Compliance

Privacy Act

Thorner General Insurances Ltd privacy policy can be viewed by clicking here.

Complaints Process

If you are unhappy with our financial advice service please contact your financial adviser so they can

try to put things right.

 

If you wish to make a complaint, or do not feel comfortable discussing your concerns with your adviser, you can contact us as follows:

Maree Hammersley-Myers

maree@thorner.co.nz

04 9392900

PO Box 40190, Upper Hutt 5140

How your Complaint will be handled

  • Your adviser will attempt to resolve any issue of dissatisfaction with you immediately.
  • If the matter cannot be resolved to your satisfaction, the adviser will escalate the complaint to their manager, notifying you accordingly. We will send you an acknowledgement of your complaint within five working days of your complaint being notified to us. This communication will provide you with our timeline to respond to you and the name of the manager who will be managing our response. The manager will investigate and contact you to try to resolve the complaint to your satisfaction.  It is important that you provide this person with all relevant information.
  • 30 working days after the receipt of your complaint we will issue a final resolution. If we need to continue our review past this point, we will explain to you the reason for the delay and the required timeframe to provide a full response. At this point, if you feel that the delay is unsatisfactory, you can redirect your complaint to our external dispute resolution service provider detailed below.

If we are unable to resolve your complaint

  • We expect that our response to you will have addressed the concerns you have raised. If you feel that your concerns have not been appropriately considered, we invite you to submit any further information for consideration.
  • If we are unable to resolve your complaint despite our best efforts, you can contact our external dispute resolution scheme, who provides a free and independent dispute resolution service.
  • The contact details for our external dispute resolution service provider are:

Insurance & Financial Services Ombudsman Scheme

info@ifso.nz

04 499 7612 / 0800 888 202

PO Box 10-845, Wellington

Key information you need to know

Licence details

Thorner General Insurances Ltd holds a Financial Advice Provider (FAP) Licence (FSP 43489), issued by the Financial Markets Authority, to provide financial advice. It is a condition of our licence that we, together with any person giving advice on our behalf, can only provide advice on general insurance products.

Nature and Scope of advice

  • We engage Financial Advisers to provide financial advice on general insurance products on our behalf. These are policies that provide protection for your personal or business assets or liabilities.
  • We are not able to provide advice on life insurance, personal income protection or investment policies but are able to refer you to associates who are licensed to provide advice on such products.
  • We have access to most insurance markets in New Zealand (excluding direct Insurers) along with access to overseas markets as required.
  • A list of the types of general insurance products we can provide financial advice on can be found here [insert specific link to website page]. The specific types of general insurance that individual advisers can advise customers on may vary.

 

Fees

We do not charge any fee for the actual financial advice provided to you. We will receive a commission from the insurance provider when you take out a policy and when you renew your policy each year.

We may charge a small administration fee dependent upon factors such as the type, complexity and extent of your insurance programme, and the time and costs associated with the administration performed and services provided.

We will provide details of these commissions and any administration fee when we make recommendations to you.

 

Premium Funding

Premium funding products enable you to pay the insurance premium over the term of your policy by instalments rather than as one amount. Premium funders charge interest, and they take a power of attorney over your insurance policy this means they have the ability to cancel your insurance policy if you fail to pay an instalment. We obtain no commission from arranging this with the premium funder on your behalf.

Conflicts

  • Our Financial Advisers are salaried staff. Thorner General Insurances Ltd will receive commission from the insurance companies on whose policies we give advice. If you decide to take out a policy, the insurer will pay us commission based on the premium that you pay.
  • A Financial Adviser may have a conflict of interest in circumstances where financial advice has been provided to two clients who later have a dispute, including in respect of liability. In this instance the adviser would clearly disclose the conflict of interest to the clients and would refer one of these clients to another of our Financial Advisers for further advice and assistance.
  • We manage all conflicts of interest, ensuring our Financial Advisers prioritise your interests above their own, by following an advice process that ensures our recommendations are made on the basis of your needs and circumstances. All of our financial advisers complete training to understand and manage conflicts of interest. We maintain a register of conflicts of interests and any gifts and other incentives that we may receive. We review our compliance programme annually.

 

Terms of Business – Please click here to view.

 

Duties of a Financial Adviser

Thorner General Insurances Ltd and our Financial Advisers are bound by the following duties under the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013 to:

  • meet the standards of competence, knowledge, and skill set out in the Code of Professional Conduct for Financial Advice Services (Code of Conduct), which form part of the wider regulatory regime for financial advice and ensure we have the expertise necessary to provide you with advice; and
  • give priority to your interests by taking all reasonable steps to ensure that the advice given to you is not materially influenced by our own interests or the interests of any other person connected with the giving of advice; and
  • exercise care, diligence, and skill that a prudent person engaged in the occupation of giving related financial advice would in the same circumstances; and
  • meet the standards of ethical behaviour, conduct, and client care set out in the Code of Conduct, to treat you as we should and to provide you with suitable advice.