Whose products do we offer?

We offer products from a range of insurers for motor vehicle, household, motorcycle, travel, personal accident and medical insurance

Which service will we provide you with?

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

You will not receive advice or recommendation from us for insurance. We may ask some questions to narrow down the selection of products that we will provide details on. You will need then to make your own choice about how to proceed.

What will you have to pay us for our services?

No fee
You will receive a quotation which will tell you about any other fees relating to any particular insurance policy.

Who regulates us?

Stewart Miller McCulloch & Co Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. Our FSA Register number is: 310218

Our permitted business is: Advising on and arranging Non Investment Insurance Contracts.

Dealing in Non Investment Insurance Contracts as agent
Assisting in the administration and performance of a contract of insurance

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

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 you 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 Uninsured Loss Recovery Scheme is not an insurance product and is not covered by Financial Services Authority (FSA) Regulations. We will give you full details of any such arrangements before you make any commitments on any product we offer you.

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 you insurance, or any inaccuracies in information given, could result in you insurance policy being invalid or not operating fully.

It is important that you ensure all statements you make on proposal forms, claims 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 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 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 purpose of arranging payments by instalments, and may also pas 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.

Access to records by a regulator or complaints resolution body

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.

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 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 assists in the detection of people who drive uninsured.

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

We have no authority to handle claims on behalf of insurers. 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 three 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 shall 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 for us to handle the claim.

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

We shall notify you of any request for information we receive from you 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 and you wish to register a complaint, please contact us.

…in writing

Write to John Miller, Director, Stewart Miller McCulloch & Co Ltd, 768 Hagley Road West, Oldbury, West Midlands B68 0PJ

… by phone

Telephone 0121 422 2282

If you cannot settle your complaint with us, you may be entitled to refer it to the Financial Ombudsman Service. A copy of our full Complaints Handling Procedures is available on request.

Are we covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme?

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 and the circumstances of the claim.

Insurance advising and arranging is covered for 100% of the first £2000 and 90% of the reminder of the claim without any upper limit.

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

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 we have incurred.

The Mediation Contract can be cancelled at any time by either party in writing by giving 7 days notice. If you wish to give notice of cancellation, please write to us at the above address. If we wish to cancel the Mediation Contract we shall write to you at the last known address we have for you on our records.

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 508135.

We normally accept payment by cash, guaranteed cheque and most major credit/debit cards. However should a cheque be returned by your bank we will make am administration charge of £25.00.

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 shall 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 shall 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.

Risk Transfers:

Premiums that we collect from you are held in an insurance broking account specifically used for the purpose of holding clients premiums. By virtue of agreements we hold with insurers, we collect 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 premium to insurers, after deduction of our commission. Commission will only be withdrawn after we have received the premium from you in accordance with the terms of our agreements with insurers.

Client Money Segregation /Statutory Trust

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 trust governed by FSA rules. This means that once the client money is segregated into the Client Money Bank Account, it falls into our legal ownership but remains in the beneficial ownership of customers whose premiums are deposited in the Account. 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

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 from the final amount due to you.

In view of the costs involved, we shall not issue any return premium that is less than £25.00 (after deducting reclaimed commission). An amount less that £25.00 will be held to your credit and can be utilised against any future insurance policy with us. If a policy is cancelled, we shall refund any return premium due (after deduction of the commission and our charge for policy cancellation of £25.00).

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 instalments

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 you 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 you new certificate of insurance to you.

Earning interest on customer premiums

We hold premiums that you pay to us in a Client Money Bank Account. Under FSA Regulations we have to inform you that we may earn interest from the money held in our Client Money Bank Account which may exceed £20 for any one transaction that you make with us. It is our policy to retain this interest. By accepting these Terms of Business, you are giving your consent for us to act in the manner described in this Section.

Customer money passed to another person

In accordance with FSA Regulations we have to inform you that in managing and/or arranging your insurance requirements, we may transfer money that you have paid to us, in payment of an insurance premium, to another insurance intermediary. By accepting these Terms of Business, you are giving your consent for us to act in the manner described in this Section.

Segregation of investments

We hold premiums that you pay to us in a Client Money Bank Account. We may invest these premiums in a range of permitted designated investments as prescribed by FSA Regulations. In the event that there is any shortfall in our client money resource attributable to falls in the market value of any of these permitted designated investments we shall make provision for, and bear the cost of, any such shortfall. By accepting these Terms of Business, you are giving your consent for us to act in the manner described in this Section.

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 (non-) exclusive jurisdiction of the English Courts.