West Humberstone Agencies Ltd 
38 Uppingham Road
Leicester
LE5 0QD Tel 0116 2768481 Fax 0116 2460633 Email info@wha-insurance.co.uk Company Reg No 710852 Registered in England

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Terms of Business

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West Humberstone Agencies Ltd
38 Uppingham Road
Leicester
LE5 0QD
Tel 0116 2768481 Fax 0116 2460633
E-mail info@wha-insurance.co.uk
Website http://www.wha-insurance.co.uk/

Registered in England No.710852

Authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority


TERMS OF BUSINESS AGREEMENT

Our service

In arranging insurance for our customers, we act as an Independent Intermediary. Our service includes advising you on your insurance needs, arranging your insurance cover with insurers to meet your requirements and helping you with any ongoing changes you have to make. We can also assist you with making a claim.

Please note that our Motorists Uninsured Loss Recovery Scheme (Legal Expenses) is not an insurance product but an out-sourced claims service and is not covered by Financial Services Authority (FSA) Regulations. Full details of this arrangement will be given when motor insurance is arranged.

Disclosure

It is your responsibility to provide complete and accurate information to insurers when you take out your insurance policy, throughout the life of your policy, and when you renew your insurance. Failure to disclose information pertaining to your insurance, or any inaccuracies in information given, could result in your insurance policy being invalid or cover not operating fully.

It is important that you ensure all statements you make on proposal forms, claim forms and other documents, are full and accurate. If a form is completed on your behalf, you should check that the answers shown to any questions are true and accurate before signing the document.

You are reminded that it is an offence under the Road Traffic Act to make any false statements or withhold any relevant information to obtain a Certificate of Motor Insurance.

Please note that under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 you are not required to disclose convictions regarded as 'Spent'.

You are advised to keep copies of any correspondence you send to us or direct to your insurer.

If you are in any doubt about whether information is material, you should disclose it.

Confidentiality and data protection

All personal and sensitive information about our customers is treated as Private and Confidential.

We will only use and disclose the information we have about customers in the normal course of arranging and administering their insurances, and will not disclose any information to any other parties without their written consent. Unless we are notified of any changes, we shall assume the personal and sensitive data we hold about our customers is correct, and shall use it to provide quotations when policies fall due for renewal.

In the interests of security and to improve our service, telephone calls you make to us may be monitored and/or recorded.

We may pass information about you to credit reference agencies for the purposes of arranging payments by instalments, and may also pass to them details of your payment record with us.

Under the Data Protection Act 1998, individuals have a right to see personal information about them that we hold in our records. A charge may be made for this service. If you wish to exercise this right, or have any other related queries, you should write to us at the above address.

Motor and home insurance anti-fraud registers

Insurers share information with each other via the Claims and Underwriting Exchange Register, and the Motor Insurance Anti-Fraud and Theft Register, to aid the prevention of fraudulent claims.

In the event of a claim, the information you supply on the claim form, together with any other information relating to the claim, will be put on the Registers.

Motor Insurer Information Centre (MIIC)

Insurers are legally required to provide details of motor insurance policies to the MIIC. The information describing your insurance cover will be added to the Motor Insurance Database (MID), to which the police and other government agencies have access. This helps the pursuance of claims following accidents and aids detection of those who are in contravention of the law by not taking out insurance.

Use for marketing purposes

We may use information held about you, to provide you with information about other products and services which we offer, and which we feel may be appropriate to you, by email, telephone, post or other means.

You may exercise your right to give notice to stop data being processed for marketing purposes by contacting us at any time. Please contact us on the above telephone number or write to us at the above address.

Claims

In the event of an incident occurring which may give rise to a claim under your policy, you should notify the insurer direct as soon as possible using the contact details in your policy document.

When we receive notification of an incident that might give rise to a claim under your policy, we will inform the insurer without delay and, in any event, within 5 working days.

We shall use our best endeavours when acting on your behalf in relation to a claim, to handle all elements of the claim with due care, skill and diligence.

We will advise you promptly of insurers' requirements concerning claims, including the provision, as soon as possible, of information required to establish the nature and extent of a loss.

If there is any conflict of interest, we shall only handle a claim on your behalf after we have disclosed to you all information you require, to enable you to decide whether to give your informed consent, and you have given that consent.

We will forward any payments received from insurers in respect of any claim, to you, without delay.

We will notify you of any request for information we receive from your insurers.

Complaints

It is our intention to provide you with a high level of customer service at all times. If there are occasions when we do not meet these standards, please contact the member of staff you were dealing with, either verbally or in writing. They will take details of your concerns and we will then acknowledge in writing, advising you of who is dealing with the matter. A copy of our full Complaints Handling Procedures is available on request.

Cancellation rights (The mediation contract)

The Mediation Contract is the agreement between you and us for the insurance mediation services that we provide to you in respect of your insurance requirements.

Once you have entered into the Mediation Contract with us, you are entitled to a period of reflection during which you may decide whether to proceed with the purchase of the Mediation Contract. The duration of this cancellation period is 14 days and commences from either:
*The day of conclusion of the Mediation Contract; or
* The day on which you receive the full terms of the Mediation Contract detailing the full contractual terms, conditions and information of the contract; whichever is later.

To cancel this Mediation Contract within the cancellation period, please write to us at the above address. If you do cancel this Mediation Contract within the cancellation period, you may be charged a proportion of any of our fees that you have incurred.

Premiums and financial aspects

In order to be able to offer you credit facilities, we are registered under the Consumer Credit Act and our Licence Number is 043332.

We normally accept payment by cash, guaranteed cheque or most credit/debit cards.

You may be able to spread your payments through insurers' instalment schemes, a credit scheme with a third party finance provider, or a facility we have arranged ourselves. We will give you full information about your payment options when we discuss your insurance in detail.

We may keep certain documents, such as your insurance policy documents or Certificate, while we are waiting for full payment of premiums. In these circumstances, we will ensure that you receive full details of your insurance cover and will provide you with any documents that you are required to have by law.

Credit Terms

All premiums charged by your Insurers are due for payment forthwith. When we have agreed delayed payment with you, either verbally or in writing, we act as your agent with the Insurance Company and you agree to us keeping any Insurance Documents until you have paid the premium in full, if after requests for payment of any outstanding premium or instalment the amount requested remains unpaid we, acting as your agent, will cancel the insurance. Any refund obtained from the Insurer will be used to clear the outstanding balance and our charges after deduction of commission. You will always be informed of this action being taken by letter sent to your last known address lodged with ourselves.

Risk transfer

Premiums that we collect from you are held in a non-statutory trust insurance broking bank account specifically used for the purpose of holding client premiums. By virtue of agreements we hold with insurers, we collect premiums and return premiums as agent of the insurer. Therefore, once we have collected premiums from you, under the terms of our agreements with insurers, those premiums are treated as having been paid to the insurer. We will remit the premiums to insurers, after deduction of our commission, in accordance with the terms of our agreements with insurers.

Return premiums

Return premiums usually arise if an insurance risk is reduced or a policy cancelled.

On a return premium, we repay commission on the amount to your insurer and this will be deducted, together with our charge, from the final amount due to you. If a policy is cancelled, we will refund any return premium due after deduction of the commission and our charge (please see section below 'Fees and Charges').

No refund will be issued for any amount less than £20.00.

Quotations

All quotations are subject to change in respect of the amount of premium indicated, and/or the terms and conditions that are applied.

Policy terms, conditions and warranties

You should read through all policy terms, conditions and warranties shown on your policy documentation. Please ensure you understand them and are able to follow their requirements exactly. If not, please advise us immediately, as a breach of any terms, conditions or warranties may enable your insurer to terminate your policy from the date of that breach, and/or repudiate a claim under your policy.

Renewal premiums paid by monthly direct debit

In good time before the renewal of your policy, we shall contact you with the renewal premium and terms for the coming year.

If you have not contacted us before the renewal date, we shall renew the policy automatically on your behalf. If you do not wish to renew the policy, please let us know as soon as possible. We should also advise you to cancel your direct debiting instruction with your bank prior to renewal date.

If it is your intention to renew the policy, no action is required by you, and the policy will renew automatically. We shall send your new certificate of insurance to you.

Disclosure of commission

If you would like to know the amount of commission that we are paid in respect of your insurance contract, this information is available on request.

Fees and Charges

We make the following charges for our professional services. £10 is charged for mid-term adjustments, policy issue and renewals. Policies cancelled during the first year of cover and when a refund of premium is allowed then we shall always retain a minimum of £35 to cover costs incurred. We also charge £15 for processing any payments that are returned as uncleared. Such fees will always be disclosed to you beforehand and at the time they are incurred. Our charges for credit are shown on our credit forms and are available on request. All of our fees are non-refundable in any circumstances.

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 insurers (in which case your insurance is treated as paid for), or we hold it in a client bank account on trust for you. We may extend credit to other customers from this account and we may need to transfer your money to another intermediary in some cases. However your money will be protected at all times because of the requirements of the FSA rules. We also reserve the right to retain interest earned on this account. By accepting these Terms of Business, you are giving your consent for us to operate in this way.

Governing law

This Agreement shall be governed by the laws of England and Wales and the parties agree herewith that any dispute arising out of it shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English Courts.

Other taxes or costs

Other taxes or costs, or both, may exist in relation to the products and services offered by us which are not paid through, nor imposed, by us.

ABOUT OUR SERVICES


West Humberstone Agencies Ltd., is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority which is an independent watchdog that regulates the financial services. Our FSA reference number is 300197. Our permitted business is advising and arranging all types of non-investment type insurance contracts other than long term medical plans.

You can check this on the FSA's Register by visiting the FSA's website www.fsa.gov.uk/register or by contacting the FSA on 0845 606 1234.

We offer Insurance Products from a range of Insurers for all types of non-investment type Personal and Commercial insurance policies. These include but not only:- Motor, Household, Travel, Personal Accident, Commercial Vehicle, Fleets, Motor Traders, Property Owners, Public Liability, Shopkeeper, Office and Factory Package Policies. Our Legal Expenses Products are placed with M.S.L. Assistance and no one else although we are not obliged to place business with them. After we have assessed your needs for these products (and others) we will advise and make a recommendation for you. There may be times when we do not offer advice or make a recommendation and on such occasions we will inform you accordingly. However we may ask some questions to narrow down the selection of products that we will provide details on. You will then need to make your own choice about how to proceed.

If you do make a complaint and you cannot settle your complaint with us, you may be entitled to refer it to the Financial Ombudsman Service. We are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. 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 100% of the first £2000 and 90% of the remainder of the claim without upper limit. For compulsory classes of insurance, insurance advising and arranging is covered for 100% of the claim without upper limit.

Further information about compensation scheme arrangements is available from the FSCS.