Our Service
Ucompare Insurance Services Limited, trading from Princess House, Princess Way, Swansea, SA1 3LW, is an insurance intermediary. We are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Our FCA number is 822990. We are permitted to advise on and arrange general insurance products. We select from a panel of insurers. We are also authorised and regulated to carry on credit broking.
You may ask us for a list of the insurers we deal with and select products from. We are not contractually obliged to represent any of these insurers.
Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)
You can check our authorisation on the FCA’s Register by visiting the website www.fca.org.uk/register or by contacting the FCA on 0800 111 6768.
Disclosure of Information by You
Consumer Customers
You must take reasonable care to answer all questions honestly, accurately and to the best of your knowledge during your insurance application, including at renewal and when amending your policy. If you do not answer the questions correctly, your policy may be cancelled, or your claim rejected or not fully paid.
Commercial Customers
(where the insurance is arranged wholly or mainly for proposes related to your trade, business or profession)
Duty of Fair Presentation It is your statutory duty before entering into a contract of insurance, prior to an alteration and at renewal to make a fair presentation of the risk to be insured and to ensure that information is provided in a clear and accessible format. Once we have collated the information about the risk copies of the information will be sent to you for checking. Where practical every material circumstance should be disclosed. We will expect firms to make reasonable enquiries and proactively gather information however, where this is not practical you must make us aware, as your broker, that further enquiries are needed to accurately underwrite the risk. Any questions put to you in a proposal form or otherwise must be answered honestly, accurately and in good faith.
Data Protection Legislation
By asking us to quote for, arrange or handle your insurances, you are providing your informed agreement to our processing your personal data so that we can meet our contractual obligations. We will process any personal information we obtain while providing our services to you in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018 and UK GDPR. In administering your insurances, it will be necessary for us to pass such information to Insurers for underwriting purposes and other product or service providers which may also provide us with business and compliance support. We may also disclose details to relevant parties, as necessary, to comply with regulatory or legal requirements. We will not otherwise use or disclose the personal information we hold without your consent.
If at any time you wish us, or any company associated with us, to cease processing any of the personal data or sensitive personal data we hold, or to cease contacting you about products and services, please write to us at the address shown above. Please also read the privacy policy on our website.
Instructions by Email
If you wish to instruct us to arrange or amend insurance by e-mail, there will be no insurance in force until we have confirmed cover for you.
Notification of Claims
Please refer to your policy summary or your policy document for full details if you need to notify a claim. You should contact the insurer directly as soon as possible using the contact details provided in your policy. If in doubt about whom you should contact, please contact us on 01792966633. Please Note: We have no authority to agree to or authorise any work or any course of action, or to accept or decline a claim.
Cancellation Rights
Please check your policy document which will provide you with specific information on your full rights to cancel your insurance. A personal insurance policy may be cancelled within 14 days of receiving your policy documentation and (providing no claims have been made or incidents likely to give rise to a claim have arisen) you will be entitled to a full refund of premium. Please contact our office should you want to exercise your right to cancel.
Refund Procedure (outside of cancellation rights)
Where you cancel your personal insurance outside of the 14-day cancellation period or where you cancel your commercial policy at any time, we reserve the right to charge for our time in providing you with advice and for the administration costs involved. This may result in us retaining our original commission and fees. If you cancel you may receive a pro rata refund of premium from the insurer, providing no claims have been made or incidents likely to give rise to a claim have arisen. For some insurance contracts, insurers will not provide refunds for mid-term cancellation of cover, and we will advise you of this if it affects you. Considering the administration costs when amending your policy, we do not provide refund payments of less than £25.00. Our fees and charges made are non-refundable in the event of cancellation or amendment to your policy.
Our Fees and Charges
We receive commission from insurers which is a percentage of the premium paid by you and allowed by the insurers. We receive commission from premium finance providers which is a percentage of the interest paid by you. In addition, we may charge a professional fee which is paid by you to cover the placing and ongoing handling of your insurance. We normally make the following standard charges to cover the administration of your insurance:
- Replacement documents £20.00
- Represented payment/cheques £20.00
- Cheque payments £2.00
- Cash payments 2% of premium
- Recorded/Special Delivery Letters £20.00
- Default on premium instalments £20.00 per premium instalment default (should we need to write to you)
Personal lines policies – for consumers only
- Arranging the new policy up to £40.00
- Mid-term adjustments up to £40.00
- Renewals up to £40.00
- Mid-term cancellations up to £50.00
Commercial policies – for commercial customers only
- Arranging the new policy a minimum of £40.00, or up to 20% of the premium
- Mid-term adjustments a minimum of £40.00, or up to 20% of the premium
- Renewals a minimum of £40.00, or up to 20% of the premium
- Mid-term cancellations up to £50.00
The amount of the fee will be advised prior to the conclusion of the contract. In the event the policy is cancelled mid-term any charges or fees will not be refunded.
Disclosure of earnings (Commercial Customers)
You are entitled at any time to request information about earnings that we, or any other intermediary we have used, receive as a result of placing your business. In addition to commission from insurers and premium finance providers, we may also receive payments from insurers based on volumes of business or profitability of the accounts placed with them. These payments can vary from year to year. Such remuneration is only earned on the basis that it does not detract from our obligation to always act in our customer’s best interests.
Payment Terms
Payment is required in full when cover commences. We normally accept payment by cash, cheque and certain cards. You may be able to spread payments through an insurer’s instalment scheme, or a credit scheme which we arrange exclusively through Close Brothers Finance, subject to status, and full details on request. Payment by Bank Transfer may also be available subject to our agreement, further details are available on request.
If you have any concerns about paying your insurance premium, please do not hesitate to contact us to discuss the options available to you.
Security of Your Money
Prior to your premium being forwarded to the insurer, and for your protection, we will hold your money as an agent of the insurer. We may need to transfer your money to another intermediary in some cases. However, your money will be always protected because of our requirements under FCA rules. We also reserve the right to retain interest earned on this account. By instructing us you are giving your consent for us to operate in this way.
Complaints Procedure
It is our intention to always provide a high level of service. However, if you have reason to make a complaint about our service we have a formal complaints procedure. In the first instance, write to the Directors at the above address or call 01792966633. If you cannot settle your complaint with us, you may be entitled to refer the matter subsequently to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). You can contact the FOS by telephone on 0800 023 4567 and further information is available at www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk. If you do decide to refer any matter to the FOS, your legal rights will not be affected. Alternatively, other out-of-court complaints and redress procedures may be available.
Solvency of Insurers
We cannot guarantee the solvency of any insurer with which we place business. This means that you may still be liable for any premium due and not be able to recover the premium paid, whether in full or in part, should the insurer become insolvent.
Compensation
We are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) which means that you may be entitled to compensation if we are unable to meet our obligations to you. This depends on the type of business and circumstances of the claim. Further information is available at www.fscs.org.uk or by contacting the FSCS directly on 0207 892 7300.
Documentation
We will issue all documentation to you in a timely manner. Documentation relating to your insurance will confirm the basis of the cover and provide details of the relevant insurers. It is therefore important that the documentation is kept in a safe place, as you may need to refer to it or need it to make a claim.
A new policy/policy booklet is not necessarily provided each year, although a duplicate can be provided at any time upon request.
You should always check the documentation to ensure all the details are correct and if this is not the case you should contact us immediately.
Block Transfers
In respect of some classes of insurance we may operate block insurance arrangements to provide competitive terms. On occasions it will be necessary for us to transfer such blocks from one insurer to another where this is beneficial for our clients. These Terms of the Business Agreement constitute both your acceptance that we may do this and your prior request for us so to do.
Marketing
In asking us to act as your broker you are aware that we may use your information to keep you informed by mail, telephone, email or other electronic means of other products and services available from us which may meet your insurance needs. Your information may also be used for these purposes after your policy has lapsed. Please let us know if you do not want your information to be used in this way.
General
If any provision of these Terms is found to be invalid or unenforceable in whole or in part, the validity of the other provisions of these Terms and the remainder of the provision in question will not be affected.
These Terms 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 relevant court.
These Terms supersede all proposals, prior discussions and representations (whether oral or written) between us relating to our appointment as your agent in connection with the arranging and administration of your insurance. These Terms constitute an offer by us to act on your behalf in the arranging and administration of your insurance. In the absence of any specific acceptance communicated to us by you (whether verbal or written) you are deemed to accept our offer to act for you on the basis of these Terms, by conduct, upon your instructing us to arrange, renew or otherwise act for you in connection with insurance matters.
