Terms of business

Heritage Insurance Services is a member of the Financial Services Authority, firm reference number 447154. Heritage Insurance Services acts on your behalf in arranging your insurance and assisting with any changes made to your policies under the instruction of either yourself or your insurer. The FSA regulates sales, advisory and service standards to make sure that our clients are treated fairly.
Heritage Insurance Services derives earnings from a mixture of commissions paid to us from your insurer and from professional fees, which apply for new business, mid-term adjustments and renewals. The professional fees are dependent upon the level of premium, service, administration, complexity, seniority of staff involved, scarcity of supply and operational factors.
In the absence of any other agreement, non-payment of any premium or non-receipt of forms will be taken as your instruction to cancel cover. If a policy should be cancelled the net premium less commission, if any, will be returned to you less a £50 cancellation fee. If there is no return premium for example, following a claim we will seek to recover unpaid premiums from the client. You are advised that a return premium could be low due to insurer short period scales, for this reason you are advised to check with us before instructing us to cancel.
It is your responsibility to provide complete and accurate information to insurers when you take out your insurance policy, when you renew your policy, and throughout the life of the policy. It is important that you ensure that all statements you make on your proposal forms, claims forms and other documents are full and accurate. Please note that if you fail to disclose any material information to your insurers, this could invalidate your insurance cover and could mean that part or all of a claim may not be paid.
Heritage Insurance Services store all client data onto a hard-drive network which is backed up daily. Every effort is made to ensure that our data remains secure at all times. From time to time we may provide information to the FSA.
We accept payment by cheque or by BACS as well as arranging finance to enable you to spread your payments over several months. We use Close Premium Finance to provide finance and details of payment options are made available to you along with any quotations. A fee of £25 will apply if any cheque is not honoured by your bank and for any other type of returned payment. We can also arrange for your premium to be paid by direct debit to your insurer.
Heritage Insurance Services has a complaints procedure which can be requested at anytime. If you wish to make a complaint, you should do so in writing stating the nature of your complaint and the person you are complaining about. Your complaint will be acknowledged and you will be advised who will be dealing with your complaint. In normal circumstances you should receive a final response from your broker within 4 weeks from the date your complaint was received.
On occasion, Heritage Insurance Services will retain policy documents or certificates whilst payment or forms remain outstanding from you. (Including outstanding payments due to the broker from Close Premium Finance) In these circumstances we will confirm the details of your insurance cover and will provide you with any documents that you are required to have by law.
Heritage Insurance Services are fully indemnified in accordance with FSA requirements and hold both a Data Protection and Consumer Credit 1974 licence.