statutory notices
Retail Customers | Privacy Statement | Financial Services Guide | Duty of Disclosure
RETAIL CUSTOMERS GENERAL ADVICE WARNING
RETAIL CUSTOMERS
Under the Financial Services Reform Act (The Act) Retail Clients are provided with additional levels of protection from other insurance purchasers.
DEFINITION OF A RETAIL CUSTOMER
The Act defines Retail Clients as:
Individuals or a small 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 (under 2 ton), Home building, contents, personal and domestic, Sickness and Accident or Travel, Consumer Credit and other classes as prescribed by regulations.
IMPORTANT NOTICE – WHAT ADVICE IS BEING PROVIDED (RETAIL CLIENTS ONLY)
If you are a RETAIL CLIENT (refer above) and a Statement of Advice has not been provided to you with this invoice then the advice that we are giving you related to this transaction is General Advice.
General Advice is advice that has been prepared without considering your current objective’s, financial situation or needs. Therefore, before acting on this advice, you should consider the appropriateness of the advice having regard to your current objective’s, financial situation or needs.
If the advice provided relates to the acquisition or possible acquisition of a new insurance policy and the insurer has prepared a Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) we will have attached the PDS for your review. You should consider the PDS prior to making the decision to purchase this product.
Privacy Statement
This statement tells you how John L. Maher Insurance Brokers Pty Ltd collects, uses and discloses personal information.
"Personal Information" is information about and which identifies individuals, including, for example, an individual who may simply be referred to in the application for cover or claim form (such as director, claimant, witness etc).
It is important you read, understand and agree to the following, which applies from 21 December 2001.
What we do
We collect personal information from you to be able to provide you with our various services.
These include insurance broking, claims management, and other forms of insurance services, these may include employee benefits, superannuation and investment.
Other purposes include, helping to develop, establishing in relation to the promotion, administration and use of our products and services, please contact us.
If we are not provided with the personal information we need or third parties we disclose the information to, we may not be able to provide appropriate services.
We disclose personal information to third parties who we believe are necessary to assist us in providing our services. For example, in arranging and managing your insurance needs we will usually provide information to insurers, other insurance intermediaries, our advisors such as loss adjustors, lawyers and accountants, and others involved in the claims handling. We also provide it to purchases of our business and related companies.
We limit the use and disclosure of any personal information provided by us to third parties for the specific purpose for which we supplied it (except with the individual's consent).
We take reasonable steps to ensure that whenever we collect, use or disclose personal information, it is accurate, complete and up-to-date.
What we expect from you
When you provide us with personal information about other individuals, we rely on you to have made them aware that you will or may provide their information to us, the purposes we use it for, the types of third parties we disclose it to and how they can access it. If it is sensitive information we rely on you to have obtained their consent to the above. If you have not done either of these things, you must tell us before you provide the relevant information.
If we give you personal information, you and your representatives must only use it for the purposes we agrees to.
Contacting us and Opting out
If we send you any information about services or products, or you do not want us to disclose your personal information to any other organisation (including related bodies corporate) you can opt out by contacting our office.
If you would like to seek access to your information please contact our office.
Financial Services Guide
John L. Maher Insurance Brokers Pty Ltd. Australian Financial Services Licence Number: 252976
ABN: 88 003 1445 784
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.
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE FINANCIAL SERVICES PROVIDED
John L Maher Insurance Brokers Pty Ltd hold a current Australian Financial Services Licence (No: 252976) to provide general and life insurance broking services. We are authorised to advise and deal in the full spectrum of general insurance products, life risk and investment products and superannuation.
We are 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 commit to meeting stringent requirements 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 interest 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 for 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, by email or in person.
OUR SERVICES
We offer a range of services to assist you to protect you 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 but not limited to – Home building and contents, private and commercial motor vehicle, farm, business, construction, liability, industrial and professional covers, salary continuance, life insurance and superannuation.
RETAIL CLIENTS
Under the Financial Services Reform Act (The Act) Retail clients are provided with additional levels of protection from other insurance purchases. The act defines Retail Clients as –
- Individuals or a small manufacturing business employment less than 100 people or any other business employing less than 20 people.
- And that are being provided a financial service or product that related to the following insurance covers – motor vehicle, home building and/or contents, personal and domestic, sickness and accident, travel, consumer credit and other classes as prescribed by regulations.
- A Retail client also includes most people purchasing life or superannuation products.
Some of the information in this FSG only applies to Retail Clients and 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 as well as the basis on which the advice is made.
If recommendations about the purchase of a particular financial product is 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 of the collection and management of personal information. With you consent, e will only use your personal information in relation to general insurance services. Further information on this is available on 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, insurance company settlement cheques and other information.
OUR SOURCES OF INCOME
We have the following sources of income:
When we place insurance for you, we usually receive payment from the insurer. The amount payable varies between 0% and 20% (General Insurance) and up to 100% initial premium only for life and superannuation of the base premium you pay. This is known as commission. Full details of 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 that are not covered by the commissions received from insurers.
Activities that such fees cover include:
- Market research on products available
- Assessing the claims paying ability of insurers
- Sourcing alternative quotations and coverage
- Risk analysis and insurance portfolio co-ordination
All fees payable for our services will be advised to you at the time of providing the advice or service.
Any premiums received from you are held in a trust account prior to forwarding to your insurer. The interest earned on this money will be retained by 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 dealing with you.
Our representatives may receive bonuses payable based on the overall performance of our business. Any such bonuses are not directly or 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 Financial Ombudsman Service Limited, a free consumer service. Our membership number is 13952. The Financial Ombudsman Service can be contacted as follows –
Phone: 1300 780808 Fax: 03 9613 6399 Post: GPO Box 3, Melbourne VIC 3001
Email: info@fos.org.au website: www.fos.org.au
WHEN DOES THIS FSG APPLY FROM
This FSG was prepared on the 1st March 2004 and amended to include the Financial Ombudsman Service information on the 5th August 2009.
Duty of Disclosure
Insured:
Before you enter into a contract of general insurance with your insurer, you have a duty, under the Insurance Contracts Act 1984, to disclose to your insurer every matter that you know, or could reasonably be expected to know, which is relevant to the insurers decision whether to accept the risk of insurance and, if so, on what terms.
You have the same duty to disclose those matters to us before you renew, vary or reinstate your contract of insurance.
Your duty does not however require disclosure of matters -
- That diminishes the risk to be undertaken by us
- That are of common knowledge
- That we know, or, in the ordinary course of your business ought to know
- As to which compliance with your duty is waived by us
- Non disclosure
If you fail to comply with your duty of disclosure, your insurer may be entitled to reduce your liability under the contract in respect of a claim, or may cancel the contract. If you non-disclosure is fraudulent, your insurer may also have the option of avoiding the contract from its beginning.
Reasonable Cautions and Fraudulent Acts
You must take all reasonable cautions for the maintenance and safety of the Insured Property. Your insurer will not be liable for any loss, damage, injury or liability arising from a deliberate act committed by you or on your behalf.
Retail Customers | Privacy Statement | Financial Services Guide | Duty of Disclosure
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