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/.