Our Service

Goodmans Commercial Insurance Brokers LLP is an independent insurance broker, specialising in commercial insurance products and services. As an independent insurance broker, we act on your behalf in arranging your insurances. Our service includes advising you on your insurance needs, arranging insurance cover to meet your requirements and helping you with any ongoing changes which you have to make. As part of our service, we will assist you with any claim which arises under your policy and, where appropriate, the recovery of uninsured losses. We can also issue policies on behalf of certain insurers.

We are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to sell general insurance products. Our Financial Services Register number is 310807 and you can check this on the Financial Services Register by visiting their website www.fca.org.uk/register or by telephoning them on 0800 111 6768.

We offer a wide range of commercial and personal insurance products and have access to leading insurers in the market place. For Motteor Uninsured Loss Recovery insurance we deal exclusively with Bankstone Ltd (administered by ARAG Plc on behalf of Brit Syndicate 2987 at Lloyd’s &/or Bankstone Ltd who act as a claims handling agent on behalf of ARAG plc), for Motor Breakdown cover we deal exclusively with Auto Legal Protection Services (provided by The Mansfield Group and underwritten by AmTrust Europe Ltd) and for Excess Protection cover we deal exclusively with Policy Excess Insure Ltd, (underwritten by Evolution Ltd) all of whom we have selected as offering good value and service.

Quotations

Quotations are usually subject to a satisfactorily completed proposal form, confirmed claims experience and risk survey. Cover will be subject, unless otherwise stated, to the normal terms and conditions of insurers’ policies, implementation of any risk improvements following survey and acceptance of the proposal form.

Quotations are inclusive of Insurance Premium Tax (IPT) at the current rate unless otherwise stated. Any quotation given is valid until the end of the calendar month, unless stated otherwise. If you are a Retail customer we will allow you a ‘cooling-off’ period of at least 14 days from the date on which you receive policy documentation. During this period you may cancel and receive a full refund of premium subject to deduction of any charge or administration fee imposed by insurers, provided no claims have been made, or are pending.

Payment Terms

Our standard terms of business require settlement of premiums in full within 30 days from the date of invoice, except for clients holding personal insurances only, where settlement is required at inception or renewal date, unless agreed otherwise. You may be able to spread payments through an instalment facility provided by an insurer or a credit scheme which we have arranged with a third party finance provider. We will give you full information about your payment options when we discuss your insurance in detail. Where customers choose to pay their premiums by instalments, we offer the services provided by Premium Credit Ltd and we may receive a commission for introducing customers to them.

The invoiced premium will include, where applicable, UK Insurance Premium Tax at the prevailing rate (certain policies may attract different rates). Invoices will include any administration charges, together with account handling fees and/or collection charges made by or on behalf of insurance companies and/or underwriting agencies and/or brokers. Invoices will not include instalment charges made by insurance companies or third party premium collection agencies for premium finance or premium credit arrangements.

Interest on Customer Premiums

We hold premiums that you pay us in a statutory trust client current bank account and we remit premiums to insurers, after deduction of our commission, in accordance with the terms of our agreements with insurers. Under FCA Regulations we have to inform you that we may earn interest from the money held in our client bank account. Any interest earned in this respect will be retained by the company. By accepting these Terms of Business, you are giving your consent for us to act in the manner described in this section.

Charges

As independent brokers we are paid a commission by your insurance company, details of which are available on request. In some instances, premiums advised by insurers are on a net of commission basis; in these cases we may charge a fee but this will be in line with commission levels normally payable. For some classes of insurance, we charge an administration fee as shown in our leaflet entitled ‘About our insurance Services’. In all instances, we will confirm the amount before you make any commitment.

Return premiums (usually arising 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 from the final amount refunded to you.

Claims

You must notify us of all incidents which may result in a claim as soon as possible. Reporting an incident does not mean that you are committed to make a formal claim under your policy. However, if you do not report an incident and subsequently wish to make a claim, your

insurers could decline the claim by virtue of late notification. Control of claims is the responsibility of the insurer; you must not compromise their rights. You should not make any admissions of liability.

If you make a claim we will respond promptly, explain how we will handle your claim and tell you what you need to do. We will give you reasonable guidance to help you make a claim. We will notify you of any request for information we receive from your insurers promptly. We will forward any payments received from insurers in respect of any claim, to you, without delay.

Confidentiality/Data Protection Fair Processing Notice

The personal data we collect about you will include data relating to your name, address, date of birth, wider contact details and data relating to ‘health’ and ‘criminal offences’ if applicable. We will process your personal data to allow us to provide you with our services as your insurance broker in quoting for, arranging and administering your insurances, for statistical analysis and to assess your suitability to our services and in arranging insurance premium finance where applicable.

Your data will also be used to manage future communications between us including about our products and services. You can opt out from receiving such communications services at any time by emailing office@goodmans-insurance.co.uk

We will only use your data for the purpose for which it was collected. We will only grant access to or share your data within Goodmans Commercial Insurance Brokers, with authorised partners, third parties and our market service providers such as insurers and premium finance providers and where we are required or entitled to do so by law under lawful data processing.

A full copy of our Privacy Notice may be found on our website at www.goodmansinsurance.co.uk/privacy-notice. Should you wish to receive a hard copy of our Privacy Notice, please email office@goodmans-insurance.co.uk , telephone 01425 471141 or write to Goodmans Commercial Insurance Brokers LLP, Lynes House, Lynes Lane, Ringwood BH24 1BT.

Your Obligations

Insurance policies are contracts under which both the insured and insurers have obligations. Please be aware that you must make a fair presentation of your risk to Insurers. This means that you must

1. Disclose every material circumstance which you know or ought to know or, failing that, sufficient information to alert Insurers that they need to make further enquiries; and
2. Make such disclosure in a reasonably clear and accessible manner; and
3. Ensure that, in such disclosure, any material representations as to (a) matter of fact is substantially correct; and (b) matter of exception or belief is made in good faith.

A material circumstance is one that is likely to influence an Insurer in the acceptance and assessment of your risk. You must also make a fair presentation to Insurers in connection with any changes which you might wish to make to your policy. If you fail to make a fair presentation of the risk then this could affect the extent of cover provided or could invalidate your policy, so if you are in any doubt as to whether a circumstance is material then it should be disclosed.

There is a duty upon you to notify any changes which are material to any increase or change in risk and any convictions. You are also advised to keep copies of all letters which you send us for your own protection.

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

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, as these will be treated as having been completed by you.

Complaints

It is our intention to provide you with a high level of customer service at all times. However, if, at any time, you are dissatisfied with the service we provide, we have a formal Complaints Procedure. You should therefore take the following course of action:

In the first instance, you should contact the member of staff with whom you have been dealing either in writing or by telephone. If you remain dissatisfied, please ask to speak to Paul Goodman. If the matter cannot be resolved by the end of the business day, we will acknowledge receipt of your complaint in writing within 5 working days and let you have our response to your complaint at this time if we can. If it will take longer to deal with your complaint, we will advise you who is dealing with the matter and when you can expect to receive a fuller response. If we cannot agree a solution between us or we have not been able to resolve the matter within eight weeks, we will explain why. If we find your complaint is valid, we will agree with you a mutually acceptable form of redress. Your Insurer also has a complaints procedure, details of which can be found in your Policy. Should you feel the problem has still not been resolved, you may be able to refer it to the Financial Ombudsman Service, tel 0207 964 1001, website www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk.

We are also covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) and you may be entitled to compensation from the scheme if we cannot meet our obligations depending on the type of business and the circumstances of the claim. Insurance advising and arranging is covered for up to 90% of the value of any claim, without any upper limit. For compulsory classes of insurance, insurance advising and arranging is covered for 100% of any claim, without upper limit. Further information about the compensation scheme arrangements is available from the FSCS.

By making a complaint, you do not prejudice your rights to any legal proceedings. The parties to a contract of insurance covering a risk situated in the United Kingdom are permitted to choose the law applicable to the contract. English Law will govern your insurance.

It is our intention to provide you with an excellent level of customer service at all times. If, however at any time you are dissatisfied with the service we provide, we have a formal complaints procedure.

This procedure relates to General Insurance Products and Activities as required by the Financial Conduct Authority. Where a complaint is unrelated to this, we will assist as much as we can and will redirect your complaint to a more appropriate body.

1. Initially, you should contact the member of staff with whom you previously dealt.
2. If you are not satisfied with the response you should contact the Compliance Officer for this company, Campbell Murphy.
3. We are committed to resolving your complaint as quickly and efficiently as possible and will comply with the following timescales

• All complaints will be acknowledged within 5 working days of receipt.
• When acknowledging the complaint, we will advise the name and job title of the person handling the complaint and when you can expect to receive a further response on the claim
• Where possible we will respond immediately to your complaint
• If we are unable to respond immediately, our response to the complaint will be made in writing within 4 weeks. However, should the complaint be sufficiently complicated to warrant longer investigation, we will advise you accordingly and when you can expect to be contacted again, but in any event this will be no longer than 8 weeks from the date your complaint was first notified.

At this time, our response will be one or more of the following:

(a) To remedy the complaint as far as possible,

(b) If the complaint is accepted, to offer compensation where appropriate, or other form of redress,

(c) To reject your complaint giving full reasons for doing so,

(d) To provide you with details of how you can refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service should you be dissatisfied with the delay. If it is necessary to investigate longer than the above 4 week period, then we will write to you again no longer than 8 weeks from the date your complaint was first notified and our response will again be as above