These terms of business set out the general terms under which the above will provide insurance and investment business services to you and the respective duties and responsibilities of both the Firm and you in relation to such services. Please ensure to read these terms thoroughly and if you have any queries, please contact our office and we will be happy to clarify any queries you can have.

 

Firm Name & Contact Details

• Cantwell Financial Advisors Ltd., 3 Main Street, Tramore, Co Waterford.
• T: 051 338819
• M: 086 8214534
• E: Karen@cantwellfinancial.ie

 

Authorised Status with the Central Bank of Ireland

Cantwell Financial Advisors Ltd is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland and is registered as an insurance intermediary under the European Communities (Insurance Mediation) Regulations, 2005 (as amended), as a Multi-Agency Intermediary authorised under the Investment Intermediaries Act, 1995 (as amended) and is authorised as a deposit broker. The Central Bank of Ireland holds registers of regulated firms. You may contact the Central Bank of Ireland on (01) 224 6000 or alternatively visit their website on www.centralbank.ie to verify our credentials.

 

Codes of Conduct

Cantwell Financial Advisors Ltd. is subject to and complies with the Consumer Protection Code, Minimum Competency Code and Fitness & Probity Standards which offer protection to consumers. These codes can be found on the Central Bank’s website www.centralbank.ie.

 

Our Services

Cantwell Financial Advisors Ltd. is a Life and Pensions Independent Broker and is a member of the Life Insurance Association (LIA) and a member of the Professional Insurance Brokers Association (PIBA). As a member of PIBA we must be in a position to place insurance with at least five insurers of the relevant form (life) and therefore can generally give consumers greater choice than agents and tied agents. We hold written appointments from the product producers set out below.

Cantwell Financial Advisors Ltd acts as an Independent Broker which means that:

1. The principal regulated activities of the firm are provided on the basis of a fair analysis of the market, and
2. You have the option to pay in full for our services by means of a fee.

 

Fair Analysis

The concept of fair analysis is derived from the Insurance Mediation Directive. It describes the extent of the choice of products and providers offered by an intermediary with a particular category of life assurance and or a specialist area. The number of contracts and providers considered must be sufficiently large to enable an intermediary to recommend a product that would be adequate to meet a client’s needs.

The number of providers that constitutes ‘sufficiently large’ will vary depending on the number of providers operating in the market for a particular product or service and their relative importance in a share of that market. The extent of fair analysis must be such that could be reasonably expected of a professional conducting business, taking into account the accessibility of information and product placement to intermediaries and the cost of search.

In order to ensure that the number of contracts and providers is sufficiently large to constitute a fair analysis of the market, we will consider the following:

• The needs of the customer,
• The size of the customer order,
• The number of providers in the market that deal with brokers,
• The market share of each of these providers,
• The number of relevant products available from each provider,
• The availability of information about the products,
• The quality of the product and service provided by the provider,
• Cost, and
• Any other relevant information.

 

Life & Pensions

Cantwell Financial Advisors Ltd provides life assurance and pensions on a fair analysis basis ie providing services on the basis of a sufficiently large number of contracts and product producers available on the market to enable us to make a recommendation, in accordance with professional criteria, regarding which contract would be adequate to meet your needs.

We will provide assistance to you for any queries you may have in relation to the policies of in the event of a claim during the life of the policies and we will explain to you the various restrictions, conditions & exclusions attached to your plan. However, it is your responsibility to read the policy documents, literature and brochures to ensure that you understand the nature of the policy cover, particularly in relation to PHI & Serious Illness policies.

Specifically on the subject of PHI policies it is our policy to explain to you (a) the meaning of disability as defined in the policy; (b) the benefits available under the policy; (c) the general exclusions that apply to the policy and (d) the reductions applied to the benefit where there are disability payments from other sources.

For a serious Illness policy, we will explain clearly to you the restrictions, conditions and general exclusions that attach to that policy.

 

Disclosure of Information

Any failure to disclose material information may invalidate your claim and render your policy void.

 

Fees & Commission

Cantwell Financial Advisors Ltd is remunerated by commission/placement fees from the completion of business with the product producers listed below. In certain circumstances or where a client requests so, we charge a fee for our services. The fees range from €200 to €300 per hour for advisory services and €50 per hour for support staff (minimum case fee €750). Additional fees may be payable for complex cases or to reflect value, specialist skills or urgency. We will give an estimate of this rate in advance of providing you with this services. If we receive commission from a product producer, this will be offset against the fee which we will charge you. Where the commission is greater than the fee due, the commission will become the amount payable to the intermediary unless an arrangement to the contrary is made.

 

Regular Reviews

It is in your best interest that you review, on a regular basis, the products which we have arranged for you. As your circumstance change, your needs will change. You must advise us of those changes and request a review of the relevant policy so that we can ensure that you are provided with up to date advice and products best suited to your needs. Failure to contact us in relation to changes in your circumstances or failure to request a review, may result in you having insufficient insurance cover and/or inappropriate investments.

 

Conflicts of Interest

It is the policy of our Firm to avoid conflicts of interest in providing services to you. However, where an unavoidable
conflict of interest arises we will advise of this in writing before providing you with any service.

 

Default on payments by clients

In the event that premiums to be paid by you are not paid, insurers are entitled to and may cancel cover. It is therefore critical to the continuance of your insurance cover that your premium is paid in full and strictly in line with the insurer’s terms. In the event you miss a payment, both we and the insurer will notify you.

In the event that a fee due to us which was agreed in writing in advance of any work undertaken on your behalf is not paid on the completion of this same work for which we are due the agreed fee; we will exercise our legal rights to collect any fees outstanding.

 

Termination

Our services may be terminated without cause or penalty by either us or you upon the giving of one month’s written notice of termination to the other or as otherwise agreed. Upon termination, and after all fees, commissions, expenses and other sums properly due being settled or adequately secured to our satisfaction, you will as soon as practicable arrange for all policies or other instruments to be transferred to the agency of another insurance or investment intermediary to be appointed by you. With effect from the date of termination and in the absence of express agreement to the contrary we will have no obligation to perform any further services (whether contained in this agreement or otherwise) for you.

 

Email

We may communicate with each other by electronic mail, sometimes attaching further electronic data, where we
have each expressed a wish for that to happen. 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 risk of non delivery, the risks of corruption of such communications and the risks of viruses or other harmful devices). Notwithstanding that we have reasonable virus checking procedures on our system, you will be responsible for checking all electronic communications sent to you. You will also be responsible for checking that messages received are complete. In the event of a dispute neither of us will challenge the legal evidential standing of an electronic document and the Cantwell Financial Advisors Ltd. system shall be deemed the definitive record of electronic communications and documentation.

 

Data Protection and Confidentiality

We will treat any personal (or other) information received by us from you with the utmost respect and, where
appropriate, in accordance with data protection legislation, including the Data Protection Act, 1998 (amended). It will be necessary for us to disclose confidential information to insurers or other parties where we reasonably consider such information to be material to the risk being covered or the investment. Our client’s personal data is confidential and available only to our firm, we do not pass on clients details to any other firm unless instructed to do so by our client(s).

 

Governing Law

Cantwell Financial Advisors Ltd. undertakes its activities in accordance with the laws of the Republic of Ireland and any disputes will be governed in accordance with the laws of the Republic of Ireland.

 

Complaints

We ask that you make any complaint against our Firm relating to investment business services provided by us in writing. We will acknowledge your complaint within 5 business days of the complaint being received and we will fully investigate it. On completion of our investigation, we will provide you with a written report of the outcome. In the event that you are still dissatisfied with our handling of, or response to, your complaint, you are entitled to refer the matter to the Financial Services Ombudsman. A full copy of our complaints procedure is available on request.

 

Investor Compensation Scheme

We are members of the Investor Compensation Scheme operated by the Investor Compensation Company Limited. The Investor Compensation Act, 1998 provides for the establishment of a compensation scheme and the payment, in certain circumstances, of compensation to certain clients (known as eligible investors) of authorised investment firms, as defined in that Act.

The Investor Compensation Company Ltd (ICCL) was established under the 1998 Act to operate such compensation and our Firm is a member of this scheme. Compensation may be payable where money or investment instruments owed or belonging to clients and held, or in the case of investment instruments, administered or managed by the Firm cannot be returned to those clients for the time being and there is no reasonably foreseeable opportunity of the Firm being able to do so.

A right to compensation will arise only:

• • if the client is an eligible investor as defined in the Act; and
  • if it transpires that the Firm is not in a position to return client money or investment instruments owned or belonging to the clients of the Firm;

and

• to the extent that the client’s loss is recognised for the purposes of the Act.

Where an entitlement to compensation is established, the compensation payable will be the lesser of:
90% of the amount of the client’s loss which is recognised for the purposes of the Investor Compensation Act, 1998; or compensation of up to €20,000.

For further information you can contact the Investor Compensation Company Ltd on (01) 4344000.

 

List of Product Producers – Life & Pensions:

• Irish Life Assurance Plc.
• Zurich Life Assurance plc.
• New Ireland Assurance Company Plc.
• Friends First Life Assurance Company Ltd.
• Aviva Life & Pensions Ltd.
• Standard Life Assurance Company
• Royal London
• Davy
• Wealth Options Ltd.
• EBS
• BCP Asset Management Limited