Our Terms of Business and Privacy Notice

Please read this carefully as it sets out the terms on which we agree to act for our clients and contains important regulatory and statutory information as well as full details on how we use your data.

Definitions – “We/us/our” means M Ladbrook Ltd, 21B Napier Court, Gander Lane, Barlborough, Chesterfield, S43 4PZ.

Status – We act as an Independent Insurance Broker and we are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, Canary Wharf, London. Our FCA registration no. is 448916. You can check this on the FCA’s register by visiting their website www.fca.org.uk/register or by contacting the FCA on 0845 606 1234.

Complaints – If you wish to make a complaint, please contact the Managing Director at the above address, or our office on 01909 565858. If we cannot settle the complaint satisfactorily, you may be entitled to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. You can get further details by accessing the FOS consumer leaflet by clicking here.

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 and the circumstances of the claim. Full details and further information on the scheme are available by downloading the Protecting your Money FSCS Leaflet (PDF).

Scope of Capacity and Services – We act as Independent Intermediaries on behalf of our Clients and are subject to the Law of Agency which imposes duties on us. We are acting as your agent when we are;-

• Advising and arranging your insurance cover with insurers to meet your requirements.

• Helping you with any ongoing changes you make.
• Placing insurance on your behalf.
• Assisting you with any claim you need to make.

We are also authorised to undertake the following Consumer Credit Activities; Credit Broking (where we act as a credit broker).

Conflict Management – Whilst we act in the capacity of agents for our product providers (i.e., the insurance companies we do business with) we are required to have in place appropriate governance controls to help us meet our regulatory objectives. We have in place effective organisational controls, including appropriate supervision, to ensure we manage any and all conflicts of interests which may arise or may be identified from time to time, this includes gifts and benefits granted and accepted, which may damage the interests of our relationship with either our distributors or our customers.

  Method of Communication – Whilst you do have a choice in the way we communicate with you, we will principally provide you with information   using email means (this will be e-mail to enable you to access information electronically). During the process of dealing with us you will be given an option to receive information in this way, meaning if you would like information in a paper format, we will be happy to provide it.

Call Recording – Your call may be recorded for training or monitoring purposes. We ensure all call recordings are protected in the same way as any other digital or written data in strict accordance with the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and The Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018.

Our Customers Best Interests – Our primary aim is to ensure, for any customer (or potential customer) that we act honestly, fairly and professionally and in the customers best interest including giving customers information they might need to understand the relevance of any information we provide, as well as objectively giving that information when it is most useful to a customer to enable informed decision making.

Fair Presentation – Before entering into a contract of insurance, prior to any midterm alteration and ahead of your policy renewal, it is your statutory duty to make a fair presentation of your risk. This information must be provided in a clear and accessible format. 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 immediately. 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.

Products – We offer products from a wide range of product providers (i.e., insurance companies) and sometimes use other distributors (i.e., sub-agents) to access products. Our selection usually involves presenting to a reasonable number of insurance companies that will insure for the risk at hand, and this is called a fair and personal analysis of the market.

Sometimes we may only approach a specified number of product providers (i.e., insurance companies) and this is a Panel, or in some cases, we may only approach one product provider, in either case, we will tell you the basis as part of our selling process.

The processes we have in place means that the characteristics of these products take account of our target customer’s demands and needs and include sourcing products from one or more of the product providers we deal with.

A full list of these product providers and where relevant distributors can be provided upon request.

Use of other intermediaries – Where we consider it to be appropriate and for your benefit, it may be necessary for us to request another broker or intermediary to act as our agent and assist in the placement of your insurance product. In such cases, we will provide specific instructions to such sub-agents so as to meet your insurance requirements.

Needs and Demands – In assessing your demands and needs we will ask you a number of questions. It is your responsibility to ensure you give us complete and accurate answers to any such questions, not only when you take out your policy, but also when you decide to renew or make any changes during any term of a contract of insurance (this applies to any changes in information relating to any individual named on the policy.) We will make a specific personalised recommendation for product suitability based on our understanding and appraisal of your demands and needs requirements.  Where we provide you with specific advice, we will give you the relevant information you require, honestly, fairly, and professionally and in a way that is in your best interests (i.e., we will alert you to important terms and conditions about the contract of insurance, and we will provide you that information when it is most relevant). This may include information about comparable products between different product providers, all of which will help you to decide whether to go ahead with any particular contract of insurance.

Transparency – You will receive information about any fees we receive relating to the product you are being offered. Our remuneration will either be a fee as agreed with you or commission which is a percentage of the premium paid by you, or a combination of both where appropriate. This will include commission, fees, over-rider agreements, profit share arrangements and any volume business deal that your policy may contribute towards. Brokerage/fees are for the policy period and we will retain all brokerage/fees in relation to policies we’ve placed.

We are committed to ensuring complete transparency of our remuneration and we will, at your request, fully disclose our remuneration.

Admin Charges – (The actual amount will always be disclosed to you before you commit to purchasing the product)

MID Disclaimer – If your policy requires you to populate & update the Motor Insurance Database, it is entirely your responsibility to ensure his is done even if you request us or your Insurer to do this on your behalf. We are unable to accept responsibility if you fail in your obligations to ensure the MID is correct as per current legislation.

Health & Safety – We cannot be held responsible for any client who fails to comply with current Health & Safety (or other relevant) legislation

Payment of Premiums – We normally accept payment by guaranteed cheque or bank transfer. You may be able to spread your payment through insurers’ instalment facilities or a finance arrangement. We will give you full information about your payment options when we discuss your insurance.

Duty to Disclose – You are obliged to ensure that the Insurer is

provided with full and accurate material facts about your risk, now and throughout the lifetime of your policy. A material fact is anything that may influence an Insurers judgement in their assessment of your policy and should include all incidents/losses that you have dealt with yourself without involving an Insurer. A material fact could include changes to your business activity, criminal convictions or any financial issues such a potential bankruptcy or CCJ’s. If you are unsure as to whether a fact is material, we recommend that it be disclosed. Failure to disclose may entitle the Insurers to refuse to pay part or all of any subsequent claims.

Misrepresentations Act (Consumers only)

Definition of a Consumer: A policyholder acting for purposes outside his trade, business or profession.

Definition of a Non-Consumer: A policyholder acting for purposes within his/her trade, business or profession.

You are respectfully reminded of your duty to take reasonable care not to make a misrepresentation in any information that is provided by you to insurers and to answer all questions asked by insurers honestly. Under the Consumer Insurance (Disclosure and Representations) Act 2012, a misrepresentation may amount to a failure to comply with a request from an insurer for confirmation, or amendment, of details previously provided by you. Please be aware that the duty to take care not to make a misrepresentation exists not just prior to any placement being affected but also at any subsequent renewal and any variation of the contract terms during the period of insurance. In the event of a deliberate or reckless misrepresentation, insurers may avoid the contract. Under the Consumer Insurer (Disclosure and Representations) Act 2012, a deliberate or reckless misrepresentation is a misrepresentation where you know it to be untrue or misleading (or do not care either way) and that you know (or do not care) that the matter to which it relates is relevant to insurers.

Insurers may also avoid the contract where a careless misrepresentation has been made. A careless misrepresentation is a misrepresentation that is neither deliberate nor reckless. In such instances, if insurers would not have entered into the contract had the careless misrepresentation not been made, then insurers may be entitled to avoid the contract. However, if insurers would have imposed different terms had the careless misrepresentation not been made, then insurers may be entitled to treat the contract as if those terms applied.

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.

Data protection – 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 consent 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.

IMPORTANT – Insurers pass information to the Claims and Underwriting Exchange run by Insurance Database Services Ltd and the Motor Insurance Anti-Fraud and Theft Register run by the Association of British Insurers. The aim is to check information provided and also prevent fraudulent claims. Motor Insurance details are added to the Motor Insurance database run by the Motor Insurers’ Information Centre that has been formed to help identify uninsured drivers and may be secured by the Police to help confirm who is insured to drive. In the event of an accident the database may be used by Insurers and the Motor Insurers Bureau to identify relevant policy information. Other insurance related databases may also be added in the future.

Credit Checks – To make sure you get the best offer from Insurers or Third Parties involved in your insurance, i.e. finance providers, now or at any renewal or at any time and to protect their customers from fraud and to verify your identity, they may use publicly available data which they obtain from a variety of sources, including a credit reference agency and other external organizations. Their search will appear on your credit report whether or not your applications proceed. As well as these searches they or us may use a credit check to ascertain the most appropriate payment options for you. This credit check will also appear on your credit report whether or not your applications proceed.

Unless you contact us to confirm you do not wish us to carry out these searches, we will assume your consent has been given and proceed as above.

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 this office and we will promptly advise you and if appropriate, issue you with a claim form 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. In the event that an insurer becomes insolvent or delays making settlement we do not accept liability for any unpaid amounts.

Client Money – In some cases premiums are collected in line with a strict agency agreement known as a Risk Transfer and when we collect these premiums, we are acting on behalf of the Insurer. Where risk transfer does not apply, client money is held in a Statutory Client Trust bank account held with Natwest in accordance with the FCA Client Assets Sourcebook (CASS), with our nominated bank. Holding money in line with CASS ensures your money is protected and used only for the settlement of Insurer accounts.

Our financial arrangements with most insurance companies are on a ‘Risk Transfer’ basis.  This means that we act as agents of the insurer in collecting premiums and handling refunds due to clients. In these circumstances such monies are deemed to be held by the insurer(s) with which your insurance is arranged.  However, if Risk Transfer does not apply, we will make arrangements for you to pay the insurer directly. Any interest we earn on client money and any investment returns will be retained by us for our own use.

Payment to Third Parties – We may transfer client money to third person, such as another broker, for effecting a transaction on your behalf through that person. This may include brokers or agents outside the UK. The legal and regulatory regime applying that person outside the UK may be different from that of the UK and in the event of a failure of that firm; this money may be treated in a different manner from that which would apply if an agent in the UK held the money. You may notify us if you do not wish your money to be passed on to a person in a particular jurisdiction.

Premium Finance – We may be able to arrange finance for insurance instalments through the insurer or through a preferred premium finance provider. We act as a credit broker in arranging premium finance facilities and we will give you further information about this before we finalise your instalment arrangements.

When we are aware there is an alternative premium finance arrangement available, with a lower annual percentage rate, for example direct with your insurer, we will let you know. This will enable you to make an informed decision.

We will not make a specific recommendation or provide you with specific advice, we will give you the relevant information you require, honestly, fairly and professionally and in a way that is in your best interests this may include information about one or more agreements that you may be eligible for, so that you can compare them, which will enable you to make your own choice about whether to go ahead with any particular finance agreement.

Important – Using premium finance makes the overall cost of the insurance more expensive. We will ask you to confirm that you have actively elected (that you have “opted in”) to pay via premium finance.

A full breakdown of the cost of your insurance and the cost of credit will be provided as part of your new business or renewal quotation before you make a decision whether to proceed.

Your agreement will last for 12 months but the premium finance may last for a shorter period.

If you choose to enter a finance arrangement, your details will be passed to a third party (insurer or lender) to enable them to contact you and you should contact us at the address given in this document if you do not want your details passed to that party.

This finance arrangement will be subject to interest charges that we will confirm to you when providing the full details.  Importantly, the arrangement you will enter into will be with the finance company not us. It is an entirely separate contract irrespective of the insurance contract.  In the event of your failure to meet with the contractual obligations regarding payment the finance provider could approach the insurer to seek a termination of the insurance contract to recoup their outstanding finance arrears.  You will be liable to pay their costs and charges if you do not keep up your repayments and cover is cancelled under your policy.  This is because the agreement is between you, the policyholder, and the finance company direct, not us or the insurer.

It is important that you read the finance agreement that is sent to you before you agree to enter into such an agreement.

For the provision of premium finance facilities, a credit check will be performed if you wish to use this payment.

We do not charge any fees to you for introducing you to a credit provider.

If you are a consumer as defined under the Consumer Credit Act, you will have the benefit of a 14-day cooling off period.

Please Note: Your policy cover will cease if you fail to keep up payments on an instalment agreement or premium finance facility related to it.

Fees & Charges – Disclose all charges on a case-by-case basis during the sales/renewal process before conclusion of the contract and before any payment becomes due

IPT Disclosure – Your premium detailed in the policy will include IPT at the prevailing rate. Should the rate of IPT be amended by the Government, your premium will be amended by the insurer to reflect the change.

Cancellation Clause – Your insurance may include a cancellation

clause. If you are a Consumer, this is mandatory. Full cancellation

details will be explained to you during the negotiation process. In the event that 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 in the event that the insurance is cancelled after inception, our fees or brokerage will not usually be returnable.

Limit of Liability – This clause restricts the amount that may be recoverable because of our negligence. Other than injury or death of any person (for which no cap on liability will apply), our liability to you for the services we provide shall not exceed £1,000,000 about any one event or connected events.

Financial Strength – We regularly assess the financial strength of the Insurance Companies and other intermediaries that we deal with. The process usually involves general observation of the financial ratings applied by independent rating agencies such as Standard & Poor’s and A M Best published with other readily available information within industry guides, newsletters, and press releases. Whilst we take care to deal with companies that maintain reasonable solvency margins, we cannot guarantee their financial ability to pay claims.

Financial Crime – The National Crime Agency (NCA) requires us to report any suspicious transactions to them, and we may have to obtain evidence of client’s identity at the start of a business relationship. We may ask for sight of your passport, utility bill or bank statements. For companies, evidence usually consists of a copy of the Certificate of Incorporation or we may check the Companies House register.

We are obliged to conduct reasonable due diligence to protect you and us against the risk of financial crime. We may require you to provide evidence to assist us with verifying your identity and any payment details you provide to us to ensure that the transactions that we conduct on your behalf are legitimate.

Neither party shall be involved in the offering, promising or giving of any financial or other advantage to any person in breach of any applicable anti-bribery laws (including the Bribery Act 2010). We are obliged to report evidence or suspicion of financial crime to the relevant authorities at the earliest reasonable opportunity and may be prohibited from disclosing any such report to you.

We shall not provide any services, provide any benefits, or make any payments to any client that is the subject of any trade and economic sanctions or embargos or provide services to any client located, organised in or resident in a country or territory that is the subject of comprehensive country sanctions.

We will carry out checks of the consolidated list of financial sanctions targets designated by the United Nations, The European Union and the United Kingdom and maintained by the Office of Financial Sanctions (OFSI) for all customer transactions. If sanctions apply, we are obliged to report the transaction to the relevant authorities and, in such cases, we shall not make any further payments or process already notified claims and insurers may invoke cancellation rights to terminate affected insurance contracts.

Termination – Our services may be terminated without cause or penalty by giving one months’ notice in writing. In the event that our services are terminated by you other than at the expiry of the policy we will be entitled to retain any fees and all of the brokerage payable. The responsibility for handling claims reported after the

date of termination shall in the absence of an express agreement be the responsibility of the party taking over the role.

How to cancel your insurance  – You should make any request for the cancellation of a policy to the contact details included within this Terms of Business, either by letter, e-mail or phone and where requested any relevant certificate of insurance must be returned to us or to the insurer concerned.

In the event of cancellation, charges for our services will apply in accordance with the ‘Payment for our services’ section above.

The terms of your policy may allow insurers to retain the premium in full or to charge short-period premiums in the event of cancellation before the policy expires.

Ending your relationship with us – Subject to your immediate settlement of any outstanding premiums and fees, you may instruct us to stop acting for you and we will not impose a penalty.

Your instructions must be given in writing and will take effect from the date of receipt.

In circumstances where we feel we cannot continue providing services to you, we will give you a minimum of 7 days’ notice. Valid reasons may include but are not limited to non-payment of premium or fees, commission clawback by insurers where instructions are given to another party to handle the customer’s insurance(s), failure to provide requested documentation or information, deliberate failure to comply with terms set out within the ToB or insurer’s documentation, deliberate misrepresentation or non-disclosure  or attempted fraud, use of threatening or abusive behaviour or language, or intimidation or bullying of our staff or suppliers.

Unless otherwise agreed in writing, if our relationship ends, any transactions previously initiated will be completed according to these Terms of Business.  You will be liable to pay for any transactions concluded prior to the end of our relationship and we will be entitled to retain commission received for conducting these transactions, together with all fees charged by us for services provided.

Training – We maintain training to a minimum standard to ensure our workforce is appropriately skilled but where specialism in particular activities is required, we have in place more detailed requirements, including the need for our staff to attain a professional qualification where relevant.

Law and Jurisdiction – These Terms of Business shall be governed by and construed in accordance with English Law. In relation to any legal action or proceedings arising out of or in connection with these Terms of Business, we both irrevocably submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.

Privacy Notice

Introduction

We recognise our responsibility to treat your personal information with care and to comply with all relevant legislation, in particular the Data Protection Act 2018 and the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – the “legislation”.  This notice covers our requirement to provide you with information on how and why we use your personal data and of your rights under the legislation.

Data Controller

We have provided you with a quotation and/or administer your insurance policy and are classed as the “data controller” which means we process your data. The contact details are shown at the foot of this notice.  Your data may be passed to other parties, including Insurers, for the purposes of arranging your insurance. These parties could also be data controllers and where necessary will issue their own Data Protection Privacy Notices.

Personal Information

We will use personal information about you mainly to provide you with a quotation from Insurers, arrange and administer your policy if you buy one through us, arrange Premium Finance/Consumer credit if required, inform you about our other products and services and statistical analysis.

Some of the personal information we ask you to provide may be sensitive (special category) as defined in the legislation such as information about your medical history. We can collect such information for insurance purposes without your specific consent but it will only be used for the purposes set out above.  If you give us information about another person, in doing so you confirm that they have given you permission to provide it to us and that we may use their personal data in the same way as your own as set out in this notice.

Legal Basis for processing your Personal Information

We are required to have a lawful basis (as defined) in order to process your personal data and the relevant bases which we use are show in the table below.

Marketing

We may contact you by email, text, telephone, mail or other agreed means to keep you up to date about our products and services.  The legislation allows us to do this in our own commercial interests for certain communications with previous customers. In other circumstances we can only do so with your explicit consent. In all cases you can opt out from receiving such communications at any time.

Disclosure of your Personal Information

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 consent 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.

IMPORTANT – Insurers pass information to the Claims and Underwriting Exchange run by Insurance Database Services Ltd and the Motor Insurance Anti-Fraud and Theft Register run by the Association of British Insurers. The aim is to check information provided and also prevent fraudulent claims. Motor Insurance details are added to the Motor Insurance database run by the Motor Insurers’ Information Centre that has been formed to help identify uninsured drivers and may be secured by the Police to help confirm who is insured to drive. In the event of an accident the database may be used by Insurers and the Motor Insurers Bureau to identify relevant policy information. Other insurance related databases may also be added in the future.

As a necessary part of providing you with the services described above we may need to disclose your personal data to other third parties. These may include:

• Premium Finance companies
• Computer bureaux/Software Houses
• Insurers
• Other Insurance Intermediaries
• Insurance Industry databases
• Government databases
• Credit agencies
• Regulatory authorities, the Police and other law enforcement bodies

Fraud prevention and detection

To prevent and detect fraud we may at any time:-

1. Share information about you with other organisations and public bodies including the Police.
2. Check and/or file your details with fraud prevention agencies and databases.
3. Undertake credit searches and additional fraud searches

We can supply on request further details of the databases which we use.

Credit Search Consent

To make sure you get the best price and terms for your Insurance, we will use the widest possible range of Insurers available to us including some who now carry out searches of their own to protect customers from fraud and to verify identity. They do this using publicly available data which they obtain from a variety of sources, including a credit reference agency and other external organisations to whom they may need to pass some of your personal information. Their search will appear on your credit report whether or not you take out or renew a policy with them.

As well as these searches, some Insurers may use a credit check to ascertain the most appropriate payment options for you. This credit check will also appear on your credit report whether or not you take out or renew a policy with them.

Automated decision making and Profiling

For all our quotation systems our insurer partners may use external data from Credit agencies, Electoral Roll, etc. to help in decision-making on pricing and risk acceptance. This may be regarded as “profiling” as defined in the legislation.  The legislation for both of these requires safeguards in the event that they have a legal or similarly significant effect on individuals. We do not consider that this processing poses such risks but you have rights to further information on these processes as explained below.

Retention Period

Your data will not be retained for longer than is necessary and will be managed in accordance with our data retention policy. In most cases the period will be for a maximum of 7 years following the expiry of an insurance contract unless we are required to retain the data for a longer period due to business, legal or regulatory requirements.

Your Rights

You have the following rights in relation to our processing of your personal data:-

1. The right to be informed about how we use your personal data (This Privacy Notice)
2. The right to see a copy of the personal information we hold about you. (In most cases this will be free of charge)
3. The right to have personal information rectified if inaccurate or incomplete.
4. The right of erasure of your personal information where there is no compelling reason for its continued processing.
5. The right to restrict processing in certain circumstances, e.g. if its accuracy is being contested.
6. The right to data portability which, subject to certain conditions, allows you to obtain and reuse your personal data across different services.
7. The right to object to certain processing including for the purposes of direct marketing.
8. Rights to information in relation to automated decision making and profiling.

Contact Us / Complaints

If you have a complaint about how we use your personal information please contact us at the address below. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s office at any time.  For further information on this Privacy Notice, to access your personal information or to exercise any of your other rights, please contact The Data Protection Manager, M Ladbrook Ltd at County House, Waterside Business Park, Sheffield S25 3QA and at info@ladbrook.co.uk and at telephone number 01909 565858.