Terms of Business Agreement

 Benchmark Insurance Brokers Ltd. 21 Dalston Lane, London, E8 3DF.

We are an independent insurance intermediary. We are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), registration number 583073. This can be verified by visiting the FCA's web site https://register.fca.org.uk/ or by contacting the FCA on 0800 1116768.  The (FCA) is an independent watchdog that regulates financial services. The FCA has authorised us to advise, arrange, deal in and assist with the placing and administration of all types of General Insurance policies.

• Law and Language

This Terms of Business 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.

• Acceptance

The purpose of this agreement is to set out our professional relationship and detail the services we will provide to you.  For your own benefit and protection, you should read all of the information carefully and in particular, we would like to draw your attention to the “IMPORTANT INFORMATION” section. If you do not agree to any part of the information, please tell us. We assume that you accept the terms of this agreement unless we hear from you.

•  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 Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA), 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 DPA, you have a right to a copy of any personally identifiable information about you that we hold in our records, you can obtain details by writing to us at the usual address. A nominal charge might apply in providing the information to you.

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.

If you do not want us to use your information in this way, please let us know.

•  Our Fees, Commission and Charges

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 make charges to cover the administration of your insurance. These fees will vary depending on the type and complexity of your insurance. Any fees we apply will be clearly shown on our documentation.

Policies voided or cancelled from inception by insurers will be treated as a cancellation and we will retain any commission and fees before returning the net premium to you. By accepting these terms of business, you agree that we may retain the portion of the premium that relates to commission that would have been due to us.

Occasionally we may arrange a policy on which we earn no commission (a “net premium policy”) and in these cases we will advise you of the arrangement fee before you take the policy out.

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 commissions that we may have received in connection with your insurance, if you want this information please contact us.

• 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 only act on behalf of insurers when collecting premiums under risk transfer.

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. Unless advised otherwise, all our policies will be offered under an advised sale basis where we provide you with a recommendation.

In all cases our service will include arranging and administering your insurance, including helping you with on-going changes and assisting you if you need to make a claim, or where we outsource claims handling facilities to give you an enhanced service.

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.

• Our Selection

We offer products from a wide range of insurance companies. 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 analysis of the market. 

Sometimes we may only approach two or three insurers and this is a limited 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. You can also request a list of the companies that form the Panel we have approached.

• 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.

• Money

We will hold money that you pay to us in accordance with the regulators rules or under a risk transfer agreement with insurers. We hold your money in an account that separates it from our own money, this account is;  

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.

• 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 accept payments by cash (subject to a maximum of £2,500), cheque, debit or credit card or by bank transfer.

It is sometimes possible to spread payments through an insurers instalment scheme or credit we have arranged with premium finance providers. We will give you full details of the deposit (if required) the credit charge and the monthly instalments, prior to you accepting this method of payment.

• 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. 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.

• Complaints

Our aim is always to provide our customers with a first-class service; If for any reason we have not met your expectations, let us know as soon as possible, by calling our main office telephone 020 3598 1752 and speaking to the person that handled your insurance, or write to the Commercial Manager, Phillip Boyle ACII, 21 Dalston Lane, London, E8 3DF, or by e-mail to phil.boyle@benchmark.insure

If we are unable to resolve the issue to your satisfaction by the end of the next 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 monthly charge for calls to No’s starting 01 or 02). Alternatively you can contact them at The Financial Ombudsman Service, Exchange Tower, London E14 9SR or on 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 compulsory classes of insurance (such as motor insurance) is covered for 100% of a claim.  Further information is available from the FSCS helpline on 0207 892 7300 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

• 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. 

Some polices are subject to Value Added Tax (VAT) not IPT and should the rate of VAT be amended by the Government, your premium will be amended by the insurer to reflect the change. 

• Termination

You may cancel this agreement with us at any time. You must provide at least 60 days written notice of instructions. We also reserve the right to cancel this agreement at any time. In any event, we will provide you with reasonably sufficient time to re-arrange your insurance and we will notify you of termination in writing together with an explanation if appropriate. If this agreement is terminated by you we will be entitled to receive or retain any commission or fees payable.