The following information provides you with an important overview of Fundagroup Insurance Brokers Ltd , our duties to you, fees and how we manage complaints.
Fundagroup Insurance Brokers Ltd is a Financial Advice Provider under the license FSP32801 issued by the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) to provide a financial advice service on Fire and General insurance products under this license. We only provide financial advice in relation to fire and general insurance products. The license came into effect when the Financial Services Legislation Amendment Act 2019 (FSLAA) came into force on 15 March 2021. We are committed to providing our clients with good financial advice that is suitable for our clients' needs.
Our advisers provide financial advice on behalf of Fundagroup Insurance Brokers Ltd to clients regarding their general insurance needs. We cannot provide advice on life, mortgage, personal income protection, or investment policies but can refer you to associates who are licensed to provide advice on such products.
We offer financial advice on the following general insurance products:
We have access to most insurance markets in New Zealand (excluding direct insurers) along with access to overseas markets as required.
We receive brokerage/commission (5%-25%) for essentials such as pre-risk inspection, preparing detailed submissions, going to the insurance market to arrange competitive quotes, and processing in outsourced software/broker portals as assigned and authorized nodal point between the Insured and Insurer during the currency of the policy.
We do not charge a fee for the advice given to you but may charge a fee to implement that advice. This fee will be based on personalized visits, the amount of work, and time required to provide and implement our advice to you. This includes one- time professional cost in servicing the client for the policy period. It will be shown on our invoice to you, payable on the payment of the premium. The amount of this fee will be disclosed either at the time the financial advice is provided or in your policy schedule or verbally or at renewal time.
We may charge you a fee for altering or canceling your general insurance policy on which we deploy our resources. Our commissions and fees compensate us for maintaining compliance, includes performing time-bound activities such as arranging certificates, processing, premium funding, site visits, 24x7 customer service (online, live telechat, video conferencing, site visits at claim time, addressing insurance matters with third party, your Lawyer/Accountant) and in making claim cycle friendly.
In some circumstances, we may recommend another service provider to assist us in providing appropriate financial advice. These providers can include property valuers, property surveyors, and motor vehicle valuers. These providers will charge a fee for the work they do. We will advise you of any such related fees and charges before having them commence any work on your behalf.
We will complete a needs analysis with you to understand your personal circumstances and make recommendations to provide you with adequate cover. Most of our time is involved in the placement of your policy and protecting your property to minimize the financial impact when things go wrong. So, in the event you cancel your insurance policies with us, we maintain the right to retain all or part of commission and/or fees to offset these against any refund owed to you. We may also, at our discretion, charge a cancellation fee for our administrative time incurred in canceling your policies. We will disclose to you, at the time of cancellation, the amount of the cancellation fee charged.
We will automatically renew your policies that you have arranged with us to ensure continuity of cover in the event you are away when your policy renews, or we have been unable to meet or otherwise confirm changes. Upon renewal, we will send you the Renewal Documents, and if you want to make any changes in the sum insured, then you need to advise us so that we can get general market offers and make recommendations accordingly to ensure you have an insurance program fit for purpose.
The amount of brokerage/commission we receive is calculated as a percentage of the invoice without GST, EQC, and Government levies, if any. We pay our staff a salary and may pay bonuses and other incentives. Your financial adviser may receive indirect benefits from insurers and premium funders, such as business lunches, tickets to sporting and/or cultural events, or corporate promotional merchandise valued up to $100, which may create conflicts.
To manage these conflicts, we follow a process that ensures that this in no way influences our decision-making, with recommendations purely based on merits and your circumstances. All our team undergo training to manage conflicts. We recognize that the above commissions and incentives may create conflicts of interest. To manage these conflicts, we follow an advice process that ensures our recommendations are made based on your financial goals and circumstances.
We may, however, choose to rebate all or some commissions and charge you a fee based on the nature of the service we provide.
We are a member of Steadfast NZ Limited (Steadfast). Steadfast supplies technology platforms, management, marketing, professional, technical, and buying benefits, and services to support us in providing our financial advice services.
We will invoice you for the premium, statutory charges, and similar charges (e.g., EQC, FENZ levy, etc.), along with any fees we charge for arranging, altering, or cancelling your insurances.
You must honor the payment terms specified on the invoice.
As most General Insurance products have a 12-month duration, failure to pay the premium on time may result in the insurer canceling the insurance contract. The insurer may also impose a short-term penalty premium for the time the risk was covered.
We can facilitate payment through monthly installments from a company that provides premium funding. Payment by monthly installments will include an administration fee and interest charge, payable to the premium funding company.
Our advisers provide financial advice to clients on behalf of Fundagroup Insurance Brokers Ltd, and we believe in delivering the most appropriate advice, built upon our four core pillars: 24x7 Service, Personalized Relationship, Claim Advocacy, and Value-Based Pricing.
We are bound by duties under the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013. Our adviser:
If you are unhappy with our financial advice service, please contact your financial adviser so that he or she can try to put things right. Your adviser will attempt to resolve any issue of dissatisfaction with you immediately.
If the matter cannot be resolved to your satisfaction, the adviser will escalate the complaint to his or her manager, notifying you accordingly. If you do not feel comfortable discussing your concerns with your adviser anymore, you can contact us as follows:
We will send you an acknowledgment of your written complaint within five working days of your complaint being notified to us. This letter will provide you with our timeline to respond to you and the name of the manager who will be managing our response. The manager will investigate and contact you to try to resolve the complaint to your satisfaction. It is important that you provide this person with all relevant information.
We will provide you with a written update within 30 working days of receiving your complaint. If we are unable to provide a full response to you at that point, our letter will explain why we are not yet in a position to do so and tell you when we will next contact you.
40 working days after the receipt of your complaint, we will issue a final resolution. If we need to continue our review past this point, we will explain to you the reason for the delay and the required timeframe to provide a full response. At this point, if you feel that the delay is unsatisfactory, you can redirect your complaint to our external dispute resolution service provider detailed below.
We expect that our response to you will have addressed the concerns you have raised. If you feel that your concerns have not been appropriately considered, we invite you to submit any further information for consideration. If we are unable to resolve your complaint despite our best efforts, you can contact our external dispute resolution scheme, which provides a free and independent dispute resolution service. The contact details for our external dispute resolution service provider are:
PO Box 5967, Wellington 6011
Level 4, 101 Lambton Quay, Wellington 6140
Telephone number: 0800 347 257
Email address: info@fscl.org.nz