Version 5 – effective 1 Oct 2019
About this Guide
This Financial Services Guide (FSG) applies from 1 October 2019 and is designed to assist you in deciding whether to use any of our services and contains important information about:
- The services we offer you
- How we and our associates are paid
- Any potential conflicts of interest we may have
- What to do in the event of a complaint
Retail clients (see definition on page 2) might also receive some other documents after or at the time we advise and make recommendations to you about your insurance needs including:
- Statements of Advice – these will be summaries of our advice and the basis on which it was provided,
- Product Disclosure Statements – these will contain information about the products we recommend to you.
If you need more information or have any questions, please feel free to telephone us.
DavelCorp Insurance Brokers is committed to providing sound, practical advice, based upon your actual needs and our continuous market knowledge.
We offer a range of services to assist you to protect your assets. These include:
- Reviewing and advising on your insurance needs
- Arranging and renewing insurance contracts on your behalf
- Arranging premium funding, if required
- Assisting with insurance
- Claims
We can advise about and arrange various General Insurance products on your behalf, including:
- Industrial Special Risks
- Combined Public & Products Liability Commercial Package
- Comprehensive Motor Vehicle
- Marine Hull & Cargo
- Professional Indemnity
- Directors & Officers Liability
- Workers Compensation
- Various other specialist general insurance covers
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.
If you are unable or choose not to provide some information to us, we will be unable to comprehensively review your circumstances. As this may limit our ability to make appropriate recommendations, you will need to assess the appropriateness of our advice to your needs before acting on it.
Who do we act for?
We usually act on your behalf and in your interests in all matters.
Sometimes, it may be more appropriate for us to access insurance or manage claims where we act as an agent of the insurer. If and when this situation arises we will explain and highlight this to you.
How to contact us
You can provide us with instructions in person, by telephone, email or in writing.
IMPORTANT RELATIONSHIP
Steadfast Membership
Davelcorp Insurance Brokers are an Australian owned insurance advisory firm, members of the National Insurance Brokers Association and are a Steadfast Group Limited (Steadfast) Network Broker.
Steadfast has exclusive arrangements with some insurers and premium funders (Partners) under which Steadfast will receive between 0.5 – 1.5% commission for each product arranged by us with those Partners. Steadfast is also a shareholder of some Partners.
As a Steadfast Network Broker we have access to member services including model operating and compliance tools, procedures, manuals and training, legal, technical, banking and recruitment advice and assistance, group insurance arrangements, product comparison and placement support, claims support and group purchasing arrangements. These member services are either funded by Steadfast, subsidised by Steadfast or available exclusively to Steadfast Network Brokers for a fee. You can obtain a copy of Steadfast‘s FSG at www.steadfast.com.au.
FEES FOR OUR SERVICES
You are entitled to know how and what we will charge for our services and what other benefits we receive.
Our remuneration
We may be entitled to deduct a commission by the relevant insurers when we arrange insurances on your behalf. As a general rule, the insurer will allow us to deduct commission based on a percentage (0% to 30%) of the base premium. Where we receive a commission we will also charge you an arrangement (Broker) fee.
Alternatively, we may rebate some or all commissions to you and charge you a fee based on the amount of the commission, or negotiate a fee based upon the nature of the service we provide.
Where different insurers allow differing commissions, we will generally “gross up” our fee so that no Insurer is offering us a substantial advantage in placing the business with them. This will assist in our quest to recommend to you covers based not so much on the commission rate they offer, but more the overall quality of the cover they are providing.
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. GST generally applies to our charges. 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. In addition, some insurers with whom we arrange a large amount of business pay us a commission based on the volume/ profitability of the business we place with them. These payments do not increase the amount you are required to pay for your insurance.
How are our advisers paid?
Our advisers 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 a part of any fees or commission received. This will not increase the amount you pay us.
Premium funding
Premium funding products enable you to pay your premiums by instalments. Although they do not usually require any security, premium funders do charge interest.
We can arrange premium funding on your behalf if you require it. We may receive a commission based on a percentage of the premium from the premium funder for doing so.
CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
As a business we have relationships with and receive income from various third parties as detailed in this FSG. For Retail Clients receiving Personal Advice, details of relationships that impact the advice will be included in any SOA or invoice documentation we send you.
All material conflicts that impact our advice, that are not mentioned in this FSG, will be advised to you on the invoices related to that advice.
PRIVACY
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 insurance companies with whom you choose to deal (and their representatives). We do not trade, rent or sell your information.
You can check the information we hold about you at any time. For more information about our Privacy Policy, ask us for a copy.
COOLING OFF PROVISIONS
All Retail products are subject to a 14 day ‘cooling off period’. This means that if you are not happy with the product, you have 14 days to withdraw from the contract at no cost to you.
COMPLAINTS AND DISPUTES
As we strive to be the “Best Insurance Broking Firm in Sydney”, our desire is that you will never have a “complaint” with us. If you are not entirely happy with our services or if we are not meeting and indeed exceeding your expectations, we want to know about it and we will seek to put it right.
As far as we are able to without incurring a legal liability by doing so – “We will be honest enough to admit our mistakes and/or errors to you.” We will not cover up a short-coming – we will rectify the situation and endeavour to safeguard against a similar situation occurring again.
However, where you are not satisfied with a situation, we do have a structured methodology for professionally handling a formal complaint.
If you are not fully satisfied with our services, please telephone our Complaints Officer. We will acknowledge your complaint in writing and endeavour to resolve your problem within 20 days.
If you are still not satisfied, we subscribe to the AFCA, a free consumer dispute resolution scheme.
Further information is available from our office, or contact AFCA directly on 1800 931 678 or visit www.afca.org.au. We also adopt the Insurance Brokers Code of Practice.
Compensation
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 extends to cover us for work done for us by representatives/employees after they cease to work for us and satisfies the requirements for compensation arrangements under Section 912B of the Corporations Act.
RETAIL CLIENTS
Under the Corporations Act Retail Clients are provided with additional protection from other clients. The Act defines Retail Clients as:
Individuals or a manufacturing business employing less than 100 people or any other business employing less than 20 people and that are purchasing the following types of insurance covers:
Motor vehicle, home building, contents, personal and domestic, sickness/ accident/travel, consumer credit and other classes as prescribed by regulations.
Some of the information in this FSG only applies to Retail Clients and it is important that you understand if you are covered by the additional protection provided.
FSG v5 (10/19)
Click the following link to open a copy of DavelCorp’s Financial Services Guide – which you can then download.
