ACADEMY INSURANCE SERVICES LIMITED
If you purchased an insurance policy through Academy Insurance on or after 1st April 2025, please use this link below to familiarise yourself with our Terms of Business Agreement:
Registered Office: Academy Insurance, Davidson House, Forbury Square, Reading, RG1 3EU
By asking us to quote for, arrange or handle your insurances, you are providing your informed consent to these Terms of Business and to the actions described in the following sections. For your own benefit and protection, we ask you to read this document carefully and speak to us if you have any questions.
Academy Insurance Services Ltd (including its various trading names) is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Our FCA Register number is 307142.
The FCA is the independent watchdog that regulates financial services. It requires us to give you this document. Please use this document to decide if our services are right for you.
Our permitted business is:
You can check the above on the FCA’s register by visiting their website www.fca.org.uk/register or by contacting them on 0800 111 6768.
We act as an Independent Broker on your behalf and our service includes advising you on your insurance needs, arranging your insurance cover with insurers to meet your requirements and helping you with any ongoing changes you have to make.
We sell and advise on a wide range of both personal and commercial insurance products and provide advice or information on the basis of an analysis of the market from a wide range of insurers. For certain products we may use a restricted panel or, in some cases, a single provider.
The following provisions set out our entire financial liability to you. You acknowledge and agree that you shall only be entitled to make a claim against us and not against any individual employee or consultant engaged by us. Our liability for losses suffered by you arising under or in connection with the provision of our services, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise (including our liability for the acts or omissions of our senior management and employees) shall be limited to £5,000,000 per claim, however, our liability for multiple negligence claims arising out of one single cause, is limited to an aggregate amount of £5,000,000. Any claim or series of claims arising from one act, error, omission, incident, or original cause shall be considered to be one claim. We shall not be liable to you for any loss of profit or loss of business whether directly or indirectly occurring and which arises out of or in connection with the provision of our services. Nothing in this paragraph shall exclude or limit our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence or for loss by our fraud, fraudulent misrepresentation or breach of regulatory obligations owed to you. You are welcome to contact us to discuss increasing the limitations of our liability and or varying the exclusions set out above.
We are a data controller for the information you provide to us including individual, identification and financial details, policy history and special category data (such as medical or criminal history). Details of our legal basis for processing your information, along with details of any third party recipient whom it may be necessary to share your personal data with in order to fulfil the contract, retention period for data held, security of your data, your rights under the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) including the right to complain can be found in our full ‘Privacy Notice’ on our website at www.academyinsurance.co.uk
We cannot guarantee the solvency of any Insurer with which we place business. This means that you may still be liable for any premium due and not be able to recover the premium paid, whether in full or in part, should an insurer become insolvent.
A consumer is an individual who enters into a contract of insurance for their personal use unrelated to their trade or profession. It is your duty to take reasonable care to answer all questions honestly and to the best of your knowledge. If you do not, your insurance policy may be cancelled or treated as if it never existed or your claim may be rejected or not paid in full. It is important that all statements you make on proposal forms, claim forms and other documents are full and accurate. If a form is completed on your behalf, you should check that the answers shown to any of the questions are true and accurate before signing the document. Failure to provide requested information to your insurers could invalidate your insurance cover and mean that part or all of a claim may not be paid.
If in doubt about any point in relation to your duty to take reasonable care, please contact us immediately.
The Insurance Act 2015 requires you to make adequate enquiries within your business to identify and verify that information relevant to the risks concerned is disclosed. This must include knowledge of “senior management” of your business and those involved in buying insurance (including us as brokers). Reasonable enquiries must also be made of any relevant third parties involved with your business, including external consultants, contractors and anyone insured by the policy. Risk information should be clearly seen by insurers and brokers and not masked in large amounts of information.
You must highlight unusual activities and /or known areas of concern that could affect the risk. It is your duty to take reasonable care to answer all questions honestly and to the best of your knowledge and 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. If you do not, your insurance policy may be cancelled or treated as if it never existed or your claim may be rejected or not paid in full. It is important that all statements you make on proposal forms, claim forms and other documents are full and accurate. If a form is completed on your behalf, you should check that the answers shown to any of the questions are true and accurate before signing the document. You are advised to keep copies of correspondence or documents sent to us. If you are in any doubt as to whether information is material, you should disclose it.
Please do consult us if you are in any doubt on any aspect. Failure to provide requested information to your insurers could invalidate your insurance cover and mean that part or all of a claim may not be paid.
Please be aware that current UK money laundering regulations require us to obtain adequate ‘Know Your Client’ information about you. We are also required to cross check you against The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) HM Treasury consolidated list of Financial Sanctions Targets in the UK as part of the information gathering process. Part of our information gathering may include other searches to complete our due diligence, which may be bespoke to Academy Insurance. We are obliged to report to the National Crime Agency and/or Serious Fraud Office any evidence or suspicion of financial crime at the first opportunity and we are prohibited from disclosing any such report.
We will not permit our employees or other persons engaged by them to be either influenced or influence others in respect of undue payments or privileges from or to insurers or clients.
We are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in respect of Consumer Credit.
In order to be able to offer you credit facilities, we are registered under the Consumer Credit Act and our Licence Number is 394676
We accept payment by most major debit/credit cards. We regret that due to the dwindling number of local bank branches, we no longer accept payment by cash or cheque.
You may be able to spread your payments through insurers’ instalment schemes or a credit scheme that we have arranged with a third party finance provider. We will give you full information about your payment options and details of the interest payable when we arrange your insurance. We may earn commission for arranging finance on your behalf.
Under the terms of our Non-Statutory Trust Client Bank Account (which has been set up in accordance with strict rules laid down by the Financial Conduct Authority), we are required to notify you that we may use your premium to settle premiums due under other policies (including those payable by other clients). Please note that we retain any interest earned on our Client Account.
For certain types of insurance, we may act as Agent of the Insurer under our Agreement with them.
For some insurance we may place business with Insurers through another FCA authorised intermediary. In such circumstances premiums will be transferred to that intermediary. You will be advised if this affects your own insurances and given details of any fees or charges made by that intermediary in addition to ours.
All customer monies, whether under a risk transfer agreement with the insurance company or not, are held by us in a client money bank account. The establishment of the Non-Statutory Trust account follows strict rules introduced to protect client money held by authorised intermediaries. We retain any interest earned on our Client Account. Under the Non-Statutory Trust account rules, we are permitted to use your premium to settle premiums due under other policies (including those payable by other clients).
By accepting these Terms of Business you give your consent for us to handle your premiums in this way.
We may pass the money you pay us to another intermediary. We will only do this where it is a necessary part of the process of arranging cover for you. Where this includes intermediaries outside the UK, the legal and regulatory regime may be different from that of the UK. In the event of a non-UK regulated intermediary failing, money may be treated differently than if it was held by a UK intermediary. You should notify us if you do not wish your money to be passed to a person in a particular jurisdiction.
If we are unable to meet our financial obligations you may be eligible to receive compensation from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Further information about compensation scheme arrangements is available from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. (www.fscs.org.uk).
We sincerely hope that you will not need to make a complaint about our service as it is our intention to provide you with a high level of service. However, if you do need to make a complaint we wish to deal with your problem as quickly and efficiently as possible. You can make a complaint verbally, in writing or by email.
If we receive a complaint which does not relate to any regulated insurance activity service that we have provided, we will advise you in writing within five working days and where possible, provide you with details of to whom the complaint should be redirected. Where your complaint is about the service provided by an insurer (including complaints about their claims service) you should write to the insurance company at the address provided in your policy document.
Complaints should be directed to the following, quoting your policy/reference number:
Complaints
Academy Insurance
Davidson House
Forbury Square
Reading
RG1 3EU
Telephone Number : 01189 841 441
Email: complaints@academyinsurance.co.uk
When you make a complaint, you will be given a contact name and told when you can expect to hear from us. We may ask you to supply information in writing, to support any allegation made. In many instances, we may be able to respond to a complaint immediately.
Where this is not possible, we will acknowledge receipt of your complaint in writing promptly and provide you with a timescale for a full response. We will endeavour to provide you with a final response within eight weeks. If this is not possible, we will write to you and tell you what options are available to you.
If you remain dissatisfied with our response to your complaint you may refer the matter to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). To use their service you must be eligible and your complaint must be sent to them within 6 months of our final response letter.
In general terms, you are eligible if you are: an individual customer – or joint customers – of a financial business that provided service or products in the UK; individuals who act as personal guarantors for loans to businesses they are involved in; a ‘micro-enterprise’ (a type of small business) with an annual turnover or balance sheet that does not exceed €2 million and fewer than ten employees; a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) with an annual turnover of no more than £6.5 million and fewer than 50 employees; a charity with an annual income of less than £6.5 million; a trust that has a net asset value of less than £5 million.
If you do not refer your complaint in time, the Ombudsman will not have our permission to consider your complaint and so will only be able to do so in limited circumstances.
You can contact the Financial Ombudsman Service in any of the following ways:
By writing to:
Financial Ombudsman Service
Exchange Tower
London
E14 9SR
Tel: 0800 023 4567 or 0300 123 9123
Email: complaint.info@financial-ombudsman.org.
In addition to the amount charged by insurers we also make charges to cover the administration of your insurance. Please see “Fees Payable” section below. Academy Insurance seeks to offer the best possible cover to clients at the most competitive prices. We reserve the right to charge for the work involved in setting up, renewing or processing any adjustments for your policy.
Our administration fee covers the cost of our overheads including regulatory and statutory costs; our own insurances necessary to trade; compliance and supervision costs. Administration fees, broker fees and any additional charges are non-refundable and will apply in addition to any charge your insurer/wholesaler makes.
In the unfortunate event of a claim, any outstanding balance of premium on your account becomes payable immediately. For certain commercial insurance policies, insurers will only provide cover where the premium is due in full on inception of the policy. This means that no refund will be paid if the policy is cancelled before renewal. We will advise you if this affects you. Where appropriate, additional fees may be agreed in advance for Commercial Clients.
We reserve the right to increase our charges in very special circumstances, for example where the work we do for you is different to that which we had anticipated (to reflect the additional complexity of a matter or where action must be taken extremely promptly). We will notify you of any intention to increase our charges before making the increase.
Our remuneration may be derived from a fee paid by you to us; from commission paid to us by insurers included in the total premium; or a combination of both. You are entitled, at any time, to request information regarding the earnings we receive as a result of placing or renewing your insurance cover.
We take our commission once we receive your payment as cleared funds and prior to payment of the premium to the insurer.
We may receive additional remuneration from certain insurers for insurance policies we place with them; finance providers; claims management services and others. Where this could affect our impartiality in recommending a particular product or have a material impact on your decision to proceed, we will advise you.
You will be provided with renewal terms in good time before expiry of the policy, or notified that renewal is not being invited. Unless you advise otherwise, renewals are invited on the basis that there have been no changes in the risk or cover required, other than those specifically notified to us or your insurers (see the “Your Duty to Provide Information” and “Fair Presentation of Risk” sections of this Terms of Business). It is very important that you check the information provided at renewal to confirm it remains accurate and complete. If any of the information is incorrect or if your circumstances have changed, you should contact us immediately so we can update your details.
When we are appointed to service insurance policies other than at their inception or renewal and which were originally arranged via another party, we shall not be liable during the current insurance period for any loss arising from any errors or omissions or gaps in your insurance cover or advice not supplied by us.
Should you have any concerns in respect of a policy, which has been transferred to us, or if you require an immediate review of your insurance arrangements we reserve the right to charge an appropriate fee if the work involved is outside of the usual remit. This fee would be advised to you as soon as possible, usually in advance.
It is essential that you notify us immediately of all incidents which may result in a claim under your insurance policy whether you believe you are liable or not. Any letter or claim received by you must be passed to us immediately.
When we receive notification of an incident that might give rise to a claim under your policy, we will inform the insurers without delay.
We will advise you promptly of insurers’ requirements concerning claims, including the provision, as soon as possible, of information required to establish the nature and extent of loss.
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. Claims are usually handled by the insurer. Non-fault claims are administered on our behalf by our appointed claims administrator.
We will forward any payments received from insurers in respect of any claim to you without delay.
We will notify you of any request for information we receive from your insurers.
You or we may terminate our authority to act on your behalf by providing at least 14 days’ notice in writing (or such other period we agree). Termination is without prejudice to any transactions already initiated by you, which will be completed according to these terms of business unless we agree otherwise in writing. You will remain liable to pay for any transactions or adjustments effective prior to termination and we shall be entitled to retain any and all commission and/or fees payable in relation to insurance cover placed by us prior to the date of written termination.
Unless otherwise agreed between us, in writing, no term of this Agreement is enforceable under the Contract (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999. All activities undertaken by us as outlined in this Agreement are provided by us for your exclusive use and all data, recommendations, proposals, reports and other services are for your sole use. You agree not to permit access by any third party to this information without our express written permission.
We will issue all documentation to you in a timely manner. Documentation relating to your insurance will confirm the basis of the cover and provide details of the relevant insurers. It is therefore important that the documentation is kept in a safe place, as you may need to refer to it or need it to make a claim. A new policy/policy booklet is not necessarily provided each year, although a duplicate can be provided at any time upon request. You should always check the documentation to ensure all the details are correct and if this is not the case you should contact us immediately. If documents are issued by electronic means or via an internet portal, paper documents are available free of charge on request. You may need to return to us, or to your insurer, certain signed, original documentation (such as proposal forms and declarations) in order to fulfil your contract of insurance. Where this is the case you will be notified of what is required.
This Agreement, will be governed by and construed in accordance with English Law.
If any provision of these Terms is found to be invalid or unenforceable in whole or in part, the validity of the other provisions of these Terms and the remainder of the provision in question will not be affected. These Terms shall be governed by the laws of England and Wales and the parties agree herewith that any dispute arising out of it shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the relevant court. These Terms supersede all proposals, prior discussions and representations (whether oral or written) between us relating to our appointment as your agent in connection with the arranging and administration of your insurance.
These Terms constitute an offer by us to act on your behalf in the arranging and administration of your insurance. In the absence of any specific acceptance communicated to us by you (whether verbal or written) you are deemed to accept our offer to act for you on the basis of these Terms, by conduct, upon your instructing us to arrange, renew or otherwise act for you in connection with insurance matters.
When you contact us for an insurance quotation we collect the relevant information needed by an insurer to calculate the premium and understand your insurance needs. We collect this information during our meetings and /or telephone conversations with you and through the completion of proposal forms and fact finds.
The information we collect will be passed to insurers to enable them to calculate a competitive insurance quotation to meet your requirements. In order to obtain the most competitive cover it may be necessary to pass your information to other insurance intermediaries who are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Information provided by you may be put onto a register of claims and shared with other insurers to prevent fraudulent claims.
Should you wish to pay your premium by instalments we may pass your information to a premium finance provider however, this will not be done without discussing payment options with you first.
We may share your information with and obtain information about you from credit reference agencies. If you require information about the credit reference agency we have received information from please do not hesitate to contact us. Please note that any searches undertaken prior to you proceeding with your application will be soft searches and will not affect your credit rating.
For more detailed information, please refer to our Privacy Policy.
Before you proceed to cancel any policy, we advise you to call our offices as there may be alternative options.
Please be aware that for some additional covers known as “add-ons” there may be no refund on cancellation.
Your policy document details any statutory cancellation rights, known as a “cooling-off” period. Depending on the type of policy you have purchased, you may be entitled to cancel usually within 14 days of either conclusion of the contract or receiving your policy documentation, whichever occurs later. If you cancel your policy within this period, there has been no claim on the policy, and the terms of the policy allow, you may receive a partial refund of your premium. We will also charge a £50 cancellation fee.
Usually, the Insurer will make a charge for the time the policy was ‘on risk’. However, for certain types of insurance policies – often known as “minimum and deposit” premiums - no refund will be paid if the policy is cancelled during the term. We may also apply an administration fee of £50 for cancelling your policy.
Where a policy is cancelled mid-term, insurers charge to cover their costs, with the balance refunded to you, subject to no claim having been made. This is explained within your policy wording.
Where you cancel your policy after the expiry of the cooling off period or where you request a mid-term adjustment which results in a refund of premium, we will charge you for the advice you have already received. This will usually result in us reducing the amount refunded to you by the full amount of the commission and fees we would have received had you not cancelled.
The reason for this is that the majority of our costs are incurred either in initially finding and setting up your policy or in the annual renewal process when we check the ongoing suitability of the cover the policy offers. These costs are recovered through the commission we earn. When you cancel a policy, this does not give us the opportunity to recover the costs already incurred and could result in us making a loss. However, any charge made will not exceed the cost of the total commission and fees we would have earned.
V3-240624
Registered Office:
Academy Insurance Services, Unit 2a, Chineham Point, Crockford Lane, Basingstoke, RG24 8NA
By asking us to quote for, arrange or handle your insurances, you are providing your informed consent to these Terms of Business and to the actions described in the following sections. For your own benefit and protection, we ask you to read this document carefully and speak to us if you have any questions.
Academy Insurance Services Ltd (including its various trading names) is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Our FCA Register number is 307142.
The FCA is the independent watchdog that regulates financial services. It requires us to give you this document. Please use this document to decide if our services are right for you.
Our permitted business is:
You can check the above on the FCA’s register by visiting their website www.fca.org.uk/register or by contacting them on 0800 111 6768.
We act as an Independent Broker on your behalf and our service includes advising you on your insurance needs, arranging your insurance cover with insurers to meet your requirements and helping you with any ongoing changes you have to make.
We sell and advise on a wide range of both personal and commercial insurance products and provide advice or information on the basis of an analysis of the market from a wide range of insurers. For certain products we may use a restricted panel or, in some cases, a single provider.
The following provisions set out our entire financial liability to you. You acknowledge and agree that you shall only be entitled to make a claim against us and not against any individual employee or consultant engaged by us. Our liability for losses suffered by you arising under or in connection with the provision of our services, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise (including our liability for the acts or omissions of our senior management and employees shall be limited to £5,000,000 per claim, however, our liability for multiple negligence claims arising out of one single cause, is limited to an aggregate amount of £5,000,000. Any claim or series of claims arising from one act, error, omission, incident, or original cause shall be considered to be one claim. We shall not be liable to you for any loss of profit or loss of business whether directly or indirectly occurring and which arises out of or in connection with the provision of our services. Nothing in this paragraph shall exclude or limit our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence or for loss by our fraud, fraudulent misrepresentation or breach of regulatory obligations owed to you. You are welcome to contact us to discuss increasing the limitations of our liability and or varying the exclusions set out above.
We are a data controller for the information you provide to us including individual, identification and financial details, policy history and special category data (such as medical or criminal history). Details of our legal basis for processing your information, along with details of any third party recipient whom it may be necessary to share your personal data with in order to fulfil the contract, retention period for data held, security of your data, your rights under the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) including the right to complain can be found in our full ‘Privacy Notice’ on our website at www.academyinsurance.co.uk
We cannot guarantee the solvency of any Insurer with which we place business. This means that you may still be liable for any premium due and not be able to recover the premium paid, whether in full or in part, should an insurer become insolvent.
It is your duty to take reasonable care to answer all questions honestly and to the best of your knowledge. If you do not, your insurance policy may be cancelled or treated as if it never existed or your claim may be rejected or not paid in full. It is important that all statements you make on proposal forms claim forms and other documents are full and accurate. If a form is completed on your behalf, you should check that the answers shown to any of the questions are true and accurate before signing the document. Failure to provide requested information to your insurers could invalidate your insurance cover and mean that part or all of a claim may not be paid.
If in doubt about any point in relation to your duty to take reasonable care, please contact us immediately.
The Insurance Act 2015 requires you to make adequate enquiries within your business to identify and verify that information relevant to the risks concerned is disclosed. This must include knowledge of “senior management” of your business and those involved in buying insurance (including us as brokers). Reasonable enquiries must also be made of any relevant third parties involved with your business, including external consultants, contractors and anyone insured by the policy. Risk information should be clearly seen by insurers and brokers and not masked in large amounts of information.
You must highlight unusual activities and /or known areas of concern that could affect the risk. It is your duty to take reasonable care to answer all questions honestly and to the best of your knowledge and 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. If you do not, your insurance policy may be cancelled or treated as if it never existed or your claim may be rejected or not paid in full. It is important that all statements you make on proposal forms claim forms and other documents are full and accurate. If a form is completed on your behalf, you should check that the answers shown to any of the questions are true and accurate before signing the document. You are advised to keep copies of correspondence or documents sent to us. If you are in any doubt as to whether information is material, you should disclose it.
Please do consult us if you are in any doubt on any aspect. Failure to provide requested information to your insurers could invalidate your insurance cover and mean that part or all of a claim may not be paid.
Please be aware that current UK money laundering regulations require us to obtain adequate ‘Know Your Client’ information about you. We are also required to cross check you against The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) HM Treasury consolidated list of Financial Sanctions Targets in the UK as part of the information gathering process. Part of our information gathering may include other searches to complete our due diligence, which may be bespoke to Academy Insurance. We are obliged to report to the National Crime Agency and/or Serious Fraud Office any evidence or suspicion of financial crime at the first opportunity and we are prohibited from disclosing any such report.
We will not permit our employees or other persons engaged by them to be either influenced or influence others in respect of undue payments or privileges from or to insurers or clients.
We are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in respect of Consumer Credit.
In order to be able to offer you credit facilities, we are registered under the Consumer Credit Act and our Licence Number is 394676
We accept payment by most of the major debit/credit cards. We regret that due to the dwindling number of local bank branches, we no longer accept payment by cash and will only accept cheque payments from existing clients.
You may be able to spread your payments through insurers’ instalment schemes or a credit scheme that we have arranged with a third party finance provider. We will give you full information about your payment options and details of the interest payable when we discuss your insurance in detail. We will earn commission for arranging finance on your behalf.
Under the terms of our Non-Statutory Trust Client Bank Account (which has been set up in accordance with strict rules laid down by the Financial Conduct Authority), we are required to notify you that we may use your premium to settle premiums due under other policies (including those payable by other clients). Please note that we retain any interest earned on our Client Account. By accepting these Terms of Business you give your consent for us to act in this way.
In addition, for certain types of premiums, we may act as Agent of the Insurer under our agreement with them.
For some insurance we may place business with Insurers through another FCA authorised intermediary. In such circumstances premiums will be transferred to that intermediary. You will be advised if this affects your own insurances and given details of any fees or charges made by that intermediary in addition to ours.
All customer monies, whether under a risk transfer agreement with the insurance company or not, are held by us in a designated client money bank account. The establishment of the Non-Statutory Trust account follows strict rules introduced to protect client money held by authorised intermediaries. We retain any interest earned on our Client Account. Under the Non-Statutory Trust account rules, we are permitted to use your premium to settle premiums due under other policies (including those payable by other clients).
We may pass the money you pay us to another intermediary. We will only do this where it is a necessary part of the process of arranging cover for you. Where this includes intermediaries outside the UK, the legal and regulatory regime may be different from that of the UK.
In the event of the intermediary failing, money maybe treated differently than if it was held by an intermediary in the UK. You should notify us if you do not wish your money to be passed to a person in a particular jurisdiction.
Final acceptance of these Terms of Business will constitute your informed consent to our holding your money in a Non-Statutory Trust account.
If we are unable to meet our financial obligations you may be eligible to receive compensation from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Further information about compensation scheme arrangements is available from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. (www.fscs.org.uk).
We sincerely hope that you will not need to make a complaint about our service as it is our intention to provide you with a high level of service. However, if you do need to make a complaint we wish to deal with your problem as quickly and efficiently as possible. You can make a complaint verbally, in writing or by email.
If we receive a complaint which does not relate to any regulated insurance activity service that we have provided, we will advise you in writing within five working days and where possible, provide you with details of to whom the complaint should be redirected. Where your complaint is about the service provided by an insurer (including complaints about their claims service) you should write to the insurance company at the address provided in your policy document.
Complaints should be directed to the following, quoting your policy/reference number:
Complaints
Academy Insurance Services
Unit 2a
Chineham Point
Crockford Lane
Basingstoke
RG24 8NA
Telephone Number : 01189 841 441
Email: complaints@academyinsurance.co.uk
When you make a complaint, you will be given a contact name and told when you can expect to hear from us. We may ask you to supply information in writing, to support any allegation made. In many instances, we may be able to respond to a complaint immediately.
Where this is not possible we will acknowledge receipt of your complaint in writing promptly and provide you with a timescale for a full response. We will endeavour to provide you with a final response within eight weeks. If this is not possible, we will write to you and tell you what options are available to you.
If you remain dissatisfied with our response to your complaint you may refer the matter to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). To use their service you must be eligible and your complaint must be sent to them within 6 months of our final response letter.
In general terms, you are eligible if you are an individual customer – or joint customers – of a financial business that provided service or products in the UK, individuals who act as personal guarantors for loans to businesses they are involved in a ‘micro-enterprise’ (a type of small business) with an annual turnover or balance sheet that does not exceed €2 million and fewer than ten employees a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) with an annual turnover of no more than £6.5 million and fewer than 50 employees a charity with an annual income of less than £6.5 million a trust that has a net asset value of less than £5 million. If you do not refer your complaint in time, the Ombudsman will not have our permission to consider your complaint and so will only be able to do so in limited circumstances.
You can contact the Financial Ombudsman Service in any of the following ways:
By writing to:
Financial Ombudsman Service
Exchange Tower
London
E14 9SR
Tel: 0800 023 4567 or 0300 123 9123
Email: complaint.info@financial-ombudsman.org.
In addition to the amount charged by insurers we also make charges to cover the administration of your insurance. Please see “Fees Payable” section below. Academy Insurance seeks to offer the best possible cover to clients at the most competitive prices. We reserve the right to charge for the work involved in setting up, renewing or processing any adjustments for your policy.
Our administration fee covers the cost of or overheads including regulatory and statutory costs; our own insurances necessary to trade; compliance and supervision costs. Broadly speaking the total cost is divided by the number of policies we hold. This way, all our customers are treated fairly and equitably.
Administration fees, broker fees and any additional charges are non-refundable & will apply in addition to any charge your insurer/wholesaler makes.
In the unfortunate event of a claim, any outstanding balance of premium on your account becomes payable immediately. For certain commercial insurance policies, insurers will only provide cover where the premium is due in full on inception of the policy. This means that no refund will be paid if the policy is cancelled before renewal. We will advise you if this affects you. Where appropriate, fees may be agreed in advance for Commercial Clients.
We reserve the right to increase our charges in very special circumstances, for example where the work we do for you is different to that which we had anticipated (to reflect the additional complexity of a matter or where action must be taken extremely promptly). We will notify you of any intention to increase our charges before making the increase.
You will be provided with renewal terms in good time before expiry of the policy, or notified that renewal is not being invited. Unless you advise otherwise, renewals are invited on the basis that there have been no changes in the risk or cover required, other than those specifically notified to us or your insurers (see the “Your Duty to Provide Information” and “Fair Presentation of Risk” sections of this Terms of Business). It is very important that you check the information provided at renewal to confirm it remains accurate and complete. If any of the information is incorrect or if your circumstances have changed, you should contact us immediately so we can update your details.
When we are appointed to service insurance policies other than at their inception or renewal and which were originally arranged via another party, we shall not be liable during the current insurance period for any loss arising from any errors or omissions or gaps in your insurance cover or advice not supplied by us.
Should you have any concerns in respect of a policy, which has been transferred to us, or if you require an immediate review of your insurance arrangements we reserve the right to charge an appropriate fee if the work involved is outside of the usual remit. This fee would be advised to you as soon as possible, usually in advance.
It is essential that you notify us immediately of all incidents which may result in a claim under your insurance policy whether you believe you are liable or not. Any letter or claim received by you must be passed to us immediately.
When we receive notification of an incident that might give rise to a claim under your policy, we will inform the insurers without delay.
We will advise you promptly of insurers’ requirements concerning claims, including the provision, as soon as possible, of information required to establish the nature and extent of loss.
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. Claims are usually handled by the insurer. Non-fault claims are administered on our behalf by our appointed claims administrator.
We will forward any payments received from insurers in respect of any claim to you without delay.
We will notify you of any request for information we receive from your insurers.
You or we may terminate our authority to act on your behalf by providing at least 14 days’ notice in writing (or such other period we agree). Termination is without prejudice to any transactions already initiated by you, which will be completed according to these terms of business unless we agree otherwise in writing. You will remain liable to pay for any transactions or adjustments effective prior to termination and we shall be entitled to retain any and all commission and/or fees payable in relation to insurance cover placed by us prior to the date of written termination.
Unless otherwise agreed between us, in writing, no term of this Agreement is enforceable under the Contract (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999. All activities undertaken by us as outlined in this Agreement are provided by us for your exclusive use and all data, recommendations, proposals, reports and other services are for your sole use. You agree not to permit access by any third party to this information without our express written permission.
We will issue all documentation to you in a timely manner. Documentation relating to your insurance will confirm the basis of the cover and provide details of the relevant insurers. It is therefore important that the documentation is kept in a safe place, as you may need to refer to it or need it to make a claim. A new policy/policy booklet is not necessarily provided each year, although a duplicate can be provided at any time upon request. You should always check the documentation to ensure all the details are correct and if this is not the case you should contact us immediately. If documents are issued by electronic means or via an internet portal, paper documents are available free of charge on request. You may need to return to us, or to your insurer, certain signed, original documentation (such as proposal forms and declarations) in order to fulfil your contract of insurance. Where this is the case you will be notified of what is required.
This Agreement, which sets out our Terms of Business with you, will be governed by and construed in accordance with English Law.
If any provision of these Terms is found to be invalid or unenforceable in whole or in part, the validity of the other provisions of these Terms and the remainder of the provision in question will not be affected. These Terms shall be governed by the laws of England and Wales and the parties agree herewith that any dispute arising out of it shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the relevant court. These Terms supersede all proposals, prior discussions and representations (whether oral or written) between us relating to our appointment as your agent in connection with the arranging and administration of your insurance.
These Terms constitute an offer by us to act on your behalf in the arranging and administration of your insurance. In the absence of any specific acceptance communicated to us by you (whether verbal or written) you are deemed to accept our offer to act for you on the basis of these Terms, by conduct, upon your instructing us to arrange, renew or otherwise act for you in connection with insurance matters.
When you contact us for an insurance quotation we collect the relevant information needed by an insurer to calculate the premium and understand your insurance needs. We collect this information during our meetings and /or telephone conversations with you and through the completion of proposal forms and fact finds.
The information we collect will be passed to insurers to enable them to calculate a competitive insurance quotation to meet your requirements. In order to obtain the most competitive cover it may be necessary to pass your information to other insurance intermediaries who are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Information provided by you may be put onto a register of claims and shared with other insurers to prevent fraudulent claims.
Should you wish to pay your premium by instalments we may pass your information to a premium finance provider however, this will not be done without discussing payment options with you first.
We may share your information with and obtain information about you from credit reference agencies. If you require information about the credit reference agency we have received information from please do not hesitate to contact us. Please note that any searches undertaken prior to you proceeding with your application will be soft searches and will not affect your credit rating.
For more detailed information, please refer to our Privacy Policy.
Before you proceed to cancel any policy, we advise you to call our offices as there may be an alternative option more suitable to your needs. Where a policy includes a “cooling off period” this will be notified to you separately by us and also in the Insurer’s IPID / Key Facts documentation. This also applies to additional policies known as “add-ons” where any cooling off period may vary according to the product but will be disclosed separately in the relevant policy documentation.
Academy apply short period rates in respect of the cancellation of policies. Under certain circumstances, for example following a claim, there will not be a refund. This also applies to many specialist and commercial policies such as Liability, Marine, Classic Cars and Motorhomes.
PERIOD COVER IN FORCE
One month
Two months
Three months
Four months
Five months
Six months
Seven months
Eight months or more
PERCENTAGE OF PREMIUM
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Administration fees, broker fees and any additional underwriting charges are non-refundable.
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