Our Terms of Business
These Terms of Business set out the general terms under which our firm will provide business services to you and the respective duties and responsibilities of both the firm and you in relation to such services. Please ensure that you read these terms thoroughly and if you have any queries we will be happy to clarify them. If any material changes are made to these terms we will notify you.
Authorisation with the Central Bank of Ireland
John Nicholson t/a Financial Control (C54381) Services is regulated by the Central Bank as an insurance Multi-Agency Intermediary under the Investment Intermediaries Act, 1995; as a Mortgage Intermediary authorised under the Consumer Credit Act, 1995; and as an insurance intermediary registered under the European Communities (Insurance Mediation) Regulations, 2005. Copies of our regulatory authorisations are available on request. The Central Bank holds registers of regulated firms. You may contact the Central Bank on 1890 777 777 or alternatively visit their website at www.centralbank.ie to verify our credentials.
Codes of Conduct
John Nicholson t/a Financial Control Services is subject to the Central Banks Consumer Protection Code, Minimum Competency Code and Fitness and Probity standards which offer protection to consumers. These codes can be found on the Central Banks Website www.centralbank.ie.
Our Services
Financial Control is a member of the Professional Insurance Brokers Association (PIBA). As a member of PIBA we must be in a position to place insurance with at least five insurers of the relevant form (life/non-life) and therefore can generally give consumers greater choice than agents and tied agents. Our principal business is to provide advice and arrange transactions on behalf of clients in relation to life & pensions and mortgages. A full list of insurers, product producers and lending agencies with which we deal is available on request.
Life & Pensions
As a Multi-Agency Intermediary, we can provide advice in relation to products for which we hold an agency, and can place business on your behalf with those product producers. Financial Control can provide advice on and arrange products from the following range:
life cover, serious illness cover, income protection, savings, investments and pensions.
With your agreement, we may review the policies you take out on a periodic basis to ensure that you are kept informed as to their benefits and to check whether they are still suitable for your needs.
We will provide assistance to you for any queries you may have in relation to the policies, or in the event of a claim during the life of the policies and we will explain to you the various restrictions, conditions and exclusions attached to your policy. It is however, your responsibility to read the policy documents, literature and brochures to ensure that you understand the nature of the policy cover, particularly in relation to PHI (Income Protection / Salary Protection) and serious illness policies.
We provide life assurance and pensions on a fair and personal analysis basis i.e. providing services on the basis of a sufficiently large number of contracts and product producers available in the market to enable us to make a recommendation, in accordance with professional criteria, regarding which contract would be adequate to meet your needs.
We will provide assistance to you for any queries you may have in relation to the policies or in the event of a claim during the life of the policy and we will explain to you the various restrictions, conditions and exclusions attached to your policy. However, it is your responsibility to read the policy documents, literature and brochures to ensure that you understand the nature of the policy cover; particularly in relation to PHI and serious illness policies.
Specifically on the subject of permanent health insurance policies we will explain to you; a) the meaning of disability as defined in the policy; b) the benefits available under the policy; c) the general exclusions that apply to the policy; and d) the reductions applied to the benefit where there are disability payments from other sources.
For a serious illness policy, we will explain clearly to you the restrictions, conditions and general exclusions that attach to that policy.
Mortgages
Through the lenders or other undertakings with which we hold an agency, Financial Control can provide advice on and arrange products from the following range: fixed-rate loans, variable rate mortgages, capital & interest mortgages, interest only mortgages, endowment mortgages, pension mortgages, residential investment property. Finanacial Control provides mortgage advice on a fair analysis basis (providing services on the basis of a sufficiently large number of contracts and product producers available on the market to enable the firm to make a recommendation, in accordance with professional criteria, regarding which contract would be adequate to meet your needs). We will need to collect sufficient information from you before we can offer any advice on housing loans. This is due to the fact that a key issue in relation to mortgage advice is affordability. Such information should be produced promptly upon our request.
Disclosure of Information
Any failure to disclose material information may invalidate your claim and render your policy void.
Financial Control is remunerated by commission and other payments from product producers or lenders on the completion of business. In certain circumstances, it will be necessary to charge a fee for services provided.
We will notify you in advance and agree the scale of fees to be charged.
Life Fees (optional) and Personal Retirement Savings Accounts (PRSAs) – Fees
You may elect to deal with us on a fee basis. Advisor fees: €100 per hour.
Additional fees may be payable for complex cases or to reflect value, specialist skills or urgency. We will give an estimate of this rate in advance of providing you with services. If we receive commission from a product provider, this will be offset against the fee which we will charge you. Where the commission is greater than the fee due, the commission will become the amount payable to the intermediary unless an arrangement to the contrary is made.
Mortgages
We may receive up to 1% (or whatever maximum is applicable) of the loan for arranging mortgage finance. This commission is paid by the mortgage lender. The actual amount of commission will be disclosed at a later stage in the ESIS (European Standardised Information Sheet) which will be forwarded to you. Information on the variation in levels of commission payable by the different creditors providing credit agreements being offered are available on request.
Please note that lenders may charge specific fees in certain circumstances and if this applies, these fees will be specified in your Loan Offer. Typically, this situation arises in relation to specialist lending.
If we provide mortgage advice and obtain a Loan Offer for you, and you subsequently do not proceed with your mortgage application through our firm, we can charge you an arrangement fee of €500 for our services. This is not in any way an indication of mortgage/loan approval. Our fee will be notified to the lender who will include this fee into the calculation of the APRC (Annual Percentage Rate Charge).
Conflicts of Interest
It is the policy of our firm to avoid conflicts of interest in providing services to you. However, where an unavoidable conflict of interest arises we will advise you of this in writing before providing you with any service.
Default on payments by clients
The firm will exercise its legal rights to receive payments due to it from clients (fees and insurance premiums) for services provided. In particular, without limitation of the generality of the foregoing, the firm will seek reimbursement for all payments made to insurers on behalf of clients where the firm has acted in good faith in renewing a policy of insurance for the client.
Product producers may withdraw benefits or cover in the event of default on payments due under policies of insurance or other products arranged for you. We would refer you to policy documents or product terms for the details of such provisions.
Mortgage lenders may seek early repayment of a loan and interest if you default on your repayments. Your home is at risk if you do not maintain your agreed repayments.
Complaints
We ask that you make any complaint against our firm relating to services provided by us in writing. We will acknowledge your complaint within 5 business days and we will fully investigate it. On completion of our investigation, we will provide you with a written report of the outcome.
In the event that you are still dissatisfied with our handling of, or response to your complaint, you are entitled to refer the matter to the Financial Services Ombudsman or the Pensions Ombudsman. A full copy of our complaints procedure is available on request.
Data Protection
Financial Control is a Data Controller and complies with the Data Protection Acts 1988 and 2003. The data which you provide to us will be held on a computer database and paper files for the purpose of arranging transactions on your behalf.
We would also like to keep you informed of mortgage, insurance, investment, and any other services provided by us or associated companies with which we have a formal business arrangement, and which we think may be of interest to you. We would like to contact you by way of letter, email, telephone call or personal visit. If you do not wish to receive such marketing information please tick the box in the Terms of Business acknowledgement letter.
We may receive referrals from such firms and may advise them of any transactions arranged for you.
We are subject to the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation 2018 and the Irish Data Protection Act 2018.
Financial Control is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. We wish to be transparent on how we process your data and show you that we are accountable with the GDPR in relation to not only processing your data but ensuring you understand your rights as a client. The data will be processed only in ways compatible with the purposes for which it was given and as outlined in our Data Privacy Notice, this will be given to all our clients at the time of data collection.
We will ensure that this Privacy Notice is easily assessible.
Compensation Scheme
We are members of the Investor Compensation Scheme operated by the Investor Compensation Company Ltd. See below for details.
Investor Compensation Scheme
The Investor Compensation Act, 1998 provides for the establishment of a compensation scheme and the payment, in certain circumstances, of compensation to certain clients (known as eligible investors) of authorised investment firms, as defined in that Act.
The Investor Compensation Company Ltd. (ICCL) was established under the 1998 Act to operate such a compensation scheme and our firm is a member of this scheme. Compensation may be payable where money or investment instruments owed or belonging to clients and held, administered or managed by the firm cannot be returned to those clients for the time being and where there is no reasonably foreseeable opportunity of the firm being able to do so.
A right to compensation will arise only:
*If the client is an eligible investor as defined in the Act; and *If it transpires that the firm is not in a position to return client money or investment instruments owned or belonging to the clients of the firm; and *To the extent that the client’s loss is recognised for the purposes of the Act.
*Where an entitlement to compensation is established, the compensation payable will be the lesser of:
90% of the amount of the client’s loss which is recognised for the purposes of the Investor Compensation Act, 1998; or *Compensation of up to €20,000.
For further information, contact the Investor Compensation Company Ltd. at (01) 410 4955.