Regulation
We, E H Ranson & Co, with our Head Office situated at 11 Coates Crescent, Edinburgh EH3 7AT, are Insurance Brokers. We are authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) to sell general insurance products. Our FSA register number is 300443. You can check this on the FSA’s register by visiting the FSA’s website www.fsa.gov.uk/register or by contacting the FSA on 0845 606 1234.

Our Service to You
We act as an independent insurance broker and act on your behalf when arranging your insurance. 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 offer a range of general insurance products and have access to a number of insurers with whom we place your insurance. We will give you details of these insurers when we discuss your individual requirements and a full list of insurers is available on request. For legal expenses insurance we only use the services of DAS Legal Expenses Insurance Company Ltd.

Disclosure of Information
It is important that you understand that any information, statements and answers, given by you to us or your insurer, are your responsibility and must be correct. Any failure to disclose facts material to the insurer or any inaccuracies in your answers may invalidate your insurance cover in part or in whole. Facts material to the insurance are matters or information which may influence your insurer as to acceptability or otherwise of your Proposal or Renewal and must be disclosed immediately. You are advised to keep copies of documentation, sent to or received from us, for your protection. Please do consult us if you are in doubt on any aspect. The disclosure of information applies not only at commencement and renewal of your policy, but also at any time during the period of insurance.

Awareness of Policy Terms
When a policy is issued, you are strongly advised to read it carefully; as it is that document, the schedule and any certificate of insurance that form the basis of the insurance you have purchased. If you are in doubt over any of the policy terms and conditions please seek our advice promptly.

Our Remuneration – Commission and Fees
As an insurance broking business, the major part of our income is derived from commission that is paid to us by the insurers with whom we place business. If you wish to know the level of commission that is payable, in respect of any specific insurance policy you may wish us to arrange, please ask.

In certain instances, particularly relating to the business of retail customers (a retail customer is an individual acting outside his trade, business of profession), we may wish to charge a fee. Our fee structure is outlined as follows.

In respect of Personal Insurances, we reserve the right to charge fees on the following basis:

• New business and the renewal of an existing policy - £11.00
• Short period policies - £15.00
• Mid-term adjustments - £11.00
• Cancellation of a policy - £15.00
• Cancellation due to the non-payment of money owed, the provision of inaccurate or incomplete information – a fee not exceeding £30.00.

• New business and the renewal of an existing policy - not exceeding £25.00
• When no commission income is earned - not exceeding 15% of the insurer’s premium (excluding Insurance Premium Tax)
• Mid-term adjustments or alterations to policies - not exceeding £15.00
• Cancellation of a policy – not exceeding £25.00.

• From time to time our customers request special assistance in a variety of ways that involve us in additional work, which is above and beyond our normal functions as an Insurance Broker. In such cases we reserve the right to charge a fee for the work involved to recover any costs that we may incur
• Stopped or returned cheques - £10.00.

Other Revenue
In the course of our business additional revenue may be earned from a variety of sources:

• We may provide services to insurers that are not directly related to the services provided to you and we could receive remuneration in recognition of those services
  
  This remuneration may be a management or administration fee or revenue based upon the volume or profitability of insurance business placed with a given insurer over a specific period. These payments recognise the services we provide to the insurer over that given period
• We receive income and commission from a small number of sources in respect of work fulfilled on behalf of our customers that are supplementary to the sale of a general insurance policy. Such income largely arises from the organisation of credit facilities to enable a customer to pay a premium by instalments. Additionally we may receive introductory fees (typically £25) from solicitors who are prepared to pursue uninsured loss claims, on behalf of customers, who do not have insurance cover to fund such activities. These fees are designed to cover our administrative costs to arrange the facilities.

Customer Protection Information
It is our intention to provide you with a high level of customer service at all times. If there are occasions when we do not meet your standards please contact the Manager of the office with which you deal (either verbally or in writing) who will take details of your concerns.

We will acknowledge your complaint in writing, advising you as to who is dealing with your concerns and attempt to address them within five working days. If our investigations take longer we will provide a full response within four weeks or explain our position and provide timescales for a full response.

If we cannot settle your complaint you may be entitled to refer it to the Financial Ombudsman Service at South Quay Plaza, 183 Marsh Wall, London, E14 9SR.- www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk - telephone: 0845 080 1800.

Client Money
All client money received by us, in connection with our activities associated with the transaction of general insurance business, will be paid into a Non-Statutory Client Trust Bank Account. This account will be operated in compliance with the relevant rules of the Financial Services Authority.

In certain cases insurers grant us what is known as “Risk Transfer”. In operational terms, where “Risk Transfer” applies, the premiums paid to us by clients are treated as belonging to the relevant insurers at the time that they are received by us rather than when they are transferred to the insurers concerned. All funds, which fall within the scope of “Risk Transfer”, are co-mingled in the Non-Statutory Client Trust Bank Account with the client money. However the relevant rules of the Financial Service Authority require that all funds placed in the Non-Statutory Trust Client Bank Account under the “Risk Transfer” arrangements are to be treated as subordinated to other client money.

The money held in the Non-Statutory Client Trust Bank Account may earn interest to our benefit until transferred to the relevant insurers in accordance with their Terms of Business Agreements.

By instructing us to place insurance on your behalf you give your informed consent to these Client Money procedures. If there are any matters which you do not understand, or do not accept, you should discuss them with us before proceeding.

Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS)
We are covered by the FSCS. You may be entitled to compensation from the scheme if we cannot meet our obligations. This depends on the type of business and the circumstances of the claim. Insurance advising and arranging is covered for the first £2,000 and 90% of the remainder of the claim without any upper limit. Further information about the compensation scheme is available from the FSCS - www.fscs.org.uk, telephone: 020 7892 7300.

Cancellation Period
We will give you enough information and help so you can make an informed decision before you make a final commitment to buy your insurance policy. However, if you are a retail customer, you will have 14 days from the date you receive your policy documentation to change your mind and cancel the insurance contract (a retail customer is an individual acting outside his trade, business of profession).

The insurer is entitled to make a proportionate charge for the time during which cover has been in force. In our case we will require an overall income, including any commission paid by the insurer, of £15 to cover our direct costs.

The provisions, as outlined in the above two paragraphs, do not apply in respect of a travel and baggage insurance policy or similar short-term insurance of less than one month’s duration.

Electronic Communications
We may communicate with each other by electronic mail, sometimes attaching further electronic data. By consenting to this method of communication we both accept the inherent risks, including the security risks of interception of or unauthorised access to such communications, the risks of corruption of such communications and the risks of viruses or other harmful devices.

Notwithstanding that both of us have reasonable virus checking procedures on our system, you will be responsible for virus checking all electronic communications sent to you. You will also be responsible for checking that the messages received are complete. In the event of a dispute, neither of us will challenge the legal evidential standing of an electronic document and our system shall be deemed the definitive record of electronic communications and documentation.

Confidentiality
We will treat any information in our possession, which relates to you or your business, as confidential.

It will be necessary, however, for us to disclose information that you consider confidential to insurers or other parties when acting on your behalf where we reasonably consider such information to be material to the risks being covered, or for internal review and audit purposes.

Likewise, we may disclose to third parties certain industry-wide statistics or other information, which may include information relating to you. Any sensitive information will be handled appropriately and information specific to you will not be identified without your consent — please also see Data Protection.

It is our policy to retain documents for business affected on your behalf in electronic or paper format for a minimum of 6 years.

Data Protection
E H Ranson considers the protection of your personal data to be of utmost importance and this privacy policy outlines how your information will be handled and how it will be used once collected.

We use personal information about you to:

• Provide you with a quotation
• Administer your policy if you buy one
• Maintain and improve the services we provide to you.

• Process your information in accordance with your rights under the Data Protection Act 1998
• Use reasonable endeavours to ensure that information about you is accurate and kept up to date.

• Hold more information about you than is required for the purposes for which it is being collected/processed
• Keep your information for longer than is necessary or as required by law
• In addition, if you ask us to insure your car, your information may be disclosed to:
• o The police in response to a request
• o Other bodies in response to legislative/court orders.

• To help prevent fraudulent claims, insurers exchange information with other insurers through various databases
• To help detect people who break the law by not having motor insurance, insurers will supply details of your motor insurance to a database which can be accessed by the police and other insurers.