded for training or monitoring purposes. We ensure all call recordings are protected in the same way as any other digital or written data in strict accordance with the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and The Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018.

Training

We maintain training to a minimum standard to ensure our workforce is appropriately skilled but where specialism in particular activities is required, we have in place more detailed requirements, including the need for our staff to attain a professional qualification where relevant.

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.

We 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, this includes gifts and benefits granted and accepted, which may damage the interests of our relationship with either our distributors or our 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.

Confidentiality and Data Protection

We will exchange the information that you provide to us with insurance companies and other brokers or agents for the purposes of obtaining quotations and arranging cover, this may result in a credit check to confirm your identity and minimise the risk of fraud. We will treat all information as private and confidential, and in strict accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) even when you are no longer a customer and only share information if we are required to do so by law, or regulation.

Under the GDPR, you have a right to a copy of any personally identifiable information about you that we hold in our records. You can request details by phone, e-mail or by writing to us at the usual address.

We will, in addition use information for marketing similar products or services by us and carefully selected companies. Contact may include SMS text, post, telephone or e-mail.

We will always ask you if you consent to receiving information about our services, products, or promotions, and you can withdraw consent at any time.

Money

We will hold money that you pay to us in accordance with the regulators rules or under a risk transfer agreement with insurers. 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.

In arranging your insurance we may employ the services of other intermediaries who are regulated by the FCA and your premium may be passed to these intermediaries for payment to insurers. These firms are also required to hold clients’ money in a separate trust account. We will also inform you if at any time we are required to pass your premium to firms that operate outside the UK where the protection may be different. Should you not wish us to pass premiums to a firm outside of the UK, please inform us.

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.

Our Remuneration

We usually receive a commission from the insurance provider with whom we place your business, 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.

We may also receive a commission or fee for passing introductions to other professional firms. In addition, we may also charge a fee for any transaction relating to your insurance and full details will be provided to you at outset.

You are entitled to request at any time, information about the commissions that we may have received about your insurance or premium finance agreement, if you want this information, please contact us.

Payment Options

We will provide you with full details of all the payment options available to you when we provide you with your insurance premium.

Premium Finance

We may be able to arrange finance for insurance instalments through the insurer or through a preferred premium finance provider. We act as a credit broker in arranging premium finance facilities and we will give you further information about this before we finalise your instalment arrangements.

Important

Using premium finance makes the overall cost of the insurance more expensive. We will ask you to confirm that you have actively elected to pay via premium finance.

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.

Your agreement will last for 12 months but the premium finance may last for a shorter period.

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 prior to signing the agreement.

Payments may start collecting before you have returned the signed credit agreement, however you must sign the credit agreement within the timeframe required, to avoid incurring penalty charges.

Credit is subject to status and Premium Credit Ltd may use a credit reference agency that leaves a record of the search or other information about you to carry out credit and anti-money laundering check. This record will be visible to third parties.

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 Ltd for the provision of premium finance facilities.

Please Note: Your policy cover will cease if you fail to keep up payments on an instalment agreement or premium finance facility related to it.

Your Right to Cancel (Applicable to Consumers only)

Please contact us if you wish to cancel any policy that we have arranged for you. Customers acting outside their trade or profession (Consumers) will usually have a legal right to cancel policies for any reason, subject to no claims having occurred, within 14 days of receiving the full terms & conditions. You will always be advised where this Right applies. A premium charge may apply for the period of cover provided and an administration charge will apply in the event of a cancellation. The cancellation under this right must be in writing, prior to expiry of the cancellation period, to our usual office address, or via email. In addition to this, some insurers may also charge a cancellation fee, which will be in your policy documentation.

Cancellation (non Consumers)

Commercial insurance policies do not routinely have cancellation rights except those available to the insurer. As a Commercial customer, you do not have the same cancellation rights by law as a consumer but may still have specific contract rights and reference should be made to the policy document to ascertain your position.

Where returns of commercial premiums are made on cancellation, it is usually following cancellation by the insurer, not the policyholder. On cancellation of a policy any refund or premium allowed by the insurer will be paid to you after deducting our annual commission and fees.

Automatic Renewal

Where your policy is set to automatically renew (where you have paid using premium finance) the credit agreement will be renewed automatically if we are unable to make contact with you prior to the renewal date. This is to ensure there are no gaps in cover. Please refer to your renewal invitation for full premium breakdowns.

You have an option to cancel the auto renewal at any time by contacting us via telephone, post or email.

Please notify us as soon as possible if you do not want your insurance to automatically renew.

If you do choose to cancel the auto renewal, then it is important that you contact us to renew your policy, as If we do not hear from you, all cover will cease as of the expiry date shown in your renewal schedule.

Complaints

Our aim is always to provide our customers with a first-class service; however we are aware that, occasionally, it is possible that we may fail to meet your expectations. If for any reason we have not met your expectations, let us know as soon as possible, by calling our main office telephone 0203 883 7976, or write to Mr David Perry, FSB Insurance Service, 5th Floor, Interchange, 81-85 Station Road, Croydon, CR0 2RD or email [email protected].

If we are unable to resolve the issue to your satisfaction by the end of the third business day following receipt, we will formally investigate the matter. You will receive an acknowledgement of the matter together with a copy of our complaints process promptly and certainly within 5 working days. We will then aim to investigate and provide a resolution as quickly as possible, informing you of a final response no later than 8 weeks.

If you are not happy with our response, or the position after a period of 8 weeks, you may be eligible to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) for an independent assessment and opinion.

The FOS Consumer Helpline is on 0800 023 4567 (free for people phoning from a “fixed line” (for example, a landline at home) or 0300 123 9123 (free for mobile-phone users paying monthly charge for calls to No’s starting 01 or 02).

Alternatively you can contact them at Financial Ombudsman Service, Exchange Tower, Harbour Exchange Square, London, E14 9SR. www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk.

A full copy of our complaints procedure is available on request.

Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS)

If we are unable to meet our obligations, you may be entitled to compensation from the FSCS. If we have advised or arranged insurance for you this will be covered for 90% of a claim, without any upper limit, however claims under compulsory insurance, professional indemnity insurance and certain claims for injury, sickness or infirmity of the policyholder are protected at 100%. Further information is available from the FSCS helpline on 0800 678 1100 or 020 7741 4100 and www.fscs.org.uk.

The FSCS is the UK’s statutory fund of last resort for customers of authorised financial services firms. Compensation is usually payable if an authorised firm is unable or unlikely to pay claims usually because it has ceased trading or become insolvent.

Marketing

It is extremely important that all parties insured under your policy understand how we process information, including that set out in our Privacy Policy and this Terms of Business Agreement.

In distributing any marketing, we will act honestly, fairly, and professionally and in the best interests of a customer or potential customer, including asking you separately for your permission (consent) to contact you, and the means to contact you (such as by phone, or e-mail, push notifications, SMS text, or post) to tell you about:

new products or services we have or are developing;
trialling products and services which we think may improve our service to you or our business processes;
offer you rewards;
enter you into a competition.

We will typically ask for your permission when you first contact us, but you have the right to easily withdraw your consent whenever you wish (unsubscribe). We will regularly review your consent to check that your relationship with us and the processing and the purposes have not changed.

We have processes in place to refresh your consent at appropriate intervals, and act on withdrawals of consent (unsubscribe) as soon as we can and not penalise you if you choose not to give or later choose to withdraw your consent.

It is important that you understand you have the right to withdraw or alter your marketing preferences at any time either using the subscription link contained in any electronic marketing, by calling our main office telephone 020 3883 7976, or writing to [email protected].

GDPR: DATA PRIVACY NOTICE FOR CLIENTS AND SUPPLIERS

FSB Insurance Service Ltd (“We”) are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This policy (together with our terms of use and any other documents referred to on it) sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us. Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it.

The rules on processing of personal data are set out in the General Data Protection Regulation (the “GDPR”).

1. DEFINITIONS

Data controller – A controller determines the purposes and means of processing personal data.

Data processor – A processor is responsible for processing personal data on behalf of a controller.

Data subject – A living individual to whom personal data relates.

Categories of data: Personal data and special categories of personal data.

Personal data – The GDPR applies to ‘personal data’ meaning any information relating to an identifiable person who can be directly or indirectly identified from that data. For example name, passport number, home address or private email address. Online identifiers include IP addresses and cookies.

Special categories personal data – The GDPR refers to sensitive personal data as ‘special categories of personal data’ (as explained in Article 9 of GDPR). The special categories specifically include genetic data, and biometric data where processed to uniquely identify an individual. Other examples include racial and ethnic origin, sexual orientation, health data, trade union membership, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs.

Processing – means any operation or set of operations which is performed on personal data or on sets of personal data, whether or not by automated means, such as collection, recording, organisation, structuring, storage, adaptation or alteration, retrieval, consultation, use, disclosure by transmission, dissemination or otherwise making available, alignment or combination, restriction, erasure or destruction.

Third party – means a natural or legal person, public authority, agency or body other than the data subject, controller, processor and persons who, under the direct authority of the controller or processor, are authorised to process personal data.

2. WHO ARE WE?

FSB Insurance Service Ltd is the data controller. This means we decide how your personal data is processed and for what purposes. Our contact details are: 5th Floor, Interchange, 81-85 Station Road, Croydon, CR0 2RD. Our Data Trustee is Andrew Bishop, who can be contacted on 0203 883 7976 or by e-mailing [email protected].

3. INFORMATION WE MAY COLLECT FROM YOU

We may collect and process the following data about you:

Information you give us. You may give us information about you by filling in forms on our site https://fsb-insurance-service.com/ (our site) or by corresponding with us by phone, e-mail or otherwise. This includes information you provide when you register to use our site, subscribe to our service, search for a product, place an order on our site, and when you report a problem with our site. The information you give us may include your name, address, e-mail address and phone number, financial and credit card information.
Information we collect about you. With regard to each of your visits to our site we may automatically collect the following information:
- technical information, including the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the Internet, your login information, browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform;
- information about your visit, including the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL) clickstream to, through and from our site (including date and time); products you viewed or searched for; page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), and methods used to browse away from the page and any phone number used to call our customer service number.
Information we receive from other sources. We may receive information about you if you use any of the other websites we operate or the other services we provide. In this case we will have informed you when we collected that data that it may be shared internally and combined with data collected on this site. We are also working closely with third parties (including, for example, business partners, subcontractors in technical, payment and delivery services, advertising networks, analytics providers, search information providers, credit reference agencies) and may receive information about you from them.

We may also receive your information from the FSB if you’ve registered to become a member of the FSB Insurance Service and have consented to it, either online or through a membership advisor or their Customer Service team.

4. THE PURPOSE(S) OF PROCESSING YOUR PERSONAL DATA

We use your personal data for the following purposes:

Providing it to insurers and service providers in order to get you cover for relevant insurance products.
To inform you of upcoming renewals, loss of cover, products, news and events.
Maintaining our own accounts and records, and to enable us to provide free insurance advice to registered members.

5. WHAT IS OUR LEGAL BASIS FOR PROCESSING YOUR PERSONAL DATA?

a) Personal data (article 6 of GDPR)

Our lawful basis for processing your general personal data:

Processing is necessary for the performance of a contract with the data subject or to take steps to enter into a contract: In order to enable the quotation of and purchase of a policy for cover we will need to share your information with insurers.
Consent of the data subject: Via phone conversation, registering with the insurance service via the FSB, or through our website.
Processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation: In the event of a claim, complaint or breach your information may be supplied to the regulators in order to assist you.
It is in our legitimate interest to do so, and will not be at the expense of the interests, rights or freedoms of the data subject: We have legitimate business interest to process and store your data in ways which you would reasonable expect.

6. SHARING YOUR PERSONAL DATA

Your personal data will be treated as strictly confidential, and will be shared only with selected third parties including:

Insurers and service providers in order to provide relevant insurance which meets your requirements.
Analytics and search engine providers that assist us in the improvement and optimisation of our site.
Credit reference agencies for the purpose of assessing your credit score where this is a condition of us entering into a contract with you.
Finance providers where you have selected the option to pay in instalments via a credit agreement.
Regulatory authorities, courts and governmental agencies to comply with legal or regulatory requirements.

We may disclose your personal information to third parties:

In the event that we sell or buy any business or assets, in which case we may disclose your personal data to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets.
If FSB Insurance Service Ltd or substantially all of its assets are acquired by a third party, in which case personal data held by it about its customers will be one of the transferred assets.
If we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our terms of use [or terms and conditions of supply] and other agreements; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of FSB Insurance Service Ltd our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.
Sometimes FSB Insurance Service uses third parties to ensure that the data we hold on you is accurate and complete. That party is currently FSB and their Privacy Policy can be found here.

7. HOW LONG DO WE KEEP YOUR PERSONAL DATA?

We keep your personal data for no longer than reasonably necessary in order to make sure we hold adequate records in the event that this information is required.

8. WHERE WE STORE YOUR PERSONAL DATA

All information you provide to us is stored on our secure servers. Any payment transactions will be encrypted using SSL technology. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our site, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share a password with anyone.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

9. YOUR RIGHTS AND YOUR PERSONAL DATA

Unless subject to an exemption under the GDPR, you have the following rights with respect to your personal data:

The right to request a copy of the personal data which we hold about you.
The right to request that we correct any personal data if it is found to be inaccurate or out of date; Your request will be actioned within one calendar month.
The right to request your personal data is erased where it is no longer necessary to retain such data.
The right to request that we provide you with your personal data and where possible, to transmit that data directly to another data controller (known as the right to data portability), where applicable i.e. where the processing is based on consent or is necessary for the performance of a contract with the data subject and where the data controller processes the data by automated means.
The right, where there is a dispute in relation to the accuracy or processing of your personal data, to request a restriction is placed on further processing.
The right to object to the processing of personal data where applicable (i.e. where processing is based on legitimate interests, the performance of a task in the public interest/exercise of official authority, direct marketing and processing for the purposes of scientific/historical research and statistics). We will respond to requests within 28 days.

10. TRANSFER OF DATA ABROAD

We will not transfer your personal data outside an Adequate Country without your approval. An ‘Adequate Country’ means:

where Data Protection Legislation in force in the United Kingdom applies to Personal Data processed on behalf of the Customer or any Service Recipient, the United Kingdom and any country which is recognised under such Data Protection Legislation as providing adequate protection for personal data; and
where the GDPR applies to Personal Data processed on behalf of the Customer or any Service Recipient, the European Economic Area and any country, territory or sector in respect of which an adequacy decision applies under article 45 of the GDPR.

11. AUTOMATED DECISION MAKING

We do not use any form of Automated Decision Making in our business.

12. FURTHER PROCESSING

If we wish to use your personal data for a new purpose, not covered by this Data Privacy Notice, then we will provide you with a new notice explaining this new use prior to commencing the processing and setting out the relevant purposes and processing conditions.

13. CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY

Any changes we may make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by e-mail. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy.

14. HOW TO MAKE A COMPLAINT

To exercise all relevant rights, queries or complaints regarding data privacy please in the first instance contact our Data Trustee on 0203 883 7976 or [email protected].

If this does not resolve your complaint to your satisfaction, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioners Office on 0303 123 1113 or via email https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/email/ or at the Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF, England.

Advised

July 2023