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Status
Fred
Roberts & Partners are an independent insurance intermediary acting on your behalf as an
agent to arrange your insurance cover. We offer a wide range of commercial
insurance products and have access to leading insurers in the market
place. We aim to offer the
highest standards of service in establishing appropriate insurance cover
for your requirements.
Our
Service
This
includes: advising you on your insurance needs; arranging insurance cover
with insurers to meet your requirements; and helping you with any ongoing
amendments you wish to make. We will make sure, as far as we are able,
that the products or services we offer meet your requirements.
We
will explain the main features of the products and services that we offer,
all the important details of cover and benefits, any significant or
unusual restrictions or exclusions, any significant conditions or
obligations which you must meet and the period of cover.
Duty
of Disclosure
It
is your responsibility to provide complete and accurate information to the
insurer when you take out an insurance policy, throughout the life of the
policy and when you renew the policy whether or not proposal forms or
declarations are applicable or completed.
It
is important that you ensure all statements made on proposal forms, claim
forms or any other documents are full and accurate. Please note that if
you fail to disclose any material fact to your insurers, this could
invalidate your insurance cover and could mean that part or all of a claim
may not be paid. If you are in any doubt as to what constitutes a material
fact then you should request guidance on the matter.
Confidentiality
and Data Protection
All
information about you and your business will be treated as private and
confidential. We will only use and disclose the information we have about
you in the normal course of arranging and administrating your insurance.
We may pass information about you to credit reference agencies for the
purpose of arranging payment by instalments.
We
may use the information we hold about you to provide you with information
on other products and services we can offer that we feel may be
appropriate to you.
Quotations
Quotations
given by
Fred Roberts & Partners do not constitute offers. All
proposals and requests for insurance are subject to acceptance by the
insurers. The premiums and terms quoted are subject to confirmation and
agreement by the insurer.
Instructions
To
avoid any misunderstandings, you should provide your instructions to us in
writing. In urgent cases, we may accept verbal instructions provided they
are confirmed in writing as soon as possible. We are unable to accept
instructions until you have been provided with a formal written quotation.
Notification
of Incidents/Claims
It
is essential that you notify us immediately of all incidents or
circumstances that may result in a claim against your insurance policy.
You must do so whether you believe you are liable or not. Any
correspondence received by you relating to a claim should be passed to us
immediately, without acknowledgement.
Where
agreed we will provide a claims handling service & we will:
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Give you guidance to assist the insured
in pursuing a claim under the policy
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Handle claims fairly & promptly &
keep you informed of their progress
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Inform you in writing if we are unable to
deal with any part of a claim
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Advise you as soon as possible of claim
settlement details
In
the event that an insurer becomes insolvent or delays making settlement we
do not accept liability for any unpaid amounts.
Cooling Off Period
This
is only applicable to “retail” clients. If we have not supplied you
with certain information you need in order to come to a decision to
buy/not buy the insurance offered, you have a cooling off period of 14
days from the date we do supply that information to you. You may cancel
your cover within this period and get all your money back provided no
claims have been made. If you choose not to receive the information
offered we will keep a record of your agreement to this and there will be
no cooling off period.
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Information
on Costs
We
receive, in most cases, a commission from the insurer, which is normally a
percentage of the premium, however, this amount does not always reflect
the work done in arranging and servicing the policy. We, therefore add to
the premium a fee that reflects the amount of work done. All fees added to
the insurer’s premium will be advised separately and clearly at the
quotation stage or in a full quotation presentation.
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Commission
will be due and payable immediately on receipt of the premium.
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All
mid term adjustments and renewals are subject to a minimum charge of £10.00
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Any
stopped and/or returned cheques will be subject to a £15.00 charge.
We
reserve the right to retain all commission and/or fees in the event of
cancellation of a policy.
Terms
of Payment
Our
payment terms are as follows:
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New Policies:
immediate payment on the inception date of the policy;
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Mid term adjustments:
payment within seven days of the alteration;
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Renewals:
payment due by the renewal date.
Payments
can be made in either cash, guaranteed cheque, credit card or certain
debit cards. Alternatively, we may, subject to credit check, be able to
arrange instalment facilities with either Amber Credit or Premium Credit
Ltd.
Money
collected from clients by any of the above methods will be held in one of
the two following ways:
In a statutory trust account.
It
is therefore essential that the above payment terms are met in order that
the insurer may be paid within their given credit periods. Failure to pay
within these credit periods may result in the cancellation of a policy.
Any
return premium due from the insurer will be refunded only once it is
received by Fred Roberts & Partners and the funds have cleared in the
account.
Due
to the amount of interest earned from the trust account this is retained
by Fred Roberts & Partners.
Debt
Recovery
If
for any reason you default on a payment of any kind, we will hold you
liable for our debt recovery costs.
Complaints
It
is our intention to provide you with the highest level of customer service
at all times, however, if you should feel dissatisfied with your insurance
cover or the level of service provided then we operate a comprehensive
complaints facility. A brief summary of this follows, however, a copy of
the full procedure is available upon request.
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Any
complaint should be communicated to ourselves either orally or in writing
to 25 Frederick Street, Sunderland, SR1 1LT.
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Upon
receipt we shall acknowledge your complaint and the person dealing with it
within 5 working days.
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We
shall then provide a final response or an explanation of the current
situation within 4 weeks.
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If
the matter is not finalised at that time we shall, within 8 weeks, provide
a final response or explanation of why we are unable to respond and advice
on contacting the Financial Ombudsman Service.
Security
of Insurers
We
do not guarantee the solvency of any insurer we place business with. A
liability for the premium, whether in full or part, may arise under
policies where an insurer becomes insolvent.
Notice
Insurers
pass information to the claims and underwriting exchange run by the
Insurance Database Services Ltd and the motor insurance anti-fraud and
theft register run by the Association of British Insurer. The aim is to
check information provided and prevent fraudulent claims. Motor insurance
details are added to the motor insurance database run by the motor
insurers information centre, which has been formed to identify uninsured
drivers and may be checked by the police to confirm who is insured to
drive. In the event of an accident the database may be used by insurers
and the Motor Insurers Bureau to identify relevant policy information.
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