Terms & Conditions
Bricks & Motor Insurance Brokers Limited - Terms of Business Agreement - Version 3.3
Our Status
B&M Insurance, 82-84 Bolton Street, Bury, BL9 0LL, email enquiry@bricksandmotor.co.uk, telephone 0161 763 8222 is a trading style of Bricks and Motor Insurance Brokers Ltd and are an independent insurance broker. We are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority 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. We may also act as agents of insurers in which case we will advise you. We are also authorised to undertake the following Consumer Credit Activities; Credit Broking (where we act as a credit broker). Our FCA register number is 306923 and you may check this information by visiting the FCA’s website www.fca.org.uk/register or by telephoning the FCA on 0845 606 1234.
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. 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.
If we take over the servicing of insurance policies which were not arranged by us, we do not accept any liability for any loss arising out of any advice provided to you by any other party, nor for any errors, omissions or gaps in your insurance protection. Should you have any concern regarding any aspect of a policy which has been transferred to our control, you should contact us without delay.
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.
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. During the process of dealing with us you will be given an option to receive information in this way, meaning 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.
Accepting our terms of business
By asking us to quote for, arrange or handle your general insurances, you are providing your informed agreement to these Terms of Business.
For your own benefit and protection, you should read these Terms of Business carefully. If you are unsure about any aspect of our Terms of Business, or have any questions regarding our relationship with you, please contact us at the above address.
Duration and Termination of this Agreement
This agreement commences on the date that you appoint us to act as your intermediary or the date when you instruct us to arrange insurances on your behalf, whichever is the earlier. You or we may terminate our authority to act on your behalf at any time. Notice of this termination must be given in writing. No penalty shall be payable on any termination but we shall be entitled to remuneration for work undertaken prior to such termination. Any such termination shall be subject to completion of any transactions, which are in progress at that time.
Data Protection and Confidentiality
B&M Insurance Brokers will treat any information received by us from you, about you with respect, and where appropriate, in accordance with data protection legislation, including the Data Protection Act 1998.
Information provided by you, or which is obtained from other sources in the course of our dealings with you, may be used by us to facilitate the provision of services applied for or requested and we may use the information to advise you of any of our services which we feel may be of interest to you. If you prefer not to receive further information, please let us know by email to enquiry@bricksandmotor.co.uk or write to us at 82-84 Bolton Street, Bury, BL9 0LL. Under the GDPR 2018, you are entitled to a copy of your personal data held by us, upon written request and payment of a fee.
Unsolicited Real Time Financial Promotions
As an established customer, the company may, on occasion, need to contact you either by telephone, email or letter as part of our business relationship within any twelve-month period.
Governing Law
These Terms of Business and any accompanying or associated letter shall be governed by and construed in accordance with English Law and the Courts of England shall have exclusive jurisdiction to settle any disputes that may arise out of or in connection with them.
Limitation of Liability
For the purposes of the following limitations of liability, “you” means you, the client for whom we have agreed to provide services, and also includes, if we are found to owe any legal duties to them, any of your related or associated companies and/or any members, officers, employees or consultants of yours or any of your related or associated companies.
Nothing in terms of business limits or excludes our liability for death or personal injury resulting from our negligence, for any damage or liability incurred as a result of our fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation or any liability arising out of our failure to comply with any rules laid down by the FCA.
We warrant that we will provide our services to you with reasonable skill and care. All other warranties, conditions and other terms implied by statute or common law are, to the fullest extent permitted by law, excluded from these terms of business.
- We will not be liable for any loss incurred as a result of the provision by you to us of incorrect or inadequate information.
- You agree that you will not make any claim or take any action personally against any of our individual members, officers, employees or consultants. However, this does not alter any liability that we as a company may have for the negligence of any of these individuals.
- We will not be liable to you for any loss of anticipated revenue or savings or loss of profit.
- We will not be liable to you for any loss of contracts or business opportunities.
- We will not be liable to you for any loss of goodwill or damage to reputation.
- We will not be liable to you for any indirect, special or consequential loss or damage, costs, expenses or other such claims for compensation whatsoever (whether caused by our negligence of that or any of our individual members, officers, employees or consultants or otherwise) which arises out of or in connection with the services we provide, or agreed to provide, to you.
- We are required by the FCA to maintain a certain level of professional indemnity insurance and in any event the total liability of us and our members, officers, employees or consultants in respect of each and every claim shall be limited to the sum of £1,250,000. For these purposes, a “claim” means any claim or demand (whether for compensation, damages or otherwise) made by you against us and/or one or more of our members, officers, employees and consultants. If a number of claims arise directly or indirectly from the same cause of event, then they will be treated as one claim, rather than a series of claims and regardless of whether the multiple claims are made by the same or different claimants.
Customer Classification
A Consumer is defined as an individual who is acting for purposes which are outside his trade, business or profession. A commercial client is defined as someone who is not a Consumer. Some FCA rules may vary, dependent on whether you are a Consumer or commercial client.
Duty of disclosure
The law imposes onerous duties upon anyone entering into an insurance contract and anyone acting on his/her behalf. A proposer has a duty to disclose all facts that may influence an insurance underwriter in deciding whether to accept the insurance, or whether to impose special terms or whether to charge an increased premium. This duty applies at inception of the policy and throughout the life of the policy, for example at each renewal date and also the submission of claims.
You must read all insurance documents issued to you to make sure that you are fully aware of the cover, exclusions limits and all terms that apply.
Particular attention must be paid to conditions, clauses and warranties (whether expressed or implied) contained within the insurance policy we have arranged. Failure to comply can result in the insurer automatically terminating your policy. Further, where the insurance has been placed with conditions, it may be invalidated or coverage prejudiced whilst the condition is outstanding.
If you are unsure whether information or a change in circumstances may be material, you should disclose it.
Demands and needs
Consumers
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).
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.
Non-Consumers
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 the 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.
Utmost good faith
Be aware that your contract of insurance is one of utmost good faith which means that failure to comply with your policy conditions or “act in good faith” then the insurance company are entitled to void the contract from inception as though you were never on cover.
Confirmation of cover
We will write/email you to confirm that insurance cover has been arranged. This will normally be sent to you within fourteen days of inception of cover. You agree to carefully review all the policy information on receipt and to let us know immediately if the cover is not suitable for your needs. It is your responsibility to ensure that the policy cover has been issued on the correct basis and terms and conditions. The full policy wording will be forwarded as soon as is practicable.
Our Product Selection (Fair and Personal Analysis)
We offer products from a wide range of 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 & personal analysis of the market.
Sometimes we may only approach a specified number of insurers and this is a Panel, or in some cases, we may only approach one insurer, in either case, we will tell you the basis as part of our selling process. We will also provide a list of the companies that form the Panel we have approached at quotation stage. 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.
A full list of these product providers and where relevant, distributors can be provided upon request.
Money
We will hold money that you pay to us in accordance with the regulator’s rules or under a risk transfer agreement with insurers. This will include holding your money in one of the following ways.
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 customer’s 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.
A non-statutory trust insurer bank account in accordance with our agreements with Insurance Companies that transfer the risk of money we receive from customers to them. These agreements deem any money you pay to us, to be received by them and they will bear the risk of any losses in the event that our firm becomes insolvent. This includes claims money or premium refunds we receive prior to being paid to you. 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.
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.
Combating Financial Crime
We are obliged to conduct reasonable due diligence to protect you and us against the risk of financial crime. We may require you to provide evidence to assist us with verifying your identity and any payment details you provide to us to ensure that the transactions that we conduct on your behalf are legitimate.
Neither party shall be involved in the offering, promising or giving of any financial or other advantage to any person in breach of any applicable anti-bribery laws (including the Bribery Act 2010). We are obliged to report evidence or suspicion of financial crime to the relevant authorities at the earliest reasonable opportunity and may be prohibited from disclosing any such report to you.
We shall not provide any services, provide any benefits, or make any payments to any client that is the subject of any trade and economic sanctions or embargos or provide services to any client located, organised in or resident in a country or territory that is the subject of comprehensive country sanctions.
We will carry out checks of the consolidated list of financial sanctions targets designated by the United Nations, The European Union and the United Kingdom and maintained by the Office of Financial Sanctions (OFSI) for all customer transactions. If sanctions apply, we are obliged to report the transaction to the relevant authorities and, in such cases, we shall not make any further payments or process already notified claims and insurers may invoke cancellation rights to terminate affected insurance contracts.
Our Remuneration
Brokerage/commission/fees/charges are earned by us when we arrange an insurance policy for you and/or when we provide a service to you. We will always inform you of the fees/charges so that you are able to make an informed decision and we are happy to provide details of any commission income we are due or have received on receipt of a written request.
Our remuneration is by way of
- a fee for new or renewal policies which will be disclosed to you.
- brokerage/commission (paid to us by the insurer and as a percentage of the total annual insurance premium paid by you).
- mid-term adjustment fees/administration charges of £25.00, in addition to any insurance premiums, for the administration of your policy, including but not limited to amending and cancelling of a policy.
Or by any combination of (1) (2) and (3).
We sometimes receive a profit share or profit commission from insurers and we may also receive a commission or fee for passing introductions to other professional firms including receiving commission of around 5% for arranging premium finance which equates to £5 for every £100 financed which we deem as a reasonable amount given the additional help and assistance that we provide to those clients who encounter problems and/or require general assistance during the course of their premium finance facility.
Non-Refundable Charges
We will be entitled to retain all brokerage/commission/fees/charges for the full period of contract of insurance arranged by us even when your policy has been terminated and your insurers have returned some premium and we will deduct these brokerage/commission/ fees/charges from the returned premium once received.
If you decide to terminate our appointment in relation to any policies we have placed on your behalf and any policies have not expired, and/or premium is due on the policy, then we are entitled to any brokerage/commission/fees/charges originally due on any policies from either you or any new agent/representative you appoint.
IPT Disclosure
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.
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. If you use a corporate credit card, even for a personal purchase, then we will pass on to you by way of an additional administration fee any amount charged to us by the card provider.
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.
When we are aware there is an alternative premium finance arrangement available, with a lower annual percentage rate, for example direct with your insurer, we will let you know. This will enable you to make an informed decision.
We will not make a specific recommendation or 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 this may include information about one or more agreements that you may be eligible for, so that you can compare them, which will enable you to make your own choice about whether to go ahead with any particular finance agreement.
IMPORTANT
Using premium finance makes the overall cost of the insurance more expensive. We will ask you to confirm that you have actively elected (that you have “opted in”) 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 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 before you agree to enter into such an agreement.
For the provision of premium finance facilities, a credit check will be performed if you wish to use this payment.
We do not charge any fees to you for introducing you to a credit provider.
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: 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
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. A charge may apply for the period of cover provided and, in addition, an administration charge will apply as shown in the charges section above, cancellation under this right must be in writing, prior to expiry of the cancellation period, to our usual office address.
Cancellation non consumer
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.
Complaints
It is our intention to provide you the highest level of customer service at all times. However, if you should feel dissatisfied with your insurance cover in any way, or with the levels of service we have provided, then we operate a comprehensive Complaints Procedure to assist you with your complaint. Should you have a complaint about anything, contact Kevan Haughton at:
B&M Insurance, Insurance, 82-84 Bolton Street, Bury, Lancashire, BL9 0LL Telephone: 0161 763 8222
In line with our complaint procedure, we will formally log the complaint and refer the matter to a staff member who is independent from the reason for the complaint. All complaints that are not satisfactorily resolved within 24 hours will be acknowledged in writing promptly within 3 business days of receipt and we will do our best to resolve. You will also be kept informed of any significant developments. If we cannot resolve the problem by the fourth week after the complaint is made, we will let you know when an answer can be expected. If we have not resolved the situation within eight weeks, you may be entitled to refer it to the Financial Ombudsman Service, for an independent assessment and opinion. A copy of our complaint’s procedure is available on request.
The FOS Consumer Helpline is 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) and their address is:
Financial Ombudsman Service Exchange Tower Harbour Exchange Square London E14 9GE
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.
