FINANCIAL SERVICES GUIDE
THE PURPOSE OF THIS GUIDE
This Financial Services Guide (FSG) is designed to assist you in deciding whether to use any of our services and contains important information about:
- The services we offer you
- How we and our associates are paid
- Any potential conflict of interest we may have
- What to do in the event of a complaint
RESPONSIBILITY FOR SERVICES PROVIDED
Insurance Broking Group (Holdings) Pty Ltd trades as IBG Insurance Brokers. We hold a current Australian Financial Services Licence (No: 323671) to provide general insurance broking services.
We are authorised to advise and deal in the full spectrum of general insurance products.</p><p>Insurance Broking Group (Holdings) Pty Ltd is responsible for the financial services provided to you, or through you to your family members, including the distribution of this FSG
In order to be granted and then retain our licence we are required to meeting stringent guidelines in areas such as: staff training, organisational competence, management expertise, financial control and compliance disciplines.
We have an ongoing requirement to maintain and enhance our professionalism to ensure that you receive fair and honest Financial Services from us.
WHO DO WE ACT FOR
We usually act on your behalf and in your interests in all matters.
In some situations, it may be more appropriate for us to access insurance arrangements or manage claims where we act as the agent of the insurer.
If and when this situation arises we will clearly explain and highlight this to you.
HOW TO CONTACT US
You are able to contact us by phone, in writing, by fax, email or in person.
OUR SERVICES
We offer a range of services to assist you to protect your assets and guard against unexpected liabilities including:
- Reviewing and advising on your insurance needs
- Identifying risk factors to avoid claims
- Seeking competitive premium quotations
OUR PRODUCTS
We can advise and arrange a broad range of insurances on your behalf including
Home Building and Contents, Private and Commercial Motor, Farm, Business Packages, Construction, Liability, Industrial and Professional covers.
RETAIL CLIENTS
Under the Corporation Act 2001 (The Act) Retail Clients are provided with additional levels of protection from other insurance purchasers. The Act defines Retail Clients as:<br />Individuals or a manufacturing business employing less than 100 people or any other business employing less than 20 people And that are being provided a financial service or product that relates to the following insurance covers:
Motor vehicle, home building, contents, personal and domestic, sickness/accident/travel, consumer credit and other classes as prescribed by regulations.
Some of the information in this FSG only applies to Retail Clients and it is important that you understand whether you are covered by the additional protection provided
RETAIL CLIENT ISSUES
If you are a Retail Client and obtain personal advice, that is, advice that takes into account your particular circumstances, we will give you a Statement of Advice, that sets out the advice provided and the basis on which the advice is made.
If recommendations about the purchase of a particular financial product are made, we will also give you a Product Disclosure Statement at that time, which sets out details specific to that product.
WHAT WE EXPECT FROM YOU
To enable us to provide the right advice we need you to provide us with complete information about the risk(s) that you face and those that you want to be insured for.
This should include information about your situation, needs and objectives. You should also tell us about any relevant changes as they occur so that we can review your insurance needs accordingly.
If we do not have your complete information, we will be unable to properly review your circumstances, limiting our ability to give you the right advice. In such cases you should assess the appropriateness of our advice to your needs before acting on it.
Of course we also ask you to pay our invoices on time and complete all proposal forms honestly, accurately and most importantly return them to us by the required date.
PERSONAL INFORMATION
The Federal Privacy Act 2000 sets out the standards for the collection and management of personal information. With your consent, we will only use your personal information in relation to general insurance services. Further information on this is available upon request.
CLAIMS
We will try and take the pain out of the claims process by assisting and advising you in regard to the scope of cover and explaining how the claims process works. We will promptly forward to you all claims documentation, settlement cheques and other information.
OUR SOURCES OF INCOME
When we place insurance for you, we usually receive payment from the insurer. The amount payable varies between 0% and 25% of the base premium you pay. This is known as the commission.
Full details on commission will be included in any Statement of Advice we send you.
We have a set of standard Broker Fees that we charge you for the cost of services such as:
- Market research on products available.
- Assessing the claims paying ability of insurers.
- Sourcing alternative quotations and coverage.
- Risk analysis and portfolio co-ordination.
All fees payable for our services will be advised to you at the time of providing the advice or service.
We retain the interest on premiums received from you that are held in our trust account prior to paying your insurer.
Insurance Broking Group (Austl) is a shareholder of the buying group Steadfast and receives up to 1% commission on premiums paid from certain insurers. This income is used to operate Steadfast and any surplus funds may be paid to us as a dividend or as a rebate
If you pay by credit card we may charge you a credit card (incl. arrangement & handling) fee, which is always disclosed and shown separately on our invoices to you, they are non refundable. This fee reimburses us for the bank interest, extra charges/costs etc. for credit card use.
Premium funding products enable you to pay your premiums by installments. Premium funders do charge interest. We can arrange premium funding if you require it. We may receive a commission based on a percentage of the premium from the premium funder for doing so. We will tell you the basis and amount of any such payment if you ask us.
HOW OUR REPRESENTATIVES ARE PAID
Our representatives do not receive any benefit directly from the sale of a product to you.
Our focus is on ensuring that staff concentrate on your needs first in all dealings with you. Our representatives may receive bonuses payable based on the overall performance of our business. Any such bonuses are not directly and solely linked to the sale of Financial Services. If a person has referred you to us, we may pay them a part of any fees or commission received. This will be disclosed in any Statement of Advice you receive.
COOLING OFF PROVISIONS
All retail products are subject to a 14 day cooling off period. This means that if you are not happy with the product, you have 14 days to withdraw from the contract at no cost to you.
COMPLAINTS
Clients who are not fully satisfied with our services should contact our complaints officer. We are also members of the Insurance Brokers Disputes Limited (IBD), a free consumer service.
We also adopt the General Insurance Brokers Code of Practice. Further information is available from our office, or contact IBD directly on 1300 780 808 or visit http://www.ibdltd.com.au or http://www.ibdltd.com.au
CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
As a business we have relationships with and receive income from various third parties as detailed in this FSG. To ensure that any conflicts arising from such relationships or income do not impair the level of advice and service that we provide to you we have implemented a Conflict of Interest Policy.
Our formal documented approach to receiving income and other benefits from third parties is that we will ensure that you receive the most appropriate product or service that we have access to, whilst being mindful that as a business we must receive an adequate income to provide the services and facilities that you would expect from a professional insurance broker.
We will separately and specifically disclose any conflict situations where we believe that the conflict is potentially impairing our advice or service to you.
WHEN DOES THIS FSG APPLY FROM
This FSG was prepared on the 7 July 2005
FSG NO 1