Status

Berkeley Alexander Ltd, Temple House, 25-26 High Street, Lewes, East Sussex, BN7 2SD, is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. You can check this on the FSA’s Register by visiting the website http://www.fsa.gov.uk/register/ or by contacting the FSA on 0845 606 1234.

In respect of our main core activities, we offer products from a range of insurers for Household, Motor, Mortgage & Income Protection and a range of Commercial insurances. We offer products from a limited number of insurers for Travel and Private Medical Insurance. We offer products from a single insurance undertaking for Pet, Marine, Caravan and Legal Expenses Insurance. In addition, we can offer a range of additional non-investment insurance contracts and will specify the range of insurers available at the time of the enquiry. We may also refer enquiries to another authorised firm on particular insurance products. You can ask us for a list of insurers we offer insurance from.

Your Duty of Disclosure

Your insurance is based upon the information provided to the insurance company and you must ensure that all such information is complete and accurate, and that any facts that may influence the insurer’s decision to accept and pay a valid claim are disclosed. Failure to disclose material information may invalidate your insurance cover and could mean that part, or all, of a claim may not be paid.

Data Protection

All personal information about you will be treated as private and confidential (even when you are no longer a customer), except where the disclosure is made at your request, with your consent, in relation to administering your insurance or where law requires us. As part of the FSA’s duties, we may be asked to provide them with access to our customer records in order that they may carry out a review of our activities.

Some or all of the information you supply to us in connection with your insurance proposal will be held on computer and may be passed to other insurance companies for underwriting and claims purposes. Under the Data Protection Act 1998 you have a right of access to see personal information about you that is held in our records, whether electronically or manually. If you have any queries, please write to the Managing Director at the above address.

Payment of Premiums

Our premium payment terms are specified as follows:

- For new policies, immediate payment of premiums must be made on or before the inception date of the policy.

- For mid-term alterations to existing policies, immediate payment is required on the effective date of the change

- On a renewal of an existing policy payment of the full premium is required on or before the renewal date of the policy unless we receive your instructions to lapse the policy before the renewal date. If we do not hear from prior to the renewal date, we will assume that the renewal is not required and cover will cease from the original renewal date. Prior to your premium being forwarded to the insurer, and for your protection, we either hold your money as an agent of the insurer, or hold it in a client bank account on trust for you.

Fees

The quotation we provide for you will include the cost of each insurance product we are offering. In addition to the premiums charged by the insurers, we make a charge to cover the administration of your insurance in the following circumstances:

- In respect of our range of household contracts and commercial, shop, office and liability insurance we make a policy administration fee to cover the additional costs of regulation. This is normally £7.50 and is shown within the initial quotation. On occasions the may vary and this will be identified in the initial quote information.

- In respect of our range of motor insurance contracts, we make a policy administration fee to cover the additional costs of regulation. This is normally £10.00 and is shown within the initial quotation. On occasions the fee may vary and this will be identified in the initial quote information.

- In respect of renewals, we make an administration charge of £10.00 to cover the additional costs of regulation.

- In respect of motor insurance, we make a charge of £10.00 on any adjustment made to the policy during the course of the year. This charge is in addition to any premium levied by the insurer.

- If you misplace or lose your Certificate of Insurance or Cover Note, we make a charge of £10 for a replacement document. This charge is in addition to any premium levied by the insurer.

- If you wish to pay your premium by credit card, we make a charge of 4% of the total premium. There is no charge for debit cards.

- If you have not taken out an Uninsured Loss Recovery Insurance and request we recover uninsured losses on your behalf, we will make a charge by negotiation.

- If a cheque is returned by your bank unpaid, we make a charge of £10 to cover our costs to represent or seek payment by alternative methods.

- We make a £10 administration charge in respect of a policy cancelled prior to the renewal date.

Where any other fee or charge is payable, you will be advised before you commit to the service.

Complaints and Compensation

It is our intention to provide a high level of service at all times. If, however, you have reason to make a complaint about our service you should contact the Managing Director in the first instance. You may be entitled to refer it to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Further information is available from the FOS at: http://www.fos.org.uk/

We are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. 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. The scheme covers 100% of the first £2,000 and 90% of the remainder of the claim, without any upper limit. Further information about compensation scheme arrangements is available from the FSCS at: http://www.fscs.org.uk/

Issue Date: 12th January 2005

Berkeley Alexander Limited

Temple House, 25 - 26 High Street, Lewes, East Sussex, BN7 2SD;
Telephone: 0845 355 1166 Fax: 0845 355 1167 info@baonline.co.uk