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C&C Insurance Brokers (Chester) Limited
Who Are We
C & C Insurance Brokers (Chester) Limited is an Appointed Representative of C & C Insurance Brokers Limited, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) under firm reference number 309053.
Who Regulates Us
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is an independent watchdog that regulates financial services.
Our Financial Services Register number is 1054485, and you can check our status and permissions at https://register.fca.org.uk/ or by contacting the FCA on 0800 111 6768.
Our Activities
As an appointed representative of C & C Insurance Brokers Limited, we are an insurance distributor, authorised to advise, arrange, deal in and assist with the placing and administration of all types of General Insurance policies. This document takes effect upon receipt and supersedes and replaces all previous terms of business agreements between us. We may update or amend this agreement from time to time. Where changes are material, we will take reasonable steps to notify you.
Law and Language
These Terms of Business are subject to English Law and the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England & Wales. We will use English for all communications, the contractual terms and conditions, and any information we are required to provide to you before and during the duration of the contract.
Acceptance
The purpose of this agreement is to set out our professional relationship and detail the services we will provide you. We will treat your instruction to quote for, arrange or administer insurance as confirmation that you have accepted these Terms of Business.
Our Service
We are an insurance distributor (intermediary) and can act both as an agent of the insurer and on behalf of you, the customer. We have in place management controls to deal with any conflicts of interest that might arise.
When we collect premiums under a risk transfer agreement, we are acting on behalf of insurers. (See ‘Money’ section) On all other occasions, unless we advise you otherwise, we are acting on your behalf. We will ask you questions to enable us to assess your insurance requirements reasonably. This may include checking the information that we already hold about you, including your existing policies with other parties and us.
We will advise and make a personal recommendation after assessing your demands and needs, and provide you with a suitable policy for you, based on our experience of dealing with similar risks. We typically offer advice from a limited panel of selected insurers, or from a single insurer, and we will advise you of the identity of the insurers considered, or if we have given advice based on a fair analysis of the market.
Policies incepted by C&C Insurance Brokers (Chester) Ltd are administered by C & C Insurance Brokers Ltd. Their service will include arranging and administering your insurance, including helping you with ongoing changes and assisting you if you need to make a claim. 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.
C & C Insurance Brokers Limited acts as a separately regulated firm and is responsible for the administration of policies and claims handling. We remain responsible for our advice and customer-facing services as an Appointed Representative.
Services will only be provided for the duration of our appointment, unless specifically agreed otherwise in writing.
Claims
You should notify a claim as soon as possible in accordance with the terms of your policy. Failure to report a claim in a timely manner and in accordance with the terms of the policy may jeopardise coverage of the claim. Notification should be made to your usual contact, providing all available information concerning the claim in accordance with the relevant terms.
We do not accept liability for any delayed or unpaid claims by the insurer(s). We will not commence legal proceedings or enter into standstill arrangements on your behalf. It is your responsibility to monitor the position on limitation periods applying to your claims and to commence legal proceedings in relation to your claims as required. On these issues, we recommend you take your own legal advice. Where this involves us liaising with claims experts on behalf of Insurers, we will do so in the course of providing our services and will explain this to you where appropriate. We will not remit claims monies to you before we have received them from insurers.
Our Selection
We offer products from a wide range of insurance providers. Our selection may involve presenting to a range of insurance companies that will insure for the risk at hand, and this is called a fair and personal analysis of the market. Sometimes, to enable us to access additional markets, we may use the services of another intermediary to place your insurance. In these instances, we will advise you of the name of the intermediary we use and the name of the insurer.
If we use the services of another intermediary or distributor to place your insurance, we will advise you of the name of the intermediary or distributor we use and the name of the insurer.
Our Product Selection
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.
Disclosure
Sums Insured and Indemnity Limits: You will be responsible for ensuring that all sums insured and indemnity limits are adequate for the cover requested. We will advise you of the basis of calculation for sums insured and will, on request, give you details of external experts, such as surveyors and valuers, which you may wish to consult.
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 have 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 that it results in harm to customers. This should include taking appropriate remedial action.
•Carry out annual product reviews for all products
Money
The FCA rules are designed to protect you in the event that an insurance intermediary fails or is unable to transfer:
•any premium money it has received from you to the insurer; or
•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 act as agents for the Insurer for the collection of premiums, payment of claims and refunds of premiums. This means that premiums are treated as being received by the Insurer when received in our bank account, and that any claims money or premium refund is treated as received by you when it is actually paid over to you. There are occasions where such transactions are restricted (for example, to receiving premiums only), and we will tell you if this is the case.
When we receive premium payments from you or claim payments or premium refunds from your insurer, we hold these either on your behalf or on behalf of your insurer(s) as determined by the Terms of Business Agreement we have in place with each insurer.
Money held on your behalf is Client Money and is held in a Statutory Trust bank account in accordance with the FCA Client Money rules. A copy of these rules is available at the FCA website www.fca.org.uk. The money on trust gives rise to fiduciary duties, which remain until your money reaches the insurer or another firm which has permission to hold money at the insurer’s risk.
We will hold client money in an Approved Bank (as defined by the FCA), located in the United Kingdom. We may not use it to pay ourselves commission before we receive the premium from our client. For the purpose of some transactions, client money may pass through other authorised intermediaries before being paid to the insurer. The legal and regulatory regime applying to a broker or intermediary outside the UK may be different from that of the UK, and in the event of a business failure of that broker or intermediary, this money may be treated in a different manner from that which would apply if the money were held by a broker in the UK. Please advise us if you do not consent to your money being transferred outside of the UK.
Any interest earned on your money held by us will be retained by us for our own use. Your money will be deposited in client accounts with banks meeting the FCA criteria for approved banks.
Our Remuneration
We usually receive a commission from the insurance provider with whom we place your business, which is a percentage of the total annual premium. 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 these methods is used to make this transfer of commission. In certain circumstances, we may charge you an annual fee for our services, in which case this will be discussed and agreed with you prior to the conclusion of the insurance contract.
Fees
Fees we charge for general insurance products are:
Maximum arrangement fee per policy (new business/renewal) = £100
Mid-Term adjustment fee = £10
Cancellation fee = £100
Where a client holds or arranges multiple insurance policies with us, we reserve the right to charge additional fees beyond those listed in this agreement to reflect the increased administrative work involved. Any such fees will be proportionate, fully disclosed, and agreed with you in writing prior to the inception or renewal of the relevant policy(ies). We are committed to ensuring that all fees are transparent and communicated clearly before you are asked to proceed.
Commercial card surcharges
In accordance with applicable payment services legislation, where payment is made using a commercial or corporate card in connection with business activities, we will apply a surcharge to reflect the processing costs charged to us by our payment service provider. Details of any applicable surcharge will be advised prior to payment being taken.
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. Our level of commission is not linked to the interest rate on the agreement, but the amount of commission we receive does vary depending on which finance agreement you chose to enter into. This means that the amount you pay for credit and the overall cost of arranging your insurance will vary according to the interest charged by the lender and the amount of commission we earn. Using premium finance makes the overall cost of the insurance more expensive. 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 decide whether to proceed.
This means that the amount you pay for credit and the overall cost of arranging your insurance will vary according to the interest charged by the lender and the amount of commission we earn.
Using premium finance makes the overall cost of the insurance more expensive. 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 decide whether to proceed.
We may also receive a commission or fee for passing introductions to other professional firms.
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.
Where you are paying for your insurance by instalments (and an instalment payment is not received by us or the relevant premium finance provider on or before the date when it is due to be paid) you agree we may on your behalf instruct the insurer to cancel the insurance (or where the first instalment payment has not been received, notify the insurer that the policy has not been taken up) and offset any refund of premium which may be received against any money which you owe to us, the insurer and/or the premium finance provider. In such circumstances you will remain liable for any time on risk or other charge. You will also be responsible for putting in place any alternative insurance.
We reserve the right to retain commission clawed back from your Insurers and deduct this from the return premium due back to you in addition to any administration charge associated with the transaction. Return premiums will not be paid back or processed to reduce existing credit agreements until Insurers have finalised the transaction in full.
Specific charges, which apply to individual policies, will be advised to you prior to the commencement of each contract applicable to that policy. The specific charge and purpose of any additional charges will always be advised to you in advance. You are entitled to request at any time, information about the remuneration that we may have received in connection with your insurance; 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.
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 may use insurance and finance providers who will conduct a full credit check and share your payment record with other lenders, all of which will be recorded on your credit record. Please advise us if you do NOT consent to a full credit check being undertaken, and you require premium finance, however this may affect our ability to offer instalment facilities to you.
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 a 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 directly, 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 option.
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 that we only use Premium Credit, Close Brothers Premium Finance and Premfina for the provision of premium finance facilities.
Important: 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)
Policies voided or cancelled from inception by insurers will be treated as a cancellation.
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. This period is extended to 30 days for Pure Protection or Payment Protection contracts. You will always be advised where this Right applies. 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.
Where you cancel your policy after the expiry of the Cooling Off Period or where you request a mid-term adjustment which reduces the cover provided under the policy, we may charge you for our time and costs. This will 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 or amended your policy. 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.
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 you 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 (please check your documents), the renewal premium will be collected automatically from your card or bank.
You have an option to cancel the auto renewal at any time by contacting either us or your insurer 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.
Benefits of auto renewal
• Convenience – if you’re happy with your cover and renewal premium, you won’t need to do anything as your policy will automatically renew.
• No interruption of cover
If your policy is not set to automatically renew (please check your documents). It is important that you contact us to arrange cover, as if we do not hear from you, all cover will end on your policy expiry date.
Your duty to give information
It is important that you understand your duty to provide all materially important information, fully, completely and accurately to us and your Insurers, not only when you take out your insurance, but also throughout the life of your arrangement, at the annual renewal or at any other time when changes occur.
For retail customers and in line with the Consumer Insurance Disclosure and Representations Act 2012, this duty is defined as to take reasonable care not to make a misrepresentation. For commercial clients, the Insurance Act 2015 defines this duty as a requirement to disclose a fair presentation of risk. Failure on your part to immediately disclose accurate information when asked or provide misleading information could result in your insurer imposing different terms on the policy, charging a higher premium, or, in some circumstances, may void the policy from inception, and any claims would not be paid. All statements and material facts disclosed on proposal forms, statements of fact, claims forms, and other documents should be full, true, and accurate. Material facts are those that would influence an insurer in deciding whether to accept a risk and the terms and conditions that would apply. Where forms are completed or partially completed on your behalf, you are responsible for checking them for accuracy before signing. If you are in any doubt as to whether a fact is relevant, you should disclose it and then ask for guidance.
This means that you have an ongoing responsibility to share all material facts or circumstances about the risks covered in good faith. A material fact is one which is likely to influence an insurer in the assessment, acceptance or pricing of your policy. This would include, but is not restricted to, details of previous insurance claims you have made or reported criminal convictions and general information about the risk proposed. If you are unsure whether a fact is material, please ask us.
Failure to make a fair presentation of risk may mean your insurer could proportionately reduce the amount of your claim or void your policy. That means
treat it as if it had not existed and refuse to pay any claims at all. You could then find it difficult to re-arrange cover as the cancellation of a policy by an insurer is a material fact that has to be declared to a new insurer.
The duty to make a fair presentation continues during the policy period and at any subsequent renewal. Any changes to Material Facts must be notified immediately. The terms and conditions of any policy of insurance may also contain express disclosure conditions or warranties which must be strictly complied with.
Complaints
Our aim is to always provide a high standard of service to you. We recognise things can go wrong occasionally, and if this occurs, we are committed to resolving matters promptly and fairly. If you wish to register a complaint, please let us know as soon as possible by calling our main office telephone 0161 406 4800, or write to C & C Insurance Brokers Limited, 86-90 Compstall Road, Stockport SK6 4DE, or email complianceteam@cc-insure.com.
If we are unable to resolve the issue to your satisfaction by the end of the third business day, 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 the position at no later than 4 weeks and 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 a monthly charge for calls to numbers starting 01 or 02). Alternatively, you can contact them at the 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.
Limit of Liability
This clause restricts the amount that may be recoverable as a result of our negligence. Other than injury or death of any person (for which no cap on liability will apply), our liability to you for the services we provide shall not exceed £15,000,000 in connection with any one event or connected events.
Additional services
We also provide additional services such as Risk Management assistance and Health & Safety services. Please note these services are not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. In addition, these services do not benefit from the protection offered by The Financial Ombudsman Service or the Financial Services Compensation Scheme
Sanctions
We will operate in compliance with applicable legislation, including laws regarding sanctions; accordingly, we will act as your broker only on the following terms:
(a) the business we are asked to conduct is not prohibited by any law or regulation and does not, in our opinion, involve a risk of breach of any UK, EU, UN, US or other applicable sanctions legislation;
(b) you will immediately notify us should you become aware of any actual or potential breach of any such legislation in the business you ask us to conduct;
(c) we shall bear no responsibility for any contract terms that insurers may impose with regard to applicable sanctions legislation;
(d) we shall bear no responsibility for the freezing of premiums or claims monies by a third parties such as banks or exchange institutions for sanctions reasons; where obliged by applicable sanctions legislation we may also be required to freeze funds held on behalf of parties and individuals caught under applicable sanctions;
i) if, having accepted a risk, underwriters subsequently amend or terminate the contract for any reasons involving applicable sanctions legislation, no liability shall attach to us for that change or termination of coverage;
(f) should we become aware or have reasonable cause to suspect that you are involved in any actions which in our opinion may breach any UK, EU, UN, US or other applicable sanctions legislation or which may cause us to be in breach, we may withdraw our services immediately
without notice and without liability to you; and
(g) you recognise that we are not experts in sanctions legislation, and you should not rely on our understanding of it but rather seek relevant expert legal advice.
Money Laundering and Reporting
We are subject to UK legislation and regulations which require us to obtain evidence of the identity of clients for whom we act at the start of a business relationship or in respect of certain transactions. In order to meet our obligations in this respect and to provide a safeguard for our company and our clients against the risk of financial crime, we may ask you to provide us with information and copies of documentation, including but not limited to your most recent audited accounts and evidence of state or governmental regulation as applicable. We may also ask you to update such information from time to time. We are obliged to report to the National Crime Agency (NCA), and potentially to other governmental or regulatory agencies, any evidence or suspicion of money laundering at the first opportunity, and we are prohibited from disclosing any such report.
Confidentiality and Data Protection
We take the protection of your personal data extremely seriously and treat all information as private and confidential, and in strict accordance with the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). Full details are contained within our Privacy Statement, which can be found on our website www.cc-insure.com. Under certain circumstances, we may need to obtain information from you in respect of your employees to enable us to declare appropriately to the relevant insurance providers. When you share this information with us, we accept that data on the understanding that this has been explained in your own Privacy Statement or similar document, provided to your employees.
Marketing
It is extremely important that all parties insured under your policy understand how we process information, including that set out in the Marketing Section of our Privacy Policy and these 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:
a) new products or services we have or are developing;
b) trialling new products and services which we think may improve our service to you or our business processes;
c) offer you rewards;
d) 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 or writing to our main office.
Financial Strength
We endeavour to place business with insurers with adequate levels of financial solvency, but cannot guarantee the solvency of any insurer. 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 stability or ability to pay claims.
Termination
You may cancel this agreement with us at any time. You must provide at least 30 days’ written notice of instructions. We also reserve the right to cancel this agreement at any time, providing you with at least 30 days’ written notice issued to your last known address. In any event, we will provide you with reasonably sufficient time to re-arrange your insurance with an explanation if appropriate.
