Home
About us
Contact
Products
Terms of Business
Buy Online
Our Friends
Recommendations
Red Alert
Blog
 


STATUS                                                                      

Clifton Insurance Consultants Limited are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Our Firm Reference Number is 600383. We are independent insurance intermediaries who act on your behalf in arranging your insurance, and our service includes advising you on your insurance needs, arranging insurance cover with insurers to meet your requirements, helping you with any ongoing changes you have to make, and assisting you with any claim you need to make. We offer a range of personal insurance products and have access to many leading insurers in the marketplace. However, for some types of insurance we deal exclusively with a single insurer, which we have selected as offering good value for money allied to an excellent service. We also act as agents for a number of specialist intermediaries to obtain exclusive arrangements for unusual or specialist policies. Full details of any such arrangements will be provided before you make any commitment on any product we offer you.

CONFIDENTIALITY                                                        

Unless we are required by law, public interest, or by virtue of our regulatory status, or you give your consent, all information you supply will be kept confidential to us and parties involved in the normal course of arranging your insurance. Please be aware that insurers pass information on to certain statutory bodies for the purpose of checking information, preventing fraudulent claims and identifying uninsured motorist.

We and/or the insurers and/or credit providers may use publicly available data from a variety of sources, including credit reference agencies and other external organisations  to verify your identity or creditworthiness, to avoid fraud, and to obtain beneficial quotes and payment options on your behalf. Each of the searches may appear on your credit report whether or not your application proceeds.

By agreeing to these terms and conditions you agree to these uses of your information.

PROTECTING YOUR MONEY

Prior to your premium being forwarded to the insurer, and for your protection, we either hold your money as an agent of the insurer (in which case your policy is treated as being paid for), or we hold it in a client bank account on trust for you. Your money will be protected at all times because of the requirements of the rules of the Financial Conduct Authority. We also reserve the right to retain interest earned on this account. 


By agreeing to these terms and conditions you are giving your consent for us to operate in this way.

CHARGES                                       

We derive income from commissions paid to us by insurance companies for polices arranged with them. However, it may be necessary from time to time to make additional charges, but should this be necessary we will advise you of the level of charge and reason for the charge before you make any commitment on any product we offer you. You may be able to spread your premium payment through insurers' instalment schemes or a credit scheme, which we have arranged with a premium finance provider. We will give you full information about your payment options when we discuss your insurance in detail.

HOW TO CANCEL

We hope that our clients’ annual policies will remain in force for the entire projected duration of the contract. Please contact us immediately if you wish to cancel any insurance policy we have arranged for you. You may have a right to cancel a policy without penalty within the first 14 days (or, in some cases, longer).  Please refer to your policy summary or your policy document for further details.  If you cancel within this initial cancellation period (where this applies) you will receive a pro-rata refund of premium from the insurer. However, insurers are entitled to make an administrative charge.  In addition, we will charge an amount which reflects the administrative costs of arranging and cancelling the policy.   If you choose to cancel other than within an initial cancellation period you may not receive a pro-rata refund of premium. In addition, we will charge an amount which reflects the administrative costs of arranging and cancelling the policy.


OUR EARNINGS

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 or arranging premium finance.

YOUR DUTY OF DISCLOSURE

Consumers: You must take reasonable care not to make a misrepresentation to the insurer. This means that all the answers you give and statements you make as part of your insurance application, including at renewal and when an amendment to your policy is required, should be honest and accurate. If you deliberately or carelessly misinform the insurers, this could mean that part of or all of a claim may not be paid.


Non-consumer customers: Where we arrange insurance wholly or mainly for purposes related to your trade, business or profession, you have a duty under The Insurance Act 2015 to make a fair presentation of the risk. This means that you must disclose every material circumstance which you and/or your senior management and/or anyone responsible for arranging your insurance know or ought to know. Alternatively, you must disclose sufficient information which would put the insurer on notice that it needs to make further enquiries for the purpose of revealing those material circumstances.  You are expected to carry out a reasonable search in order to make a fair presentation of the risk and will be deemed to know what should reasonably have been revealed by the search.   Your duty of fair presentation applies at the start of the policy, at renewal and when any variation of the policy is arranged. If you fail to make a fair presentation, the insurer may refuse to pay your claim or reduce the settlement amount, depending on the circumstances.  

DOCUMENTS                                        

Policies and Certificates may be withheld until the premium is settled or the direct debit mandate confirmed. In these circumstances we will ensure that you receive full details of your insurance cover and we will provide you with any documents, which you are required to have by law.                              

AWARENESS OF POLICY TERMS

When a policy is issued you are advised to read it carefully.  It is that document, the Schedule and any Certificate of Insurance that is the basis of the contract you have purchased. Please ask for advice if you are in any doubt over any of the terms or conditions. Where your insurance includes Employers Liability cover you are required to retain your Certificate for a minimum of 40 years.                    

CLAIMS                           

If you have to make a claim on your policy, or are involved in an incident that may result in a claim, you must notify us immediately. Failure to do so may invalidate your claim. In an emergency and outside normal business hours your policy may contain advice on claims with telephone numbers. You should not admit liability or agree to any course of action, other than emergency measure to minimise your loss, until you have agreement from your insurer.

DATA PROTECTION

All personal information about you will be treated as private and confidential (even when you are no longer a customer), except where the disclosure is made at your request, with your consent, in relation to administering your insurance or where law requires us. In order to comply with the requirements of the Financial Conduct Authority, we may be asked to provide them with access to our customer records in order that they may carry out a review of our activities. Some or all of the information you supply to us in connection with your insurance proposal will be held on computer and may be passed to other insurance companies for underwriting and claims purposes. Under the Data Protection Act 1998 you have the right to see personal information about you which we hold in our records, which you are at liberty to see at any time.  

COMPLAINTS

It is our intention to provide a high level of service at all times. If, however, you have reason to make a complaint about our service please put your grievance in writing to Nigel Parkinson at Clifton Insurance Consultants Limited, 25 Skillman Drive, Thatcham, Berkshire RG19 4GG in the first instance. You may be entitled to refer the matter subsequently to the Financial Ombudsman Service. You can contact the Financial Ombudsman Service by telephone on 0800 0 234 567 and further information is available at http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/. If you do decide to refer any matter to the Financial Ombudsman Service your legal rights will not be affected. We will provide a summary of our complaints handling procedures should you make a complaint which we cannot resolve informally and at any other time, upon your request.
 
COMPENSATION ARRANGEMENTS

We are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). You may be entitled to compensation from the scheme if we cannot meet our obligations. This depends on the type of business and the circumstances of the claim. Insurance advising and arranging is covered for 90% of the claim, without any upper limit. For compulsory classes of insurance, insurance advising and arranging is covered for 100% of the claim, also without any upper limit.  The compensation scheme does not apply to consumer credit. Further information about compensation scheme arrangements is available from the FSCS on 0800 678 1100 or 020 7741 4100 or by visiting http://www.fscs.org.uk/.

                                                    

                                                                                                                                                                            Date  July 2016


                                                                                      


                                  

                           

     





 
Top