Terms & Conditions

Our Service

Smith Greenfield Services Ltd is an independent insurance intermediary. Our services include 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.

Whose products do we offer?

We offer a range of insurance products for general insurance.

Our services includes:

• Advice on risk exposure and insurance needs.
• Arranging cover to meet requirements.
• Help with ongoing changes.
• Assistance with claims made on insurance policies we have arranged.

For certain types of insurance we are also authorised to issue policy documentation on behalf of the insurers.

Which service will we provide you with?

We will advise and make a recommendation for you after we have assessed your needs for general insurance.

Regulation

Smith Greenfield Services Ltd, Stephenson House, 2 Cherry Orchard Road, Croydon, Surrey CR0 6BA is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority to transact general insurance business.

Our FCA Register number is 300546. You can check this information on the FCA Register by visiting the FCA’s website: www.fca.org.uk/register/ or by contacting the FCA by telephone on 0800 111 6768. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is the independent watchdog that regulates financial services. It requires us to give you this document and you should use it to decide if our services are right for you. We may have to allow access to your records by a regulator or a complaints resolution body or their appointees or representatives, who have been appointed to undertake monitoring or investigatory activities.

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.

Disclosure

You are responsible, on an ongoing basis, for providing us and/or your insurers with all material facts relating to the insurance covers we arrange on your behalf. Material facts are those which are likely to affect the assessment and acceptance of risks being insured.

Failure to provide full and accurate information may mean that your cover is invalid. If you are in any doubt as to what facts are considered to be material then you should disclose them to us or your insurers.

It is very important that information given in proposal forms, claim forms and declarations to insurers is correct. If a form or declaration is completed on your behalf, it is your responsibility to check that the answers given to all questions are true and complete. You are advised to keep copies of any correspondence you send to us or direct to your insurers.

Settlement Terms

Settlement of insurance premiums must be made within the time periods stated in our invoices and /or correspondence so that we can make the necessary payments to your insurers. We have no obligation to fund any premiums on your behalf and cannot be held responsible for any loss which you may suffer as a result of a policy being cancelled or otherwise prejudiced due to non-payment of a premium, or late payment where the delay is attributable to you.

Fees and Charges

Unless we state otherwise, we make no charges in addition to the Insurer’s premium. Any additional fees or charges will be noted clearly on our invoices. In the event of mid-term cancellation of a policy, we reserve the right to retain the original commission amount.

Premiums and Financial Aspects

In order to be able to offer you credit facilities, we are registered under the Consumer Credit Act. We normally accept payments by cheque. It may, however, be possible to spread payments through insurers’ instalment schemes or a credit facility we have arranged with a specialist premium finance provider. We will give full information about premium payment options when we provide quotations and at renewal.

Premiums that we collect from you will be segregated into and held in a Client Money Bank Account. The client money will be held by us as trustee on your behalf. The Client Money Bank Account is set up as a non-statutory trust governed by FCA rules. We may agree to extend credit to customers using client money from the Client Money Bank Account.

We shall have in place, and maintain, systems and controls adequate to ensure that we are able to monitor and manage client money transactions and any credit risk arising from the operation of the trust arrangement. Interest will not be paid to customers in respect of money held in Client Money Bank Accounts. If we become insolvent, the terms of the trust dictate that customers will have a prior claim on the client money in the Account according to their respective interests in the client money. The costs relating to the distribution of client money may have to be borne by the trust.

Confidentiality and data protection

All personal data and sensitive information about our customers is treated as private and confidential. We will 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 the customer’s 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.

We may pass information about you to credit reference agencies for the purposes of arranging payments by instalments and may also pass 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 on 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.

Quotations

Unless we advise you otherwise, all quotations provided for new Insurances are valid only for a period of 30 days from the date of issue and subject to satisfactory completion of the insurer’s Proposal Form or a signed and dated Statement of Facts. You should be aware that quotations might change or be withdrawn if the information given in Proposal Forms or Statements of Facts differs from that originally provided to us or your Insurers.

Changes to your cover

We will normally deal with requests to increase or amend your insurance cover on the day your instructions are received, or the next working day if a weekend or public holiday. Sometimes changes cannot be processed without obtaining additional information.

If additional information is required we will contact you as quickly as possible. We will confirm changes to your policy, once agreed, in writing. We will also advise you of any extra premiums you must pay or premiums we must return to you. We do not consider instructions sent by post, electronic mail or facsimile to be received until they reach the relevant personnel in our offices and cannot accept responsibility for failures in the postal, electronic or telecommunications systems.

Documentation

Our aim is to produce documentation and correspondence in a clear and understandable format. In the event of any uncertainty we would ask you to let us know immediately. Our staff are always happy to clarify the cover provided. You should check all policy documentation to ensure that the details are correct and the cover provided meets with your requirements. Any errors should be notified to us immediately. We recommend that you keep policy documents for as long as a claim is possible under the policy. We may retain certain documents, such as insurance policies or certificates, while we are awaiting full payment of premiums, fees or administration charges, or if you ask us to do so. In these circumstances we will ensure that you receive full details of your insurance cover and provide you with any documents which are required by law.

Transferred Business

If we take over the servicing of insurance policies which were originally arranged through another insurance broker /intermediary or directly with an insurer we do not accept liability for any claim arising out of the advice given by that broker /intermediary or insurer, nor for any errors, omissions or gaps in your current insurance protection. We would ask you to contact us without delay should any aspect of a policy which has been transferred to us cause you concern or if you need an immediate review. Otherwise we will endeavour to review all transferred policies as they fall due for renewal.

Making a claim

Many insurers provide a 24-hour Helpline in respect of claims and you should consult your policy booklet for contact details. Please ensure that you report all incidents that could give rise to a claim as soon as they occur, either by contacting your insurer on their helpline or alternatively by telephoning our office. You will be advised if you need to complete a claim form or produce documentation to support your claim. In certain circumstances late notification may result in your claim being rejected.

If the claim involves damage to your property, please do not dispose of damaged items and /or authorise repair work (except in an emergency or to prevent further damage) until your insurers or we advise that you may do so. If your claim involves damage to third party property or injury to persons please pass copies of all correspondence, including solicitors’ letters of claim, to us immediately and unanswered. Any delay and /or attempt to negotiate or respond to the incident without prior reference to your insurers or us might prejudice your cover.

Any claim arising after renewal has been invited might affect the assessment and acceptance of renewal by your insurers.

Conflicts of Interest

We aim to satisfy the needs of our clients and to place their interests before all other considerations. We also have proper regard for the interests of others, including the insurers for whom we act. Where we become aware of any actual or potential conflict of interest we will inform you of the situation, the options available to you and act upon your reasonable instructions.

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.

Complaints Procedure

We recognise the importance of service and set ourselves high standards. Should there be an occasion when we do not meet your expectations please contact The Managing Director, Smith Greenfield Services Ltd, Stephenson House, 2 Cherry Orchard Road, Croydon, Surrey, CR0 6BA and provide details of your complaint. Your complaint will be acknowledged within 5 working days of receipt. You will also be advised of the name of the person dealing with your complaint and when you can expect to receive a response. We will normally be able to respond in writing within 20 working days but sometimes the time-scale can be longer if the complaint is complicated or information is required from a third party. We will keep you informed if this is the case. Should you not be satisfied with our response you may be entitled to refer it to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Cancellation Rights

Should you feel that you have not been given sufficient information about your cover at the time of purchase then we will allow you a period of 14 days from the date you receive the information you need. If you decide, within this period, that you do not want to continue with the policy your premium will be refunded as long as you have not made any claims. If you choose to buy your insurance without receiving all the information that the FCA requires us to give you, we will keep a record of your agreement to this, and there will not be a ‘cooling-off ’ period.

In the event of cancellation after this 14 day period, the amount of premium refund will depend on the cancellation terms of the Insurer involved.

Compensation

We are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). 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 £2,000 and 90% (100% in the case of compulsory classes of insurance) of the remainder of the claim, without any upper limit. Further information about compensation scheme arrangements is available from the FSCS.

Governing Law

These Terms of Business 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.