These Terms of Business set out the general terms under which our firm will provide business services to you and the respective duties and responsibilities of both the firm and you in relation to such services. Please ensure that you read these terms thoroughly and if you have any queries we will be happy to clarify them. If any material changes are made to these terms we will notify you.
Authorisation with the Central Bank of Ireland
CHK Financial Ltd trading as emero C464905 is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland as an Insurance Intermediary registered under the European Union (Insurance Distribution) Regulations 2018 and as an Investment Intermediary authorised under the Investment Intermediaries Act, 1995. Copies of our regulatory authorisations are available on request. The Central Bank of Ireland holds registers of regulated firms. You may contact the Central Bank of Ireland on 1890 777 777 or alternatively visit their website at www.centralbank.ie to verify our credentials.
Codes of Conduct
emero is subject to 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
Our principal business is to provide advice and arrange transactions on behalf of clients in relation to life products. A full list of insurers and product producers which we deal is available on request.
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 within a particular category of life assurance, general insurance, mortgages, 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 and 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 the 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 criteria:
- 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 those 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 consideration.
Insurance based investment Products (IBIPS)
We are remunerated by commission for the advice we provide on our insurance-based investment products.
Life
emero provides life assurance on a fair analysis basis i.e. 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 or in the event of a claim during the life of the policies and we will explain to you the various restrictions, conditions, and exclusions attached to your policy. 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 and serious illness policies.
Specifically, on the subject of permanent health insurance 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.
Emero is remunerated by commission and other payments from product producers on the completion of business. You may choose to pay in full for our services by means of a fee. Where we receive recurring commission, this forms part of the remuneration for initial advice provided and ongoing advice/consultations. We reserve the right to charge additional fees if the number of hours relating to on-going advice exceeds the initial agreement.
When assessing products, we will consider the different approach taken by product providers in terms of them integrating sustainability risks into their product offering. This will form part of our analysis for choosing a product provider.
In certain circustances, it will be necessary to charge a fee for services provided. These are listed below. We will notify you in writing in advance and agree on the scale of fees to be charged if different from the fees outlined below.
If we receive a commission from a product provider, this may be offset against the fee which we will charge you. Where the commission is greater than the fee due, the commission may become the amount payable to the firm unless an arrangement to the contrary is made.
Online Quotation Process
At emero, we provide online quotes to clients. At this point, we regularly do not have specific information and therefore any quote sent from our team should be treated as an estimate.
We reserve the right to amend the quotes after discussing job specifications and duties in more detail. If a quote is amended once our team has spoken the relevant Life Insurance company, we will notify you immediately.
In most cases, a job title will only be enough to provide a generic quote estimate. For a more detailed quote, you will need to provide details such as your daily duties, work environment, and commute to and from work.
You are under no obligation to proceed after receiving a quotation.
All quotations sent via email, post, or given over the phone are subject to underwriting and may change.
Life
You may elect to deal with us on a fee basis. Our fees in this regard are charges as follows:
Principles / Directors €250 per hour
Senior Advisers €175 per hour
Support staff €100 per hour
Additional fees may be payable for complex cases or to reflect value, specialist skills or urgency, our scale of fees for such cases range from a minimum of €200 per hour to a maximum of €300 per hour. We will notify you in advance and agree with the scale of fees to be charged.
Regular Reviews
It is in your best interests that you review, on a regular basis, the products which we have arranged for you. As your circumstances 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.
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 you of this in writing before providing you with any service. A full copy of our conflicts of interest policy is available on request.
Default on payments by clients
Our firm will exercise its legal rights to receive payments due to it from clients for services provided.
Product producers may withdraw benefits or cover in the event of default on payments due under policies of insurance or other products arranged for you. We would refer you to policy documents or product terms for the details of such provisions.
Complaints
Whilst we are happy to receive verbal complaints, it would be preferable that any complaints are made, in writing. We will acknowledge your complaint within 10 business days and we will fully investigate it. We shall investigate the complaint as swiftly as possible, and, the complainant will receive an update on the complaint at intervals of not greater than 20 business days starting from the date on which the complaint is made. 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 or the Pensions Ombudsman. A full copy of our complaints procedure is available on request.
Data Protection
We are subject to the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation 2018 and the Irish Data Protection Act 2018.
emero is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. We wish to be transparent on how we process your data and show you that we are accountable with the GDPR in relation to not only processing your data but ensuring you understand your rights as a client.
The data will be processed only in ways compatible with the purposes for which it was given and as outlined in our Data Privacy Notice, this will be given to all our clients at the time of data collection.
We will ensure that this Privacy Notice is easily assessible. Please refer to our website www.emero.ie if this medium is not suitable we will ensure you can easily receive a copy by hard copy, or telephonic environment.
Please contact us at [email protected] if you have any concerns about your personal data.
Compensation Scheme
We are members of the Investor Compensation Scheme operated by the Investor Compensation Company Ltd. See below for details.
Investor Compensation Scheme
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 a compensation scheme 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, administered or managed by the firm cannot be returned to those clients for the time being and where 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, contact the Investor Compensation Company Ltd. at (01) 224 4955.