Terms of Business

Services

Partridge Advisory Limited provides insurance broking and risk management services only. We shall not be liable for any other services and you should speak to a professional regarding legal, financial and all other professional services you may require.

We seek to provide advice with reasonable skill, care, and diligence. Our advice and services are based on the fact you provide complete and accurate information. You are required to provide all material facts and information that a prudent insurer may consider material in assessing your risks for which you have approached us for cover.

How we get paid

We may be paid by one or more of the following ways for the services we provide to you:

1. By way of a fee for the services we provide. Under this arrangement you pay us directly for our services.
2. By way of brokerage or commission. Under this arrangement insurers pay us. We may also be paid by insurers where we provide services on their behalf. An example of this is issuing a policy wording for which they pay us brokerage or commission.
3. By way of brokerage or commission. We may be paid by brokerage or commission by premium funders if we arrange premium funding for you.
4. By way of interest payments on premiums held. When you pay premiums into our client Trust account we may hold the premiums before on payment to Insurers. During this time interest may be paid on the premium.

We also receive ‘soft dollar’ benefits. To provide you with the best service and outcomes we maintain relationships with insurers and other service providers. Good working relationships create many benefits such as being able to better negotiate broader cover, better terms, better advocate for you on claims and know underwriter appetite and strategy so we partner you with the best insurer. We receive ‘soft dollar’ benefits from insurer meetings through meals and entertainment (such as sporting events).

We understand that when not managed appropriately there’s ability for these benefits to drive broker behaviour to your detriment. We take a reasonableness test to all benefits received to ensure this doesn’t affect broker behaviour.

Insurers we use

We seek to place our insurance with only the highest rated insurers. We look to place insurance with insurers with a minimum rating of A- however this may not always be possible to do so or there may

be other reasons for using an insurer with a lower rating. We take no responsibility for the solvency or claims paying ability of insurers.
We will always disclose who your insurers are and what their financial rating is.

Duty of disclosure

You have the duty of disclosure. It is your ongoing legal responsibility to provide all information and facts material to your insurance.
Material information and facts are those that would influence a reasonable insurer when they are deciding whether to insure you and on what terms, conditions and premiums they apply. Failure to provide full information and facts could result in cover being reduced or avoided (cancelled from the inception of the policy). If you have any doubt regarding what information and facts are material, you should disclose them.

It is your responsibility to advise us on an ongoing basis of any change in your business that may affect your insurance.
If you require any changes to existing insurance policies or new policies during the year you must advise us.

Claims or circumstances that may lead to a claim must be notified to us as soon as reasonably practicable. Any delay in the notification of a claim or circumstance may prejudice your rights under the insurance policy.

Information handling

We will hold any personal information that you provide us in accordance with the Privacy Act 1993. Any information that we collect from you will be used pursuant to the provision of our services. We may pass your information to insurance companies, and other companies who support us in providing these services, in connection with the provision of our services.

Termination

Either party may terminate this agreement at any time. Termination must be provided in writing and takes effect immediately upon receipt of such letter. In the event you terminate this agreement the management of any outstanding matters, including claims, shall be handed back to you.

Complaints and disputes

It’s a requirement of registered financial service providers to be a member of a dispute solution scheme. We’re a member of the Financial Services Complaints Limited (FSCL).

We have a dispute resolution process which is outlined on our website www.partridgeadvisory.com. If you cannot access the website we can provide you with a hard copy of our complaints process. We encourage you to notify us of a complaint of any type and we will attempt to resolve that complaint internally. In the event we cannot agree on a resolution it will be referred to the FSCL.