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This Terms of Business Agreement (TOBA) sets out the nature and scope of the services Black Mountain Employee Benefits Ltd will be providing to you and other information which we are required to bring to your attention. We will provide you with a copy of this TOBA before we begin providing you with our services. These Terms can only be varied by agreement in writing between us.
About Black Mountain Employee Benefits Ltd
Black Mountain Employee Benefits Ltd is a company registered in England and Wales (number 15585056) and our registered office is at Worting House Church Lane, Worting, Basingstoke, United Kingdom, RG23 8PX.
Whose products do we offer?
We offer products from a range of established partners from across the UK market.
Our service to you
We will ask you questions to help us ascertain your demands and needs, and we will then provide you with sufficient information on what we believe to be ‘a suitable product’, for your demands and needs. The information we provide is intended to help you make an informed decision about how to proceed. Ultimately, you will need to make your own decision about how to proceed, and it is your responsibility to ensure that it meets your requirements.
We act as an independent intermediary and are not tied to any insurer and will act on your behalf.
Our service includes:
Where we are in receipt of your policy documentation, we will forward these to you, reconcile membership, reconcile renewal premiums, ensuring the terms are correct prior to renewal, ensuring changes in the plan year are actioned. However, you should always receive these directly from the Insurer.
We offer unregulated services beyond the arrangement of cover, which may include benefits management services where we act as the outsourced function to centrally manage and administer benefits (this is called “Outsourced Administration”), Employee Benefits benchmarking, Bonus & Incentive reports, M&A (health, benefits, & wellbeing) Benefits-related Due Diligence, project management, People-Risk auditing, Employee Benefits Strategy Consultancy, Health & Wellbeing, and other solutions.
For all services we will agree a scope of work in writing with you before commencing work.
At Renewal
We will write to you in good time prior to your renewal date, to be advised as to whether there are any changes to your demands and needs.
Your Responsibilities
Disclosure of Information and Changes in Circumstances
Duty of Fair Presentation: In order to fulfil our collective duty with you to provide partners with a fair presentation of the risk involved, you must disclose every material circumstance which you know or ought to know, or failing that, you must provide the insurer with sufficient information to put a prudent insurer on notice that it needs to make further enquiries for the purpose of revealing those material circumstances.
A ‘material circumstance’ is one which would influence the judgement of a prudent insurer in determining whether to take the risk and if so on what terms and it is our collective duty to carry out a reasonable search in respect of these circumstances. Examples of such circumstances could be any ongoing serious medical conditions such as cancer and heart conditions as well as planned medical treatment, or a terminal illness diagnosis and / or death of an employee. Please note these examples are for illustrative purposes only and are by no means exhaustive or conclusive.
It is important that you understand that any information, statements or answers made by you to us, or the insurers are your responsibility and must be correct. Any failure to disclose material facts to the insurer or any inaccuracies in your answers may invalidate your cover in part or whole. Responsibility for this is solely yours as we cannot be expected to have known facts which have not been disclosed to us.
Please note that not only does this apply at the commencement or renewal of your policy but also at any time during the lifetime of your policy. You should, therefore, advise us as soon as reasonably practical of any changes in your circumstances (including changes of address) which may affect our service to you, or the cover provided under your policy. This should include any changes to scheme membership (if relevant).
Importance of Reading Your Policy Documentation
You are responsible for reviewing the evidence of cover and other related documents which will be sent to you to confirm that it accurately reflects the cover, conditions, limits and other items that you require. Particular attention should be paid to policy conditions as failure to comply may invalidate your cover. If there are any discrepancies, please contact us immediately.
You are advised to keep copies of all documentation sent to or received from us for your own records.
Payment of Premiums
You must provide settlement with cleared funds of all monies due in good time, direct to a partner in accordance with the payment date(s) as specified in either the policy documentation or other relevant payment documentation (payment date). Failure to pay by the payment date may lead to insurers cancelling your policy.
Client Money
We do not hold client money in any way instead this must be paid directly to the partner involved.
Our Remuneration
We may charge you a fee for this service, which will be disclosed to you in writing prior to arranging the policy or providing services. We may also receive a commission from the provider, which will be disclosed to you within the documentation. When referring business to a 3rd party authorised broker, we may be remunerated via a share of their fee or commission. The exact amount to be received by us will be disclosed to you upon request.
Fees become payable within 28 days from the date of the invoice. Late payments may incur interest charged at 2% above the stated Bank of England base rate at the time.
Where annual fees are in place, from year two (inclusive) onwards, these will increase in line with RPI, capped at 5%, with a minimum increase of 3% where the prevailing RPI rate is less than this at the time of the work being invoiced.
Cancellation of this agreement
Our arrangement may be terminated by either party upon the giving of notice in writing to the other party. In the event our services are terminated by you, we will be entitled to receive all fees payable and any commission(s) payable in respect of the current policy year, unless the cancellation is within 14 days of inception or renewal of the policy.
Unless there has been a material breach in the relationship between us and you, we have a three (3) year minimum contract period from the date of the signed client agreement.
Professional Indemnity Insurance
We conform to the FCA requirements in respect of Professional Indemnity Insurance. This type of insurance is mandatory for insurance intermediaries.
Confidentiality and Data Protection
Black Mountain Employee Benefits Ltd is registered with the Information Commissioners Office and we comply with the relevant Data Protection legislation. If you provide Black Mountain Employee Benefits Ltd with Personal Data of a third party, you should only do so if you are authorised to release such information by the data subject.
You agree that any personal and sensitive personal information provided by you may be held by Black Mountain Employee Benefits Ltd, the insurers we approach to obtain terms and your insurer(s) in line with their own Privacy Policy. Black Mountain Employee Benefits Ltd complies fully with the requirements of the Data Protection Regulations.
The information you provide is subject to the Privacy Notice of the firm, which has been provided to you together with this TOBA. You may request confirmation of the information we hold about you, to which we will respond within 30 days. You consent to us, or any company associated with us, processing your personal data in accordance with the Privacy Notice of the firm.
If you wish to obtain a copy of the firm’s Privacy Notice, this is available on our website (https://www.blackmountainhr.com/our-privacy-notice/) and or if prefer to have a hard or email copy, then please contact us in writing either at Black Mountain Employee Benefits Ltd, 21 St. Owen Street, Hereford HR1 2JB or via email at peopleandreward@blackmountainhr.com.
We may undertake checks via credit reference and fraud prevention agencies to manage your account with us. Furthermore, any of our Product Providers, may also undertake checks via credit reference and fraud prevention agencies to obtain information with regards to your credit profile. Please note that these checks should not affect your credit rating.
We may communicate with you via various methods including email. Although our emails are scanned for viruses, it is recommended that any attachment(s) be scanned by yourselves as we cannot be held liable for any loss or damage caused by software viruses.
If you choose to communicate with us via email, please be aware that email communications without the use of encryption, may not be the safest method of communication. If you wish to guarantee the safety and confidentiality of any information you send to us via email, encryption methods should be used.
Limitation of Liability
Nothing in this Agreement shall limit or exclude our liability caused by negligence, or fraudulent acts, or any liability to you arising under our regulatory obligations insofar as we are prohibited from limiting our liability to you in relation to the same.
In respect of all other claims arising out of or in connection with this Agreement, we will not be liable for any loss or damage where there is no breach of a legal duty owed to you by us, where such loss is not a reasonably foreseeable result of any such breach, or for any increase in loss or damage resulting from a breach by you of any term of this Agreement. We will have no liability in respect of losses relating to your business such as lost data, lost profits or business interruption. You acknowledge and agree that you shall only be entitled to make a claim against us, and not against any individual employee, director or officer of ours.
If you are not happy with our service
It is our intention to always provide you with a high level of customer service. However, if you have any reason to be unhappy with the arrangement or servicing, please contact:
Employee Benefits Director
Black Mountain Employee Benefits Ltd
21 St. Owen Street, Hereford HR1 2JB
Email: peopleandreward@blackmountainhr.com
If you wish to obtain a copy of the firm’s Complaint Handling Procedure, please contact Black Mountain Employee Benefits Ltd. using the details above.
Financial Ombudsman Service
If you remain dissatisfied following our final response to your complaint you may refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Their contact address is as follows:
Financial Ombudsman Service
Exchange Tower
Harbour Exchange Square, London, E14 9SR
Telephone: 0800 023 4567
Email: complaint.info@financial-ombudsman.org.uk
https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumers/how-to-complain
Modern Slavery
Our policies and processes reflect our commitment to acting ethically and with integrity in all our business relationships and to implementing and enforcing effective frameworks and controls to ensure slavery and human trafficking is not taking place anywhere in our supply chains.
As part of our initiative to identify and mitigate risk we have in place processes and frameworks to:
We have a zero-tolerance approach to modern slavery and human trafficking. To ensure that all those in our supply chain operate in accordance with our values we have a rigorous supply chain management programme consisting of:
Third-Party Rights
Unless otherwise agreed between us in writing no term of this Agreement is enforceable under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999, except by a member of Black Mountain Employee Benefits Ltd.
Governing Law
This Agreement, which sets out the terms of our relationship with you, will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England and Wales, and any dispute arising under it shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.