Terms and Conditions of Business
Cavendish Online Ltd is an Independent Financial Adviser (IFA) and is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA). Our company number is 4045709 and our FSA registration number is 469385.
Cavendish Online is bound by the rules of the Financial Services Authority and will provide non-advised sales in accordance with the FSA's Insurance Conduct of Business (ICOB) rules on a whole of market basis.
Service
Although Cavendish Online is authorised to do so, we will not offer any advice for any investment or pension products available when using our service.
You can choose to receive advice with regards to life assurance from Cavendish Online in partnership with Vita Financial, or you can choose to proceed on an execution-only basis with no advice.
If you have any doubt about the suitability of the investment or pension product, then please seek alternative advice. If you have any doubts about the suitability of any protection policies, then please contact our Advisers who will be able to assist you.
Full Disclosure of Information
We require our clients to give us written instructions to act on their behalf on an execution-only basis. We will accept your instructions by mail or email. We will confirm all such instructions by mail or email.
You or we may terminate our authority to act on your behalf at any time without penalty. Notice of this termination must be given in writing. In case of termination of our authority, we will retain the right to any renewal commission on policies and investments arranged by us on your behalf unless or until you change the agency of your plan to another adviser.
Remuneration
Execution-Only service - We derive our income from fees paid to us by you in respect of transactions in life assurance, investments and pensions or by commission being paid to us from such transactions. We shall tell you the amount of commission payable to us on any such products and the discounts that you are entitled to and shall receive.
Advised Life Assurance / Protection - We derive income from commission only, however, we have agreed to sacrifice some of the commission paid to us to reduce your premiums. We shall tell you if there are any exceptions to this when we make our recommendations and shall explain the commission payable to us.
Renewal Commission Service
Renewal commission is paid to Cavendish Online by investment and insurance companies based upon the value of your investments held with them. Under this service Cavendish Online will in no circumstances be liable to pay commission in excess of the commission received in respect of your plans registered with Cavendish Online.
Cavendish Online is not responsible for the amount of commission received, but will always endeavour to collect all renewal commission due in respect of the plans that you have registered with Cavendish Online.
We retain the right to alter our fees subject to three months notice to the client of our intention to do so.
Life Assurance commission sacrifice
When customers choose our fee-based execution-only route we ask the Life Assurance provider to re-invest 100% of the initial and trail (renewal) commission. The only company that cannot re-invested the trail commission is Bright Grey. All initial commission has been removed but unfortunately they are unable to remove the trail commission element paid as their systems do not allow this.
The FSA are aware of Bright Grey’s commission structure and their inability to switch off the trail commission and are also aware that we have requested all commission to be sacrificed. Bright Grey is the only provider that this issue applies to and the trail commission amounts are often trivial. Nevertheless we are continuing with our discussions with the provider to remove this element.
Administration
WE DO NOT HANDLE CLIENTS' MONEY. We will never accept a cheque made payable to Cavendish Online for forwarding to investment companies (unless it is a cheque for our transaction fees). We will not handle cash.
We will make arrangements for all your investments and policies to be registered in your name unless you first instruct us otherwise in writing.
Due to the nature of our service, we will not review any investment you have purchased via our company. You will be able to either access your investment online or contact the investment company you have chosen for this information.
We keep records of all our business transactions for at least six years. You or your appointed agent may inspect contract notes, vouchers and entries in our books (whether kept manually or electronically) that relate solely to your investments. As we treat all our clients' records as confidential, we reserve the right not to give you copies of your records if to do so would allow access to files containing records about other clients. We will supply a list of transactions at no cost, but we reserve the right to charge a fee for copies of records. Currently, our charges are £25 per file or part thereof.
Cavendish Online maintains Professional Indemnity Insurance that satisfies the level of cover stipulated by the FSA.
Charges and product information
The information on the website with regards to products and their charges is provided to us by the Life and Pension companies on a regular basis. The information on the website is correct to the best of our knowledge but is subject to change. You will also receive confirmation of the charges when you receive your policy documents.
Cavendish Online Life Assurance refund policy
If your Life Assurance policy is declined you can either apply to another company or ask us for a full refund of your fee. If your premium is increased due to health / lifestyle reasons or deferred then you can either apply to another company or ask us to refund your fee if you decide not to proceed. If your premium has not increased but you decide not to take up the policy we do not offer a refund.
Life Assurance companies use similar underwriting criteria but some do vary. Therefore, we recommend if you are unsure of how your health and lifestyle may affect the acceptence by certain companies then you can either speak directly to the underwriters (of the various companies listed on the online comparison) to see how they will treat your situation before applying, or you can speak with one of our Advisers who can recommend you companies and products, and will be able to assist further if you have been declined.
Complaints
If you should have any complaint about a product or service which you have bought through Cavendish Online or a complaint about the service received by Cavendish Online, please write to the Compliance Officer, Cavendish Online, 22 Cathedral Yard, Exeter, EX1 1HB.
Financial Services Compensation Scheme and the Financial Ombudsman
If you make a valid claim against Cavendish Online in respect of the financial products we have arranged for you, and we are unable to meet our liabilities in full, you may be entitled to redress from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.
Please be aware that buying protection products without advice will affect your right to recourse via the Financial Ombudsman Service, although this is only in the event of the suitability of a product bought on an execution-only basis. You could still take a claim to the ombudsman about the service that you have received, unclear or misleading information or that you received information equivalent to advice prior to an execution-only sale taking place.
The terms of this agreement are issued to you in compliance with the requirements of our regulatory body, the Financial Services Authority. Should any of the aforementioned terms change in any material way, a revised Terms of Business document will be published on our website. Where it is necessary to charge fees, we shall charge you fees. Our current fee scale is £50 per hour plus disbursements. Such fees may be subject to VAT.
Please note that you will not be charged fees unless you have been advised to the contrary in advance of incurring any such fees.
Data Protection Act
Cavendish Online retains all relevant client information on computer files. This information is only disclosed to third parties for the purpose of processing applications. We will also use this information to contact clients by email, post or telephone to bring to the client’s attention any additional products or services that we believe may be of interest to the client. We agree that the client may withdraw this right at any time by contacting Cavendish Online through email or post.
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