Legal Disclaimer

Our Status
The Financial Services Authority regulates sales, advisory and service standards, to make sure that general insurance Clients are treated fairly.

Bishop Skinner Insurance Brokers Limited (Bishop Skinner) are an independent Insurance Intermediary and are authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA). Our FSA registered number is 308415.  Details of our firm can be checked on the FSA Register on www.fsa.gov.uk/register or by telephone on 0845 606 1234.

Definitions
The FSA rules classify customers into two types, namely:

• Consumer, defined as any natural person who is acting for purposes which are outside his trade or profession; or
• Commercial, defined as a customer who is not a consumer customer.

Some of the FSA rules vary, dependent on whether you are a consumer or commercial customer. Where such variations affect this Terms of Business, they have been clearly highlighted in the paragraph headings.

Our service includes:
Investigating and assessing your insurance needs

• 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
• Assisting with and ensuring the fair treatment of any claims that might arise under your insurance policy.

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 being invalid or cover not operating fully.

It is important you ensure that 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 an Insurance Certificate.

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

Whose products do we offer
We offer products from a range of insurers.

We also operate a number of special schemes where we offer one product from a single insurer. We shall tell you whenever this applies.

Charges / Fees
Bishop Skinner is normally paid a commission by an insurance provider for arranging a policy. In addition to the premium charged by insurers, we may make an additional charge of up to a maximum of £25 to cover the administration of your insurance including new business, renewals, mid-term adjustments, replacement of lost certificates and unpaid cheques.  A charge of 2% will be added for credit card payments, and mid-term cancellations will be charged at 15% of the cancelled premium value.

Any such charges will be shown on our invoice.

Other Payments
We can offer the facility for you to pay your premiums by instalments, either through the insurer, or through Close Brothers, an international bank. Where facilities are arranged this way, Bishop Skinner may be paid a commission.

Tacit Renewals: (note: applies only to Consumer customers)
We may operate a Tacit renewal policy.  This means that for established Consumer clients we may for their protection renew their policy without first obtaining their instructions to do so.  In every case we will have given the client details of the premium due prior to renewal date and provided we do not receive instructions to cancel, we will renew the policy on the understanding that the premium is due to Underwriters

Cancellation Rights (note: applies only to Consumer customers)
Your insurer gives you the right to cancel the contract within 14 days of

• the day of the conclusion of the contract; or, if later
• the day on which you receive the contractual terms and conditions and information in a durable medium.

Complaints Procedure
If you have a complaint concerning any aspect of the service you receive from us please write to a Director at the address on the bottom of this document. Complaints we cannot settle may be referred to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), subject to eligibility (see below).

Compensation arrangements
If you make a valid claim against Bishop Skinner in respect of the insurance we arrange for you and we are unable to meet our liabilities in full, you may be entitled to redress from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).  This depends on the type of business and the circumstances of the claim (see below).

Insurance arranging and advising is covered for 100% of the first £2000 and then 90% of the remainder without any upper limit. For compulsory classes of insurance, insurance advising and arranging is covered for 100% of the claim without any upper limit.

Further information about compensation arrangements is available from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) and the Financial Services Authority.

Eligibility for using FOS or FSCS
All clients who are buying insurance for themselves as a private individual (‘Consumer' client) and "Commercial" clients, where the business for which they are purchasing insurance has a turnover of less than £1M per year, are eligible to use these two facilities.

Businesses purchasing insurance who have a turnover greater than £1M per year are not eligible to use these services.

Protection for clients' assets:
European legislation has set out necessary measures that should be taken by insurance firms to offer adequate protection for clients' assets when the firm is responsible for them.  There are two particular approaches, which firms can adopt:

1) The first is to provide by law or contract for a transfer of risk from the insurance intermediary to the insurance provider (often referred to as ‘binding authorities' or risk transfer)

2) The second is that clients' money is transferred to strictly segregated client trust accounts. These client accounts can be written under a statutory or non-statutory trust.

Holding Money as an Agent of an Insurer (Risk Transfer)
When handling and holding your insurance premiums and premium refunds, Bishop Skinner may act as agent of your insurer, who would then accept the risk of any losses which might arise through our financial failure. This is known as risk transfer where your insurer treats your premiums as being received by them when they are received by us.

Client Money Accounts
Where Bishop Skinner does not act as agent of an insurer, when you pay your premium to us, we hold it in a non-statutory trust client money account.

Consent to use of Non-statutory trust client bank account and payment of interest
Unlike a statutory trust, a non-statutory trust may be used to make advances of credit, to enable a client's premium obligation to be met before the premium is remitted to Bishop Skinner. Similarly, it allows claims and premium refunds to be paid to a client before receiving remittance of those monies from the insurer.

An intermediary firm may only operate a non-statutory trust if it can meet certain conditions laid down by the FSA. We can reassure you that Bishop Skinner meets these conditions and other requirements as set out under the FSA client money rules.

On monies pending in the client trust account Bishop Skinner does not expect any interest due to exceed £20 per consumer client transaction. It is the firm's general policy to retain interest earned on any monies held.

Please note that by accepting these Terms of Business, you consent to Bishop Skinner holding your money in a non-statutory trust client bank account and retaining interest earned on any monies held.  Should you not consent please contact us on 0191 2328682.

Data Protection
So that we may fully understand your circumstances and requirements, Bishop Skinner will need to collect information about you which we will hold as Data controllers under the Data Protection Act 1998. Bishop Skinner will use and disclose the information we have about you in the normal course of arranging and administering your insurance.

You agree that Bishop Skinner may on occasions use your personal details or share your information with other carefully selected organisations, so that they, or we can inform you of other products and services which may be of interest, either by telephone, post, or other appropriate methods.

If you do not wish to receive such marketing information from us, or to allow us to disclose information about you to other parties for marketing purposes, please mark the tick box included within the declaration at the end of this document.

Passing of Information
Insurers pass information to the Claims & Underwriting Exchange Register, the Motor Insurance Anti Fraud Register and the Motor Insurance Database.  These organisations help to prevent insurance fraud and identify uninsured drivers.

Please note that by accepting these Terms of Business, you specifically agree to information about you being used / disclosed in the manner described.

Termination of this agreement
Termination is without prejudice to any transactions already initiated, which will be completed according to these terms of business unless otherwise agreed in writing.  You may terminate your instructions to us at any time. We reserve the right to require such termination to be in writing.  We may terminate this agreement by giving you a minimum of fourteen days notice. No penalty shall be payable on any termination but we shall be entitled to remuneration for work undertaken prior to such termination. Any such termination shall be subject to completion of any transactions, which are in progress at that time.

If you DO NOT wish your personal data to be used for marketing purposes (see Data Protection paragraph above), please let us know.

Note: Please retain this Terms of Business for your records, unless you have ticked the box above, in which case you should return the document to us, Bishop Skinner Insurance Brokers Ltd., 5/8, St. James Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 4NF.  We will then note our records and issue you with a further copy.

These terms of Business shall be governed by and construed in accordance with English Law.

Admin / FSA Compliance / Version 07.07.08