Terms of Business
Our TeOur Terms of Business
Please read this document carefully as it sets out our terms and contains important regulatory and statutory information.
- Definitions
We/us/our means Fox Insure (Fox Risk Solutions Ltd), 5300-5350 Cinnabar Court, Daresbury, Warrington, WA4 4GE
- Purpose and Acceptance
We only arrange insurance for the purposes of our customers’ businesses. This agreement is therefore intended for ‘Commercial’ customers rather than ‘Consumers’ (retail customers). Commercial customers are those who are arranging insurance for the purposes of their trade, business or profession.
The purpose of this agreement is to set out our professional relationship and detail the services we will provide to you. By asking us to quote for, arrange or handle your insurances, you are providing your informed agreement to these Terms of Business.
- Status
Fox Risk Solutions Ltd t/as Fox Insure is an insurance intermediary authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), 12 Endeavour Square, London, E20 1JN. Which allows us to advise on, arrange, deal in, make arrangements with a view, and assist in the administration and performance of general insurance contracts and to provide credit broking services.
This can be checked by clicking here, https://www.fca.org.uk/register
Fox Insure is an independent insurance intermediary.
- Our services
We will assess your needs and make a personal recommendation about your insurance, arrange your cover and help you with any policy changes you, we or the insurer may make.
As part of our service, we’ll also help you make any claim under a policy we have arranged for you.
When providing a quotation, our analysis of the market will be conducted either on a fair basis, limited basis or on the presentation of risk to a single insurer dependent upon your circumstances and the availability of the cover you require.
When we recommend a policy, we will always make it clear to you the basis on which we have analysed the market, and we will never make a personal recommendation that we don’t think meets your demands and needs.
We act as your agent when finding your insurance and putting it in place, and when you make a claim. We act as the insurer’s agent when we collect your premium and we’ll let you know if there are other situations where we are acting on behalf of the insurer.
- Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS)
We are covered by the FSCS. You may be entitled to compensation from the scheme if we cannot meet our obligations. This depends on the type of business/circumstances of the claim. Further details are available by downloading the Protecting your Money FSCS Leaflet
- Limit of liability
The following provisions set out our entire financial liability to you.
You acknowledge and agree that you shall only be entitled to make a claim against us and not against any individual employee or consultant engaged by us. Our liability for losses suffered by you arising under or in connection with the provision of our services, whether in contract, tort (a civil wrong including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise (including our liability for the acts or omissions of our senior management, employees and any appointed representatives) shall be limited to £2,000,000 per claim. Any claim or series of claims arising from one act, error, omission, incident, or original cause shall be considered to be one claim. We shall not be liable to you for any loss of profit or loss of business whether directly or indirectly occurring and which arises out of or in connection with the provision of our services.
Nothing in this paragraph shall exclude or limit our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence or for loss by our fraud, fraudulent misrepresentation or breach of regulatory obligations owed to you. You are welcome to contact us to discuss increasing the limitations of our liability and or varying the exclusions set out above.
- Our remuneration
When we arrange your cover, we will receive commission from your insurer. This is a percentage of the premium paid by you.
If any fee is due, we’ll agree this with you before you purchase the policy.
We are committed to ensuring complete transparency of our remuneration and we will, at your request, provide you with full details of this.
- Terms of payment
Our payment terms are as follows (unless otherwise agreed by us in writing):
- New policies: immediate payment on or before the starting date of the policy.
- Alterations to existing policies: immediate payment on or before the effective date of the change.
- Renewals: due in full before the renewal date.
If payment is not received from you in accordance with the above terms, we, or your insurer may cancel or lapse the relevant policy/policies, which could mean that part or all of a claim may not be paid. You may also be in breach of legally required insurance cover.
If you choose to pay for your insurance premium using a finance provider, your details will be passed onto them. We will provide you with a breakdown of the costs of your monthly instalments and subsequently a document outlining key features of their credit agreement with you including any fees they apply and the cost of charges if you have failed to make a payment (default charges).
It is important that you take time to read this document and must contact us if you do not receive this. If you have any queries or questions, either about the service provided by the finance provider or their terms and conditions you should in the first instance contact them. Where your policy is paid via the finance provider and you choose to renew your cover, we will again continue to pass your details to them.
If any direct debit or other payment due in respect of any credit agreement you enter into to pay insurance premiums is not met when presented for payment, or if you end the credit agreement, we will be informed of such events by the finance provider.
In certain circumstances we may be contractually obliged by the finance provider to notify your insurer to cancel the policy. Where we are not contractually obliged to do so by the finance provider, if you do not make other arrangements with us to pay the insurance premiums you acknowledge and agree that we may, at any time after being informed of non-payment under the credit agreement, instruct on your behalf the relevant insurer to cancel the insurance and to collect any refund of premiums which may be made by the insurer and use this refund to offset the amount levied by the finance provider on us. If this amount is not sufficient to cover all our costs, we reserve the right to pursue any additional debt owed to us through a due legal process. You will be responsible for paying any time on risk charge and putting in place any alternative insurance and/or payment arrangements you need.
Upon receiving your strict acceptance to pay for insurance premiums through the finance provider, we will instruct them to proceed with your application for credit. This process will involve the provider searching public information that a credit reference agency holds about you and any previous payment history you have with that provider. The credit reference agency will add details of your search and your application to their record about you whether or not your application is successful.
Please read carefully the pre-contractual explanations and the information regarding the cost of credit (including any representative examples). Together they provide important information in relation to the credit facility available from the finance provider. Credit is available subject to status.
- How we hold your money
All client money is handled by The Broker Network Limited (BNL). Client money is money that BNL receive and hold on behalf of our clients during the course of our dealings such as premium payments, premium refunds, and claim payments. This money will be held by BNL either as agent of the insurer or agent of the client, determined by the agreement BNL have in place with each insurer. Where money is held as agent of the insurer, this means that when BNL have received your cleared premium, it is deemed to have been paid to the insurer. BNL pay us commission upon receipt of your cleared premium which may be prior to payment of the premium to the insurer.
The FCA requires all client monies, including yours, to be held in a trust account, the purpose of which is to protect you in the event of our financial failure since, in such circumstances; our general creditors would not be able to make claims on client money as it will not form part of our assets.
BNL hold all client monies with one or more approved banks, as defined by the FCA, in a Non-Statutory Trust bank account in accordance with the FCA client money rules. Under these arrangements, BNL assume responsibility for such monies and are permitted to, and may:
- Use such monies received on behalf of one customer to pay another customer’s premium, before the premium is received from that other customer.
- For the purpose of effecting a transaction on your behalf, pass your money to another intermediary, including those resident outside the UK who would therefore be subject to different legal and regulatory regimes. In the event of a failure of the intermediary, this money may be treated in a different manner from that which would apply if the money were held by an intermediary in the UK. Please inform us if you do not agree to this.
- Retain for their own use, any interest earned on client money.
Unless we receive your written instruction to the contrary, we shall treat receipt of payment from you and of any claim payment and/or refund of premium which fall due to you, as being with your informed consent to the payment of those monies into the Non-Statutory Trust bank account.
- Fair presentation of risk – your Duty of Disclosure
Before entering into a contract of insurance, making a change or renewing of your policy, it is your statutory duty to make a fair presentation of your risk (what we you wish to insure).
This means you must disclose, where practical, all material circumstances about your risk, this being information that might affect the judgement of a prudent insurer in deciding whether to accept your risk or not. Should you require additional explanation of what constitutes a material circumstance, please contact us to discuss.
You must make reasonable enquiries before presenting your risk and ensure that all individuals holding knowledge about the risk have been approached in the compilation of this information.
If you feel you have not been able to do so, please advise us, so we can allow underwriters to make further enquiries if they wish to do so.
You must complete any proposal forms or fact finds provided to you, honestly, accurately and in good faith.
Any deliberate or reckless misrepresentation may involve part, or your entire claim being declined and in some circumstances; the Insurer may be entitled to retain your premium whilst avoiding the policy or apply additional terms to your policy.
- Security
We do not guarantee the solvency of any insurer we place business with. A liability for the premium, whether in full or pro rata, may arise under policies where a participating insurer becomes insolvent.
- Quotations
Unless otherwise agreed, any quotation given will normally remain valid for a period of 30 days from the date it is provided to you.
We reserve the right to withdraw or amend a quotation in certain circumstances, for example, where the insurer has altered their premium/terms for the insurance since the quotation was given, where there has been a change in the original risk information/material circumstances disclosed, or if a claim/incident has occurred since the terms were offered.
- Renewals
You will be provided with renewal terms in good time before expiry of the policy, or notified that renewal is not being invited.
Unless you advise otherwise, renewals are invited on the basis that there have been no changes in the risk or cover required, other than those specifically notified to us or your insurers (see section 5 ‘Important information’ and section 6 ‘The duty of fair presentation’).
It is very important that you check the information provided at renewal to confirm it remains accurate and complete. If any of the information is incorrect or if your circumstances have changed, you should contact us immediately so we can update your details.
- Mid-term transferred business
When we are appointed to service insurance policies other than at their inception or renewal and which were originally arranged via another party, we shall not be liable during the current insurance period for any loss arising from any errors or omissions or gaps in your insurance cover or advice not supplied by us.
Should you have any concerns in respect of a policy, which has been transferred to us, or if you require an immediate review of your insurance arrangements, you must notify us immediately. Otherwise, we shall review your insurance arrangements and advise accordingly as each policy falls due for renewal.
- Claims
You must notify us as soon as possible of a claim and circumstances which may give rise to a claim. In the event of a claim you should contact us and we will promptly advise you and pass all details to your Insurer. You should not admit liability or agree to any course of action, other than emergency measures carried out to minimise the loss, until you have an agreement from your Insurer. We will remit claims payments to you as soon as possible after they have been received on your behalf. If an insurer becomes insolvent or delays making settlement we do not accept liability for any unpaid amounts.
- Cancellation Clause
Your insurance may include a cancellation clause. Full cancellation details will be explained to you during the negotiation process. If you fail to pay your premium by the due date the insurance may be cancelled forthwith or by the insurers, giving notice of the cancellation. In the event of cancellation, insurers may return the pro rata premium to us, but you are advised to check your insurance policy for full details of your insurers’ cancellation clause. Once our remuneration has been earned if the insurance is cancelled after inception, our commission will not usually be returnable.
- Financial Crime
Please be aware that current UK money laundering regulations require us to obtain adequate ‘Know Your Client’ information about you. We are also required to cross check you against The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) HM Treasury consolidated list of Financial Sanctions Targets in the UK as part of the information gathering process.
We are obliged to report to the National Crime Agency and/or Serious Fraud Office any evidence or suspicion of financial crime at the first opportunity and we are prohibited from disclosing any such report. We will not permit our employees or other persons engaged by them to be either influenced or influence others in respect of undue payments or privileges from or to insurers or clients.
- If you have a complaint
It is our intention to provide you with the highest possible level of customer service at all times. However, we recognise that things can go wrong occasionally and if this occurs, we are committed to resolving matters promptly and fairly.
Should you wish to complain you may do so:
- In writing to the Complaints Manager [insert name]
- By telephone on [insert number]
- By e-mail at [insert email address]
- In person by visiting our office (see above for address)
Should you not be satisfied with our final response, you may be entitled to refer the matter to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). More information is available on request or on their website https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk. Further details will be supplied at the time of responding to your complaint.
- Financial Services Compensation Scheme
We are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, and you may be entitled to compensation from the scheme depending on the type of business and circumstances of the claim if we cannot meet our obligations. Further information about compensation scheme arrangements is available from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme website at https://www.fscs.org.uk.
- Data Privacy – how we use your data
We treat your personal information as private and confidential, and we’re registered with the ICO as a Data Controller.
We comply with the Data Protection Act 2018 when processing personal data. If you’d like specific information on how we may use your personal data, and your rights in connection with this, you can review our privacy notice at www.fox-insure.co.uk
Information which you provide to us will not be used or disclosed by us to other parties, except in the normal course of handling a contract of insurance or a claim on your behalf and any related activities, unless we have obtained the necessary permission from you or where we are required to by law or a regulatory body that has authority over us. We will take appropriate steps to maintain the security of your confidential documents and information which are in our possession.
- Third party rights
Unless otherwise agreed between us in writing, no term of this Terms of Business is enforceable by any third parties.
- Law and Jurisdiction
These terms of business are written according to English law. Any legal action or proceedings arising out of or in connection with these terms of business fall under the jurisdiction of English courts.
