Europa Life, a trading style of Assured Futures Limited, offers insurance to meet the needs of a wide range of individuals and companies. Our Terms of Business are set out in this booklet and govern how we operate in our dealings with you. Please read it carefully and retain it for future reference.
Assured Futures Limited is an independent intermediary authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) to arrange, advise on and administer insurance. You can check our registration by visiting the FSA website at www.fsa.gov.uk/pages/register and quoting our registration number of 3040737. Alternatively, you can contact the FSA by phone on 0845 606 1234.
We act on your behalf, advising on and arranging insurance for both individual and corporate clients. We offer insurance policies from a range of insurers to cover life insurance, critical illness cover and permanent health insurance. Our recommendation of insurer and policy will be based on the insurer that most closely matches, in cover and price, the insurance needs that you tell us you have at the time we prepare the quotation.
For policies purchased direct from our websites, we do not offer advice or make any recommendations. You will be asked some questions to narrow down the selection of the products and to assist you in your choice we will provide you with a quotation for the cover you require, together with comprehensive information to allow you to make an informed decision.
For our joint protection, we may record telephone calls.
Meeting the needs of our clients is at the heart of everything we do at Assured Futures. We always aspire to treat our clients fairly and to give advice and recommendations that meet your requirements. To do this we constantly review our processes and procedures to ensure we offer our clients the highest standards of advice and service. Our communications are designed to be clear and straightforward to understand and we aim to keep you informed of all developments with your insurance both before you buy and afterwards.
You have the right to cancel any insurance policy that you buy from us. If you wish to cancel your insurance you should write to advise this, within 30 days of the date you received your policy documentation. We will refund your premium, less a proportionate charge for the period of cover, the administration fee and any other charge your insurer may make.
You should notify us immediately of any changes in the details upon which your insurance was arranged (eg change of address or occupation, life style changes, taking up smoking, taking drugs, being diagnosed with an illness).
We are here to help you with your claim and to act on your behalf. Upon request, we will guide you through what can often be a difficult and stressful time and help make certain the insurer provides the responsive service you are entitled to expect.
We will usually contact you by phone or by post. By providing your email address and mobile phone number, you are agreeing to us communicating with you by email and SMS. If you email a request to arrange insurance cover or to amend any details under an existing policy, insurance cover will not be in force until your insurer has agreed to provide cover and we have confirmed this to you. You must take reasonable steps to ensure that email messages are complete and accurate, free of harmful viruses and secure, so that they cannot be altered in course of transmission.
If you decide to cancel your policy please contact us first, so that we can help you to determine the least expensive way to do this.
If you pay your premiums by direct debit, any money already paid at the time of cancellation will be used to clear the insurer’s charge. If the direct debit payment is insufficient to do this, you will need to pay us the balance. Any over-payment caused by payments in transit will then be refunded to you.
Where you do not maintain direct debit payments or other instalment payments, we reserve the right to instruct your insurers to cancel your insurance policy.
Occasions may arise where we or one of our other clients have some form of interest in business being transacted for you. If this happens or we become aware that our interests or those of one of our other clients conflict with your interests, we will write to you and obtain your consent before we carry out your instructions, and detail the steps we will take to ensure fair treatment.
We place your business with insurers whom we believe to be reliable and of good financial standing. However, we cannot be held liable if an insurer that we recommend subsequently cannot meet its obligations. You are still responsible for paying any premium or part-premium due.
We do not handle client money. We never accept a cheque made made out to us (unless it is in settlement of charges or disbursements for which we have sent you an invoice) or handle cash.
We may charge the following fees:
Trust Arrangement in respect of Life Insurance £25.00
We may agree with you a fee as a replacement of commission from an insurer.
Your quotation will show any fees that are applicable. The fees shown are current at the time of printing but we do reserve the right to vary them if necessary.
For policies with a renewal date we will normally contact you, to tell you the premium and terms applicable to the next period of insurance.
For your insurance cover to continue, you must instruct us on or before the date on which your policy is due to expire. There are no ‘days of grace’ and you are responsible for making sure your insurance is valid and in force.
If you pay by direct debit and your insurer is happy to renew your policy, we will automatically renew your policy, unless you tell us to do otherwise.
However your policy is renewed, you must remember to tell us of any changes that might affect your cover, (eg life style changes, taking up smoking, taking drugs, being diagnosed with an illness) before the date on which your policy is due to be renewed, otherwise your cover may become invalid.
We will normally contact you before your renewal date to tell you the premium and policy terms for the next period of insurance. It is your responsibility to ensure that your insurance remains valid and in force and that you have done nothing which might invalidate the insurance.
You must tell us all material facts as soon as possible. A material fact is something that may affect an insurer’s decision to issue a policy or to continue cover. If you are unsure whether a fact is material, please tell us anyway.
We cannot maintain a permanent record of all material facts disclosed to us and it is your responsibility to:
Inaccurate or undisclosed information may invalidate your insurance cover. We do not accept liability for any errors or omissions, where a member of staff has completed, or assisted in completing, the proposal form, a copy of which is available on request.
In accordance with the Association of British Insurers’ policy on genetics and insurance, you do not need to tell us about any genetic test result you have had if this application for insurance, taken together with any other insurance policies you already have for this type of insurance, totals to:
Above these limits, you may need to tell us about certain genetic test results when applying for insurance. We will only be interested in genetic test results where the Government’s Genetics and Insurance Committee (GAIC) has approved them for insurers to use.
To check if this applies to you, please visit the Association of British Insurers' website for details of the current position. However, you must tell us if you either have a family history of, are experiencing symptoms of, or are having treatment for, a medical condition including any genetically inherited condition.
If you wish to disclose to us a negative genetic test result, which shows that you have not inherited a genetic disorder, we will take this into account in setting your premium, providing your clinical geneticist confirms that the test result indicates a reduced risk of developing the inherited disease.
Our files are confidential. Unless you permit us, we will not share information on your insurance with anyone other than you and your legal representatives, the insurer to whom you apply for insurance or any party as may be required for the proper performance of our or your insurers service to you, unless we are required to do so in order to meet our legal obligations under Statute. Personal information, including information of a sensitive nature, provided by clients may be retained on manual and/or computer records, and/or other means and other than above, will not be disclosed to third parties. You are entitled to a copy of all information held on file about you and if it is incorrect, you have the right to have the data corrected. We will normally keep client records for at least five years after your most recent insurance policy has expired.
If you have purchased a policy through an insurance comparison website, we will share your personal information with them in order to provide you with the quotations you have requested. All personal information will be held in strictest confidence and used only for the purposes for providing you the service requested.
We will abide by the stated principles of the Data Protection Act at all times. We are registered with the Information Commissioner as Data Controller and Processor. Details of the Data Protection Act can be viewed on the Information Commissioner’s website at www.dataprotection.gov.uk.
You may request a copy of the personal data which we hold on you by writing to:
Data Protection Officer
Assured Futures Limited
113 Promenade
Cheltenham
Gloucester
GL50 1AP
and we may charge a fee up to £10.00 to provide this.
We will only use information we hold about you in the normal course of arranging and administering your insurance.
It is our policy to deal with your spouse or partner who calls us on your behalf, provided we have your consent or they are named on the policy. If you would like someone else to deal with your policy on your behalf on a regular basis please let us know. If at any time you would prefer us to deal only with you, please let us know.
We may use your personal data to inform you about other products and services that we feel may be of interest to you, via mail, telephone, fax email or other electronic messaging services. If you do not wish to receive marketing information from us by these methods or if you have any queries about how we use your information then please let us know by contact us.
We subscribe to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). In the unlikely event that we cannot meet our obligations to you, you may be entitled to compensation from the FSCS. Eligibility for compensation from the FSCS depends on:
For most insurances, compensation of 90% of the claim is available, with no upper limit. Further information about compensation scheme arrangements is available from the FSCS at www.fscs.org.uk.
All dealings with us are subject to English Law.
Certain insurers may carry out credit searches in the course of processing your quotation or application for insurance.
We work hard to provide our clients with a first class service. If you are not happy with any aspect of the service you have received, we would like to know and to do all we can to resolve the situation.
In the first instance, please contact the team, who will try to resolve matters for you.
If you are still unhappy with the stance taken, please write to:
Managing Director
Assured Futures Limited
113 Promenade
Cheltenham
Gloucester
GL50 1AP
who will investigate and make every effort to settle the issue for you.
If after this you feel that the complaint remains unresolved, you may be entitled to refer it to the Financial Services Ombudsman, provided that you belong to one of the following categories:
at the time of complaint. Your claim will be investigated free of charge to you.
These Terms of Business are enforceable only by those who have had direct dealings with us and are not enforceable by any third party, whether under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 or otherwise.
The headings in these terms of business are for convenience only and shall not affect their interpretation. These terms of business shall be governed by and construed in accordance with English law. If any of the provisions of these terms of business are held to be invalid or unenforceable in the whole or in part the validity of the other provisions shall not be affected thereby. Our staff are not authorised to vary these Terms of Business but they may be varied by us in writing from time to time.