TERMS OF BUSINESS/CUSTOMER CHARTER
1. Regulation. We, Blinc-UK Ltd, whose registered office is at of address, Chancery House. 3 Hatchlands Road, Redhill, Surrey RH1 6AA are Appointed Representative of Brian Johnston & Co (Insurance Brokers) Ltd who are authorised and regulated by Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to sell general insurance products. Our FCA register number is 587340 XXXX and you can check this on the FCA’s register by visiting the FCA’s website www.fca.org.uk/firms/financial-services-register or by contacting the FCA on 0800 111 6768.
We are an insurance intermediary
Our service to you. You will not receive advice or a recommendation from us. We may ask you some questions to narrow down the selection of products that we will provide details on. As we provide a non-advised service you will need to make your own choice about how to proceed.
Our service includes arranging your insurance cover with insurers to meet your requirements and helping you with any ongoing changes you have to make.
2. The capacity in which we are acting/who we are representing.
Sourcing a suitable policy: We act as your agent
Placing the insurance: We act as your agent
In the event of a claim: We act as your agent, and we act as agent of the insurer
3. How we made our selection:
To assess the insurance product that most suits your needs, we may use another intermediary to help place your business.
We only offer cover from a single insurer for each class of insurance.
4. Disclosure of information – Consumers. It is important that you understand that any information, statements or answers made by you to us, or your insurer, are your responsibility. You must take reasonable care not to make misrepresentations when answering insurer’s questions. If you are careless in answering the insurer’s questions or deliberately make a misrepresentation, this may render the insurance void from inception (the start of the contract) and enable the insurer to repudiate liability (entitle the insurer not to pay your claims). 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 requirement for correct information not only applies at commencement and renewal of your policy, but also at any time during the period of insurance.
5. Disclosure of information - Commercial Customers. Where the insurance is arranged wholly or mainly for the purposes of your trade, business or profession then you have a duty of “fair presentation of the risk”. This means that you must:
Disclose to us and the insurers every material circumstance to you know or ought to have known, this includes information that can be revealed by a reasonable search of information available to you including information held within your organisation including their senior managers.
Provide the insurer with sufficient information to put a prudent insurer on notice that it needs to make further enquiries into those material circumstances.
A material circumstance are circumstances which may influence the insurers decision to cover a risk and/or the terms that are applied. Examples of material circumstances include
Landlord’s Insurance: Failing to disclose that the property has been susceptible to flooding or has been the subject of an arson attack.
Rent Protection: Failing to obtain positive reference checks on tenants or not documenting the terms of the tenancy agreement.
This requirement not only applies at commencement and renewal of the policy but also at any time during the period of insurance.
6. 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 details the cover that you have in place. If you are in doubt over any of the policy terms and conditions, please seek our advice promptly.
7. Charges and Fees. We will not charge you a fee for the arranging, amending, renewing and cancelling your insurance policy.
8. Remuneration Disclosure. We receive commission from Insurers as a % of annual premium
9. Commission Disclosure – Commercial customers You are entitled at any time to request information regarding any commission which we may have received as a result of placing your insurance business
10. Auto Renewal. For your own protection your policy will automatically renew unless you have opted out of the auto renew facility. You can stop your policy automatically renewing at any time. You can do this by telephone, post or email. If you cancel this facility your insurance will then expire on the renewal date unless you give us instructions to renew your policy
11. Client money – general. The FCA rules are designed to protect you in the event that an insurance intermediary fails or is unable to transfer:
a. any premium money it has received from you to the insurer; or
b. any claims or return premium monies that it has received from the insurer to you.
We are governed by strict rules pertaining to client money, set down by the FCA. Where we hold monies in a client bank account, we may earn interest on monies held, which will be retained by us. We do not hold monies on behalf of clients or insurers. All premiums are paid direct to the insurer.
12. 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 Compliance Officer at Brian Johnston & Co (Insurance Brokers) Ltd by telephone on 01737768151, by email to enquiries@bjins.co.uk or in writing to Brian Johnston & Co (Insurance Brokers) Ltd. 1-3 Linkfield Corner, Redhill, Surrey. RH! 1BL, who will take details of your concerns. We will acknowledge your complaint promptly in writing and do our best to resolve the problem quickly, keeping you informed of progress and the measures being taken. In the unlikely event that we have not resolved the complaint within 8 weeks we will write again to explain the reasons and advise when we expect to be able to do so.
If we cannot satisfy your complaint, you may be entitled to refer it to the Financial Ombudsman Service, and we will provide you with information about their service. For more information visit www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk.
A full version of our Complaints Handling procedures is available on request
13. 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 fourteen (thirty) days to change your mind and cancel the insurance contract from the date you receive the policy documentation. NB This only applies to consumers