WHITE Insurance Brokers 2023| All Rights Reserved | Privacy Policy | FSG | Disclaimer | Terms & Conditions | Complaints & Disputes
Made with love by Alphesda Interactive
This Financial Services Guide (FSG) contains important information about our relationship with you, including details of our services, charges and your rights. This guide sets out information about things you need to know in relation to insurance matters, including how any complaints you may have will be dealt with. It is designed to assist you in deciding whether to use any of those services, and contains details about:
We assume that unless you tell us otherwise, you accept the terms that are set out in this guide. If there are any changes to these terms we will provide you with a Letter of Engagement, which together with this guide, will record the basis of our relationship. Depending upon the services you require you may also receive other documents from us when arranging, renewing, amending or advising you about your insurances, including:
Why we are not independent, impartial, or unbiased in relation to the provision of personal advice and the impact of this on you. We are not independent, impartial, or unbiased pursuant to section 923A of the Corporations Act because:
Further information about these benefits and relationships is set out in the Financial Services Guide.
If you have any questions about this information, please ask us.
Provides a summary of your relevant personal circumstance as ascertained after making the required inquiries, a generic description of the classes of insurance and the insurance policies considered and investigated and a concise statement of the reasons why the advice was considered appropriate, including the advantages and disadvantages if the advice is acted upon
Records of Advice must be kept for seven (7) years from the date that personal advice is provided to a retail client. This enables us to demonstrate that we complied with the best interests’ duty and the advice given to the client was appropriate.
Provides general advice about a financial product that is not personal.
Sets out the essential features of an insurance policy as well as other information about the policy. PDSs are required to be prepared by the product issuer, i.e. the insurer, or by a person authorised by the product issuer to prepare the PDS on the product issuer’s behalf.
If you have supplied your email address to us, we will send insurance documents including this FSG, SOA and PDS, if required, to that address unless you instruct us that you wish to receive these documents via a different method.
Confirm the details of the transactions we have arranged on your behalf. If you require more information or have any questions about any insurance or any information contained in this guide, please do not hesitate to contact us.
We can be contacted by telephone, facsimile, e-mail, letter or in person (if an appointment has been arranged).
Physical Address: 7 Llewellyn Place, Eumemmerring, Victoria 3177, Australia
Postal Address: PO Box 2191, Fountain Gate, Victoria 3805, Australia
Telephone: (03) 8790 5701
Facsimile: (03) 8790 5702
E-mail: info@whiteinsure.com.au
Website: www.whiteinsure.com.au
Trading Hours: 8.30am to 5.00pm Monday to Friday
White Group (VIC) Pty Ltd ABN 60 116 978 253 trading as WHITE Insurance Brokers and WHITE Financial & Credit Solutions holds an Australian Financial Services Licence No 295436 and an Australian Credit Licence No 295436 under the Corporations Act 2001 to provide General Insurance Broking services.
We are licensed to:
White Insurance Brokers is a member of the National Insurance Brokers Association (NIBA) and subscribes to the General Insurance Brokers Code of Practice and the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA), Member No 14236.
We hold a Professional Indemnity Policy. This policy is designed to pay claims by Third Parties (including our clients) arising out of our professional negligence. The policy satisfies the requirements for compensation arrangements under Section 912B of the Corporations Act 2001
A person will be considered a retail client if any of the following situations apply to them:
Personal Property includes
All other clients are wholesale (including workers compensation, CTP, marine insurance (other than pleasure craft) and statutory insurance relating to residential construction work).
As an insurance broker we act for and on behalf of you in providing sound advice based upon your needs. We offer a range of services to assist you with your risk management process by sourcing and arranging suitable insurance contracts to protect your assets. We can advise you and arrange general insurance retail products as listed above as well as with business, commercial and corporate insurance tailored to your needs.
We can assist you with:
To enable us to provide advice which is appropriate to your circumstances, we will need you to provide us with complete information about the risk(s) to be insured, your situation and your needs and objectives. You should also tell us about any relevant changes as they occur.
You can provide us with instructions by telephone, facsimile, e-mail, and letter or in person (if an appointment has been arranged).
Contact us as soon as possible if you need cover for a risk or property that is not insured. If you need immediate cover, we can usually obtain an interim contract of insurance (which is generally valid for a month or less). To arrange this, we will need details of the property or risk and all other information which you need to disclose to the insurer. We will then send you a proposal for completion. You will need to fully complete, sign and return it to us as soon as possible and before the interim cover expires. We will send the original insurance contract documents as soon as they are issued correctly by your insurer. As these are legal documents, you should keep them in a safe place.
We will give you at least 14 days’ notice of expiry of any insurance contract which we arranged or last renewed for you.
Unless you tell us otherwise, we will automatically renew your insurance to ensure you continue to be covered. At that time we will send you an offer to renew the insurance contract and invoice you for the cost of renewal. For commercial insurances we will renew the insurance after we have considered whether it meets your needs.
If you wish to change the details of cover or there is a change to your circumstances, please contact us as soon as you receive the renewal invoice. This will allow us to assess the appropriateness of your insurance and whether you require further advice from us.
In some circumstances we may be able to arrange for the insurer to cover you temporarily before payment is received, but we cannot guarantee this.
We will also advise you at least 14 days in advance of expiry of any insurance contract should an insurer not wish to offer renewal
If you arranged or renewed insurance directly with an insurer or through another broker, we will not be responsible for notifying you of expiry or arranging renewal.
You should carefully monitor and review that your insurance contract adequately meets your requirements to cover your assets and/or business activities. If you wish to vary any cover, e.g. by increasing the sum insured or adding other property, please provide us with details of the changes you require and any other information you need to disclose to the insurer. We will provide written confirmation when the insurer has accepted the variation to cover. Any adjustments to premium will be advised to you in the form of an invoice.
We will receive your claims notifications, assist and advise you regarding the scope of cover and pass the information to the insurer. If a loss adjustor is appointed we shall, with your permission, pass on your contact details and co-ordinate meetings. In the case of a major loss, we can attend the initial meeting with the loss adjustor if you wish us to. We will promptly forward to you all claims documentation, insurance company settlement cheques and other information If you have a large deductible or wish to claim directly from a third party, we can assist by providing you with our claims management service.
You are entitled to know how and what we will charge for our services and what other benefits we may receive.
Fees and commission are our main source of income and cover the cost of providing services to you, including any distribution functions we perform for the insurer such as marketing, annual renewal marketing and underwriting. We may be paid in a number of ways, which vary according to the service you require and our arrangements with the relevant insurer. We are paid in the following ways:
We may be paid commission by the relevant insurers when we arrange insurances on your behalf. As a general rule, the insurer will pay us an amount based on a percentage of the base premium. The commission depends on the type of policy and ranges from 0% to 27.5% plus GST of the basic premium excluding all underwriting levies, statutory charges such as fire services levy, GST and stamp duty
We may also charge a broker fee to cover the administration and processing costs related to arranging your insurance cover. We will provide you with specific information about the basis and amount you will be charged before or at the time we arrange your insurance. Depending upon the product arranged and the time we spend placing the business our fees are as follows:
Our charges include GST. Some of our charges may be tax deductible. If we hold your money in trust pending payment to the insurer, we also receive any interest earned. If we refer you for Financial Planning, Superannuation, Life, Disability or Trauma insurance or other financial services that we are not able to provide under our AFS Licence, we may receive a referral commission of between 0% and 25%.
Our employees and Consultants are usually paid in two ways – salary, and a bonus or incentives which are based on a number of factors including achievement of company goals. If a person has referred you to us, we may pay them between 0 to 50% of our remuneration. This will not increase the amount you pay us.
We are a shareholder in Steadfast Group Limited ABN 98 073 659 677 (Steadfast). Steadfast is the largest general insurance broker network and the largest underwriting agency group in Australasia. Steadfast has exclusive arrangements with some insurers and premium funders under which Steadfast will receive commission for each product arranged by us. We have access to various Steadfast network member services, including operating and compliance tools, advice and assistance from professional bodies, group insurance arrangements, product comparison and placement support, claims support and purchasing arrangements. These member services are either funded or subsidised by Steadfast or available exclusively to members for a fee.
Invoices
We will invoice you for the premium, statutory charges (stamp duty, fire services levy, GST) and any fee we charge for arranging your insurance. You must pay us by the due date shown on the invoice or, in the case of a renewal, before the expiry date of the contract of insurance. If you do not pay the premium on time, we are required to notify the insurer. The insurer has the right to cancel the contract of insurance and you will not be insured. The insurer may also charge a short term or minimum premium for the time on risk.
Credit Card Fees
If you pay by credit card we may charge you a credit card (incl. arrangement & handling) fee, which is always disclosed and shown separately on our invoices to you, they are non-refundable. This fee reimburses us for the bank interest, extra charges/costs and internal time generated for credit card use.
Premium Funding
Premium funding enables you to pay your premiums by instalments. The premium funder charges fees and interest and default and cancellation fees and charges. We can arrange premium funding on your behalf if you require it. We may receive a commission of up to 6% based on a percentage of the premium from the premium funder for doing so. We will advise you the basis and amount of any such payment.
We cannot cancel a contract of insurance without written instructions from a person(s) who is authorised to represent each of the parties who are named as an insured in the contract of insurance. We also cannot cancel any contract of insurance which is subject to the Marine Insurance Act 1909. If a contract of insurance is cancelled before expiry of the period of insurance, we will refund the net premium we receive from your insurer but not our fees or commission for arranging the insurance.
Most insurance products are underwritten by the insurer before accepting the application for insurance. The insurer considers and, in some cases, makes enquiries into the subject of the insurance.
You have a duty, under the Insurance Contracts Act 1984, to disclose matters that you know to be relevant to the insurer’s decision to accept the risk or that a reasonable person could be expected to know to be relevant to the insurer, except for matters:
If the non-disclosure is fraudulent, the insurer can cancel the policy and refuse to pay any claim. If it is “innocent” then the insurer may reduce the amount of any claim to the amount that would have been paid had the disclosure been made.
Material Changes
You must also notify your insurer of any significant changes which occur during the period of insurance. If you do not, your insurances may be inadequate to fully cover you. We will assist you to do this and to ensure that your contract of insurance is altered to reflect those changes.
Sums Insured – Average and Co-Insurance
Some insurance contracts require you to bear a proportion of each loss or claim if the sum insured is inadequate to cover the amount of the loss. These provisions are called ‘average’ or ‘co-insurance’ clauses.
If you do not want to bear a proportion of any loss, when you arrange or renew your contract of insurance, you must ensure that the amount for which you insure is adequate to cover the full potential of any loss. If you insure on a new for old basis, the sum insured must be sufficient to cover the new replacement cost of the property.
Some insurance contracts do not cover the interest in the insured property or risk of anyone other than the person named in the contract. Common examples are where property is jointly owned or subject to finance but the contract only names one owner or does not name the financier.
Please tell us about everyone who has an interest in the property insured so that we can ensure that they are noted on your contract of insurance.
Some insurance contracts seek to limit or exclude claims where the insured person has limited their rights to recover a loss from the person who was responsible for it, e.g. by signing an agreement which disclaims or limits the liability of the other party. Please tell us about any contracts of this type which you have or propose to enter into.
The Regulations in the Insurance Contracts Act set out standard terms for the cover which is provided by motor vehicle, home buildings, home contents, sickness and accident, consumer credit and travel insurance (including a minimum amount of insurance).
If an insurer wants to alter these terms or offer less than the minimum amount of insurance they must clearly inform you in writing that they have done so. They can do this by providing you with a Product Disclosure Statement or a copy of the insurance contract.
If an insurer wants to rely on a term in a contract of insurance which is not usually included in contracts that provide similar cover, they must clearly inform you in writing of that term. Again, they may do so by providing you with a copy of the insurance contract
If you decide that you do not require this contract of insurance, you have 14 days (or longer if the insurer allows it) from either the date you receive confirmation of this insurance contract and the date 5 days after the date the insurance contract was arranged whichever occurs earlier, to change your mind. You must tell in writing the insurer that you wish to return the insurance contract and have the premium repaid.
If you do so the insurance contract will be terminated from the time you notified the insurer. The insurer may retain its reasonable administration and transaction costs and a short-term premium. You cannot return the contract of insurance if it has already expired or if you have made a claim under it.
We are committed to protecting your privacy. We use the information you provide to advise about and assist with your insurance needs. We only provide your information to the companies with whom you choose to deal (and their representatives). We do not trade, rent or sell your information.
If you don’t provide us with full information, we can’t properly advise you and you could breach your duty of disclosure. You can check the information we hold about you at any time. For more information about our Privacy Policy, ask us for a copy.
As a business we have relationships with and receive income from various third parties as detailed in this FSG. To ensure that any conflicts arising from such relationships or income do not impair the level of advice and service that we provide to you we have implemented a Conflict of Interest Policy.
Our formal documented approach to receiving income and other benefits from third parties is that we will ensure that you receive the most appropriate product or service that we have access to, whilst being mindful that as a business we must receive an adequate income to provide the services and facilities that you would expect from a professional insurance broker.
We will separately and specifically disclose any conflict situations where we believe that the conflict is potentially impairing our advice or service to you.
If you are not fully satisfied with our services or have a concern about a particular issue please contact us and tell us about your complaint. If your complaint is not satisfactorily resolved within 24 hours, please contact our Complaints Manager who will acknowledge your complaint in writing and endeavour to resolve the matter.
Complaints Manager
Phone: 03 8790 5701
Email: info@whiteinsure.com.au
In writing to: PO Box 2191, Fountain Gate, VIC 3805
If your complaint has not been resolved by us to your satisfaction within 45 days, from the date you first made your complaint, then you can have the matter referred to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority, or AFCA. AFCA provides fair and independent financial services complaint resolution that is free to consumers.
Further information about AFCA is freely available from our office or you may contact:
Australian Financial Complaints Authority
Website: www.afca.org.au
Phone: 1800 931 678 (free call)
Email: info@afca.org.au
In writing to : Australian Financial Complaints Authority. GPO Box 3, Melbourne, Vic 3001
WHITE Insurance Brokers 2023| All Rights Reserved | Privacy Policy | FSG | Disclaimer | Terms & Conditions | Complaints & Disputes
Made with love by Alphesda Interactive