Terms & Conditions

Volkszone Insurance Services is a Trading name of Herts Insurance Consultants Ltd.

These Terms and Conditions contain information that relates to the full range of policy options we offer.

1. The Financial Services Authority (FSA)
The FSA is the independent watchdog that regulates financial services. It requires us to give you this document. Use this information to decide if our services are right for you.

2. Our service
We act as an Independent Broker on your behalf. You will not receive advice or a recommendation from us. We may ask some questions to narrow down the selection of products that we will provide details on. You will then need to make your own choice about how to proceed.

3. Who regulates us
Herts Insurance Consultants Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. Our FSA Registration number is 309073.

4. Ownership
Herts Insurance Consultants Limited is wholly owned by Hadleigh Holdings.

5. Our permitted business is:
Arranging (bringing about) deals on non-investment contracts – This covers a wide range of activities including introducing a customer to an insurer, helping a customer to complete a proposal form and sending this to an insurer.

Making arrangements with a view to transactions in non-investments contracts – The includes helping potential customers to complete a proposal form or introducing a customer to another intermediary, either for advice or to help arrange an insurance policy.

Dealing as an agent in non-investment contracts – This includes entering into a contract of insurance with a customer on behalf on an insurer (e.g. issuing a cover note).

Assisting in the administration and performance of a non-investment insurance contract – This includes notifying an insurance claim to the insurer and negotiating on behalf of the customer.

You can check the above on the FSA’s register by visiting their website www.fsa.gov.uk/register or by contacting them on 0845 6061234

6. Products which we offer
We sell a wide range of personal insurance products and provide information on the basis of a fair analysis of the market from a wide range of insurers.

In respect of Legal Expenses insurance we deal exclusively with IGI Insurance Company Ltd
In respect of Vehicle Breakdown Cover we deal exclusively with Equity Red Star
In respect of Personal Accident Cover we deal exclusively with Trinity Lane Insurance Company Ltd

7. Our charges
In addition to premiums charged by insurers, we normally make the following charges to cover the administration of your insurance:

• Arranging new policies - £45
• Renewals - £25
• Cancellation - £25
• Mid Term Adjustments - £25
• Arranging an Agreed Value - £15.75
• Processing Cheques which are returned by our Bank as uncleared - £25
• Arranging collection of bad debts with our debt collection Agency - £25

For return premiums (usually arising if an insurance risk is reduced or the policy is cancelled), we repay commission on the refund to your insurer and this amount will be deducted from the final amount refunded to you subject to a minimum of £25. The specific amount and purpose of any charges will always be advised to you in advance. Minimum refund is £5.00 and anything under this is retained.

8. How monies paid to us are handled
We are the Agent of Insurers for the purpose of collection of premiums and refunds of premiums. This means that premiums are treated as being received by the Insurer when received in our bank account and that any premium refund is treated as received by you when it is actually paid over to you. We normally accept payment by guaranteed cheque, cash or any of the major debit/credit cards.

We will retain your debit/credit card details for the purpose of automatic renewals and to pay or refund other premiums that may become due upon changes to the policy. If you do not want us to retain these details please contact our Customer Service Department.

9. Cancellations
If you are thinking of cancelling your policy, you must first call our Customer Service Department on 08451 290 290. You may be due a refund for part of your premium as long as no claims have occurred during your time on cover. You must return your certificate of insurance or a lost certificate declaration together with a letter confirming your cancellation request before we can cancel your policy.

Once we arrange insurance cover you have the right to cancel it within 14 days of receiving the policy, without giving any reasons. In this event, we shall retain our administration charge. Also your insurer will make a charge for the cover provided.

Upon cancellation of the contract, some products do not permit any refund of premium, others may apply short term cancellation charges which are not proportionate to the annual premium. As these form part of the contract offered, we would ask clients to realise that such charges upon cancellation are applied by the underwriters and not ourselves.

Please note that any additional products or services in addition to the insurer’s premium are not refundable, i.e. Fees, Legal Protection, Agreed Valuation, Vehicle Breakdown cover, Personal Accident Plan etc.

Cancelling any direct Debit does not cancel your policy

10. Trinity Lane Insurance Company Ltd
Trinity Lane is owned by one of the Directors of Hadleigh Holdings Ltd.

11. Providing Proof of No Claims Bonus
If we have not received proof of bonus within 30 days, your insurer will amend the annual premium by deleting the no claim bonus discount. The additional premium will be debited from your account by the selected payment method i.e. Direct Debit, Credit/Debit card.

12. Limited Mileage
If you have selected to limit your annual mileage and we have given you a premium discount for this, you must supply confirmation of your current mileage reading within 30 days of the policy inception or renewal date. If we do not receive your confirmation of your current mileage within 30 days of the policy inception or renewal date, your insurer will either charge an additional premium or cancel your policy by writing to your last known address and giving 7 days notice of cancellation. When an additional premium is required, the amount will be debited from your account by using the selected payment method i.e. Direct Debit, Credit, or Debit Card.

13. Refunds
Due to the increase in fraudulent cases and to prevent money laundering, refunds can only be made against the last payment card used from which a payment was taken. Please be aware that if the card used was not in you, the policyholder's, name then any refund due under this policy will not be paid back directly to you and you may need to seek settlement from the owner of the payment card to which the refund has been given. Payment of refunds by other methods i.e. cash or cheque, where payment by card was the original method used cannot be made.

14. 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 466865.
You may be able to spread your payment through insurers’ instalment schemes or a credit scheme that we have arranged with a third party finance provider. We will give full information about payment options when we discuss your insurance in detail.
Please note that this is a Finance Agreement between yourself as the policyholder and Premium Credit Limited, and is separate to the Insurance Policy. As this is in effect a loan for the initial premium, this agreement MUST NOT be cancelled until this has been fully repaid to the Finance Company, even if your Insurance Policy has been cancelled. If any direct debit or other payment due in respect of the credit agreement you enter into with Premium Credit Limited (PCL) to pay insurance premiums is not met when presented for payment, or if you end the credit agreement with PCL or if you do not enter into a credit agreement with PCL we will be informed of such events by PCL. 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 so informed, instruct on your behalf the relevant insurer to cancel the insurance (or, if this occurs shortly after the start or renewal of the insurance, to notify the insurer that the policy has not been taken up) and to collect any refund of premiums which may be made by the insurer and if any money is owed to PCL under your credit agreement pay it to PCL or if PCL have debitted us with the amount outstanding use it to offset our costs. The balance will be debitted from the debit/credit card last used by yourself. You will be responsible for paying any time on risk charge and putting in place any alternative insurance and/or payment arrangements you need.

15. 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.

It is important you ensure that all information, statements or answers made by you to us or on your proposal forms, claims forms and other documents are full and accurate and must be correct. 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.

Your attention is particularly drawn to the importance of the declaration and signature on Insurer’s Proposal Forms or Statement of Facts to disclose facts material to the insurance or any inaccuracies in your answers may invalidate your insurance cover in part or in whole. Facts material to the insurance are matters of information which may influence your Insurer as to the acceptability or otherwise of your Proposal or Renewal and must be disclosed at the earliest opportunity and certainly at renewal. 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. You are advised to keep copies of any correspondence you sent to us or direct to the insurer. Please do consult us if you are in doubt in any aspect.

If you are in any doubt as to whether any information is material, you should disclose it

16. Aware of Policy Terms
When a policy is issued, you are strongly advised to read it carefully as it is that document, the Policy Schedule along with your Certificate of Motor Insurance which is the basis of the insurance contract you have purchased. If you are in any doubt over any of the policy terms or conditions, please contact our Customer Services Department immediately.

17. Claims
If you are involved in an accident or have occasion to claim on your policy for any other reason, you must notify our Claims Department immediately and we will promptly assist you and, if appropriate, issue you with a claim form and pass details to your Insurer.

You should not admit liability or agree to any course of action, other than emergency measures to minimise your loss, until you have agreement from your Insurer.

You must continue to make your monthly payments for your insurance, if applicable. We reserve the right to withhold payment in respect of claims, if payment of any premiums to ourselves is in default.

18. Renewal of Cover
For your protection we reserve the right to automatically renew any annually renewable policy using your last method of payment. If we exercise this right we will write to prior to the renewal date confirming how much the premium will be providing you with 16 days to contact us and advise us that you wish to opt out of the automatic renewal process. We also reserve the right to automatically renew any additional policies that you take out with this policy, such as Breakdown Assistance. Any policy for less than 12 months is not renewable and will automatically expire.

19. Confidentiality
All personal information about our customers is treated as Private and Confidential.

We will only disclose the information we have about private individuals in the normal course of arranging and administering their insurance and will not disclose any information to any parties without their written consent unless required by law or public interest. We may use the information we hold about our customers to provide them with information about other products or services which we feel may be appropriate to them.

Under Data Protection Act 1988, private customers have a right to see the personal information about them that we hold in our records. If you wish to exercise this right, or have any other related queries you should write to our Data Protection Officer at the above address or by email dpo@hertsinsurance.com

20. Claims and Underwriting Register and Motor Insurance Anti-fraud Register
Insurers pass information to the Claims Underwriting Exchange Register operated by the Database Service Ltd and the Motor Insurance Anti-Fraud Register compiled by the Association of British Insurers. The aim is to check information provided and to prevent fraudulent claims.

Motor insurance details are also added to the Motor Insurance Database operated by the Motor Insurers’ Information Centre (MIIC) which has been formed to help identify uninsured drivers and may be searched by the Policy to help confirm who is insured to drive. In the event of an accident, this database may be used by insurers, MIIC and the Motor Insurance Bureau to identify relevant policy information. Other insurance related databases may also be added in the future.

21. Complaints
We are committed to providing a quality service and achieving the highest standards of conduct. However, if at any time you are dissatisfied with the service provided by us, we have a formal complaints process. You should, therefore, take the following course of action:

In the first instance you should discuss your complaint with the member of staff with whom you have been dealing with.

If your dissatisfaction is unresolved, please call our Customer Services Department or write to the Customer Care Manager. We will acknowledge your complaint within 5 working days and confirm who is investigating your concerns. We will provide a formal response within 4 weeks from initial receipt of your complaint. If the complaint cannot be resolved within this timescale we will explain why and specify our anticipated timescale for resolution.

If we cannot settle your complaint, you may be entitled to refer it to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

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. Insurance advising and arranging is covered for 100% of the first £2000 and 90% of the remainder of the claim, without any upper limit. For compulsory classes of insurance, insurance advising and arranging is covered for 100% of the claim, without any upper limit. Further information about compensation scheme arrangements is available from the FSCS.

Note: Your acceptance of these Terms of Business does not affect your normal legal rights.

The Terms of Business is subject to English Law.