about our services and costs

1. The Financial Services Authority (FSA)

2. Whose products do we offer?

	We offer products from the whole market.
	We only offer products from a limited number of companies. Ask for a list of the companies whose products we offer.
	We only offer products from a single group of companies.

3. Which service will we provide you with?

	We will advise and make a recommendation for you after we have assessed your needs.
	You will not receive advice or a recommendation from us. We may ask some questions to narrow down the selection of products that we will provide details on. You will then make your own choice about how to proceed.
	We will provide basic advice on a limited range of stakeholder products and in order to do this we will ask some questions about your income, savings and other circumstances but we will not: Conduct a full assessment of your needs; Offer advice on whether a non-stakeholder product may be more suitable.

4. What will you have to pay us for our services?

	Before we provide you with advice, we will give you our keyfacts guide 'about the cost of our services'
	We will tell you how we get paid, and the amount, before we carry out any business for you.

5. Who regulates us?

6. What to do if you have a complaint.

7. Are we covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS)?

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT OUR SERVICES

Our dealings with you

We normally ask our clients to give us instructions writing. However we may, at our discretion, accept oral instructions on the understanding they are subsequently confirmed in writing.

We will only accept instructions / communications from you in English.

Any commission paid to us by any product provider will be treated as payment for our initial service and does not infer an ongoing service. Occasionally, it may be necessary for us to contact you by telephone, in relation to annuity business and you accordingly authorise us to do so. Your authority may be withdrawn by advising us in writing that you no longer wish to be contacted by telephone.

Authorisation to correspond with you by email or fax will be a matter of a separate instruction contained in a Profile.

Where we are required to verify your identity in accordance with the Criminal Justice Act 1991 and the Money Laundering Regulations, no investments will be made until such verification has been obtained.

We do on occasion receive benefits from product providers which we believe enhances the service we provide. These benefits take the form of product, systems and technical training and the attendance of seminars.

Client Categorisation

You will be categorised as a "Retail Client" under the FSA rules for all business we undertake with or for you.

A Retail Client may be entitled to compensation from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme if a firm cannot meet its obligations. This will be dependent on the type of business and the circumstances of the claim.

You may request re-classification as a Professional Client or Eligible Counterparty, but it is not JLT Benefit Solutions Ltd's policy nor are we required to accept such requests.

Records & Documents

All investments we arrange for you will be registered in your name unless otherwise agreed in writing. We will forward to you all policy documentation as soon as practicable after we receive them. Where a number of documents relating to a series of transactions are involved, we will normally hold each document until the series is complete. We will then forward the series to you.

We treat all client records as confidential. You have the right to inspect copies of policy documentation and entries in our books or computerised records relating to your transactions.

Personal information, including information of a sensitive nature, provided by clients may be retained on manual and/or computer records and/or by other means and will not be disclosed to other parties except to our Auditors and any other organisation allowed access under Statute or exercising their legal entitlement to such access. You are entitled to a copy of such information and where appropriate to have such data corrected or erased.

We keep records of our business transactions for at least six years.

Client Money

We do not handle client money. We never accept a cheque made out to us (unless it is a cheque in settlement of charges or disbursements for which we have sent you an invoice) or handle cash. All cheques for investments arranged through us should be made payable to the investment provider.

E-Mail

We recognise that communicating by e-mail on a ‘desk-to-desk’ basis is a very desirable method of conducting business and that e-mail is fast replacing facsimile as the preferred method of communication. However, if you choose to communicate with us by e-mail, we do have some concerns specific to its use in placing and servicing insurance, which we would like to share with you:

• Integrity & Receipt: There is no certainty of the completeness, accuracy or even the receipt of a message or data file sent by e-mail. We are concerned that using e-mail as part of a contractual process creates an exposure for our clients as their agent or professional adviser (e.g. in such areas as mis-representation or non-disclosure of information, where corruption of data during transmission or missing file data file attachments may not be immediately obvious to the recipient, and the offer and acceptance process of insurance contract terms).
• Where we receive instructions from you, we will only act on the instruction from a pre-agreed e-mail address. We will not accept instructions from any other e-mail address unless you write to us first confirming either a new or alternative e-mail address. We will not be responsible for verifying the authenticity of any instruction received by e-mail nor will it be liable for any loss suffered as a result of any misuse of the e-mail account by yourself or other parties
• For important messages, we may ask for a confirmation of receipt and we will acknowledge/ respond to those messages that we receive. Hard copies of messages may also be requested or sent where considered appropriate.
• Confidentiality: By unavoidably having to use third party service providers to ‘deliver’ e-mails, confidentiality may be outside of the sender’s control.
• Appropriateness: Where receipt of a message by a given time/date is critical or the subject matter is of an important nature, such messages should be communicated by facsimile or courier to ensure that it is received and can then be acted upon. Many contracts of insurance have provisions, which require notice in writing in order to ensure compliance, particularly in relation to claims advice. The use of e-mail in such circumstances may be inappropriate.
• Legality: In the absence of any contract setting out the terms of communicating by e-mail, it may be questioned in certain jurisdictions as to whether such communications are or will be legally admissible as evidence in any dispute, without considerable supporting evidence as to checks having been made on receipt, security and integrity of the communication.
• Viruses: With knowledge of the potential damage, which computer viruses can cause, e-mail users should use their best endeavours to ensure that they do not transmit harmful viruses to other parties. We have a standard form of contract, which deals with the above issues more formally than this document. If you would like any e-mail exchanges between us to be governed in a more formal way and we have not already done so, we would be happy to send you a signed copy of the contract for counter-signature. 

Duty of Disclosure

In addition to providing all basic information necessary to enable us to place the risk, you must ensure that you are complying with your legal duty of disclosure of all material matters relating to the risk. In particular, you must satisfy yourself as to the accuracy and completeness of the information you provide to insurers both at inception of the policy and throughout the policy term.

In this respect, you must provide all information relating to the risk, whether favourable or not, which would influence the judgement of a prudent insurer in determining whether he will take the risk or maintain the risk during the policy term, and, if so, for what premium and on what terms.

If you do not disclose all such information, insurers have the right to avoid, with effect from inception, the contract which may lead to claims not being met.

Conflicts of Interest

There may be occasions where a potential conflict of interest may arise in the business that we are transacting for you. If this happens, we will write to you providing full details before we carry out your instructions.

Should you require further information we will upon request provide you with our detailed Conflicts Of Interest policy.

Data Protection Act 1998

As part of our role and service we will from time to time need to collect personal data, which might on occasions be deemed personal sensitive data.

We will abide by the stated principles of the Data Protection Act at all times. These can be viewed on the Information Commissioners website – www.dataprotection.gov.uk.

You are entitled to request a copy of the personal data which we hold with reference to you by writing to the:

Data Protection Officer,
Premier Retirement Services,
Central Court,
1b Knoll Rise
Orpington,
Kent,
BR6 0JA

The personal data will be used by JLT Benefit Solutions Ltd to provide you with details of products and investment opportunities, which we consider suitable to your requirements. 

Limitation of Liability

If any of JLT’s services do not conform to the requirements of these general terms and any applicable engagement letter, the Client shall notify JLT promptly and JLT shall re-perform such services at no additional charge or, at JLT’s option, shall refund the portion of the fees paid with respect to such services. If re-performance of the services or refund of the applicable fees would not provide an adequate remedy for damages arising from the performance, non-performance, or breach of these general terms and any applicable engagement letter, JLT’s maximum total liability, including that of any employee, affiliate, agent or contractor, relating to its services, regardless of the cause of action, will be limited to direct damages in an amount not to exceed the cumulative income to JLT to the date of the event, (or one year’s fees in the case of annually recurring services),subject to a minimum of £500,000 pursuant to which such liability arises.

The forgoing limitation of liability shall not apply to the extent that any liability arises from the gross negligence or willful misconduct of JLT, its employees, affiliates, agents or contractors or from bodily injury, death of any person, or damage to any real or tangible personal property. Neither party shall be liable for any indirect, special or consequential damages.