Terms of Business

 

STATUS

Crown Insurance Consultants act as your agent and accepts responsibility for the advice given and for arranging your insurance. We have access to a number of insurers and also act as agents of other intermediaries.  We will give you details of these insurers when we discuss your individual requirements.  We are members of the Financial Services Authority [FSA] and the British Insurance Brokers Association (BIBA).  

 

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

We offer a full range of personal and commercial general insurance products and services.  In respect of certain products and services we have selected a specific product or service from one supplier to provide a cost-effective solution to meet the needs of our customers.  We will give you full details of individual products and services before you make any commitment on any product we offer you.  Our service includes advising you on your insurance needs, arranging insurance cover with insurers to meet your requirements and helping you with any ongoing changes you have to make.  As part of our service we will assist you with any claim you need to make.

 

YOUR DUTY TO GIVE INFORMATION

Your attention is particularly drawn to the importance of the Declaration and Signature on the Insurer's proposal forms and/or the insurers Statement of Fact.  Any failure to disclose facts material to the insurance or any inaccuracies in your answers could invalidate your cover, which could mean that part or all of a claim might not be paid.  You have a continuing obligation to disclose facts material to the insurance throughout the period of the cover and at renewal of the policy.  If you are in doubt as to whether to advise the Insurer of change in circumstances that may be relevant to the cover, then it is preferable to advise the Insurer.

 

POLICY TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND CLAIMS

All insurance policies contain conditions; exclusions and some contain warranties (which if they are breached may well void the insurance completely, regardless of whether any loss is caused by the breach).  As such we cannot stress too highly the importance of being familiar with the obligations imposed upon you by the terms of the policy and the limitations of its scope.  Similarly if you should become aware of any claims or circumstances, which could lead to a claim being made you, must notify us immediately and in writing if required.  Failure to do so could prejudice your position. Please do consult us if you are in doubt on any aspect of your insurance arrangements.

 

PAYMENT OF PREMIUMS AND CHARGES

We normally accept payment by guaranteed cheque, cash or credit card.  You may be able to spread your payments through insurers' instalment schemes or an independent premium finance company.  We will give you full information about your payment options when we discuss your insurance in detail.

 

CHARGES

In addition to premiums charged by the insurer, we make the following charges to cover our administrative costs for these specified activities:

·          Mid-term adjustments                                                                             £10

·          Replacement of lost motor insurance certificates                                    £10

·          Mid-term cancellations/adjustment return premiums                               Commission clawback

The specific charge and purpose of any additional charges will always be advised to you in advance. All charges are at the discretion of the management

 

COMPLAINTS

The FSA regulates sales, advisory and service standards to make sure that general insurance customers are treated fairly.  It is our intention to provide you with the highest level of customer service all the time.  However, if you do feel you have cause to be unhappy in any way with your insurance cover, in the first instance please contact us and we will be please to assist you.  A more formalised complaint procedure is detailed below and in your policy document. 

 

COMPLAINTS PROCEDURE

We take all complaints seriously and will endeavour to respond to any complaint immediately.  Where this is not possible we will acknowledge your complaint within 5 working days of receipt and give you the name of the person dealing with your complaint.  If we believe that the complaint does not relate to the activities of Crown Insurance Consultants we will inform you in writing within 5 working day of receipt of the complaint and where possible provide details of to whom the complaint should be directed.  Whilst we endeavour to investigate all complaints immediately we undertake to give you a written response to your complaint within 20 working days or, if further time to investigate the complaint is required, to update you on progress and agree a time-scale for resolution.  For private customers, if we fail to resolve your complaint to your satisfaction, you may refer the complaint to the FSA Dispute Resolution Scheme.

 

CONFIDENTIALITY

All personal information about you will be treated as private and confidential.  We only use and disclose the information we have about you in the normal course of arranging and administering your insurance and to provide you with information about other products and services we feel may be appropriate to you.  We will not disclose any information to any other parties without your consent.  We may pass information about you to credit reference agencies for the purpose of arranging payments by instalments and may also pass to them details of your payment record with us.  Under the Data Protection Act 1998 you have the right to see personal information about you about you, which we hold in our records.  If you have any queries or do not wish to receive marketing information from us, please write to us at our usual business address.