Regulation - New Zealand (Affinity)

PUBLICLY AVAILABLE INFORMATION

About BMS

BMS Risk Solutions (NZ) Limited (BMS), NZBN 9429047279339, FSP696531, holds a financial advice provider licence, 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 financial advice service

We engage financial advisers to give financial advice on general insurance products to you on our behalf. These are policies that insure your personal or business assets or protect you or your business assets, liabilities and business income.

We are not able to provide advice on personal income protection or investment policies.

We may arrange your policy under a binder granted to us by an insurer. In these instances we do not approach other insurers. This will be disclosed on your Quote document.

In other cases we will access the general insurance market. We have access to most insurance markets in New Zealand along with access to overseas markets as required.

The specific types of general insurance that individual advisers can advise customers on may vary.

At times BMS and its Nominated Representatives will provide an information-only service, for example in relation to products arranged by us online via our website/s. When this is the case it means that BMS and our Nominated Representatives do not make any recommendations or give any opinions in relation to purchasing, cancelling or retaining the products arranged or issued by us.

When we are providing advice this will be made clear to you before you purchase the insurance. You will receive further disclosure documents at that time.

Fees, expenses or other amounts payable

BMS may charge you a fee for arranging the insurance product for you.

If you have accessed insurance with BMS via membership of an organisation, the organisation of which you are a member may charge you an administration fee for helping to arrange your policy.

Any fees charged to you will be clearly disclosed on your quotation.

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. If you enter into such an arrangement the premium funder will pay us a commission as a percentage of the amount they fund. The amount of this commission will be disclosed to you when we know the scope and nature of the advice required and whether you intend to utilise the services of a particular premium funder. Commission will be paid to us directly from the premium funder.

Conflicts of interest and commissions or other incentives

BMS will be paid by the insurance providers that we place the insurance policy with on your behalf, by way of commission. If you decide to take out a policy, the insurer will pay us commission based on the premium that you pay. If you have accessed insurance with BMS via membership of an organisation, BMS may pay the organisation of which you are a member a percentage of the commission paid to BMS by the insurer.

We are a member of Steadfast NZ Limited (Steadfast). Steadfast supplies technology platforms, management, marketing, professional, technical, and buying benefits and services to support us in providing our financial advice services.

Steadfast has arrangements with insurance companies under which Steadfast receives a professional services fee of up to 1.5% of the premium paid for each policy arranged by us with those insurers. Steadfast may also receive a fee of 0.5% of any amount a customer has funded through a premium funder. These payments are used to operate Steadfast. We will receive a proportion of the professional services fee paid to Steadfast, being 35% of that fee. This will be paid to us by Steadfast at the end of each financial year.

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.

Duties

BMS 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.

Complaints

If you are unhappy with the service provided by BMS please contact a BMS team member so we can try to put things right. If you are not satisfied by the outcome, you can request for it to be escalated to a more senior staff member.

If a senior staff member is unable to resolve your complaint you can write to our Complaints Manager at BMS at au.complaints@bmsgroup.com

If we are unable to resolve your complaint

If we have been unable to resolve the complaint through our internal complaints process, you can contact the Insurance & Financial Services Ombudsman Scheme (“IFSO”). IFSO provides a free, independent service that can help to investigate or resolve your complaint.

You can contact the Insurance & Financial Services Ombudsman via:

Telephone: 0800 888 202

Website: www.ifso.nz/complaints

Mail: Insurance & Financial Services Ombudsman, PO Box 10 845, Wellington 6143

Complaints about policies arranged with Lloyd's

If your complaint relates to a policy issued by Lloyd's, and BMS has been unable to resolve it, you may contact the Lloyds Underwriters' General Representative in New Zealand:

PO Box 5639, Wellington 6145
Email: IDRNewZealand@lloyds.com
Tel: 04 472 7582

The Lloyd's Underwriters’ General Representative will forward details of the complaint to Lloyd's Australia to review. Lloyd's Australia will obtain a full copy of the file from BMS.

The Lloyd's Underwriters’ General Representative will assist the liaison with the policyholder and BMS if required. Lloyd's Australia will give the policyholder the name and contact details of the person handling the complaint.

Thereafter Lloyd’s Australia will send written advice to the policyholder about the progress of the investigation of the complaint.

Lloyd’s Australia will send you a final response within 10 working days if they have all the necessary information. In the event Lloyd's Australia cannot resolve the matter within two months they will give you the reasons why and advise you of your right to elevate the matter to the Insurance and Financial Services Ombudsman (IFSO) (www.ifso.nz).

BMS can be contacted as follows:

Address:
Level 4,
360 Little Collins Street,
Melbourne VIC 3000
Phone: 0800 999 267
Enquiries_nz@bmsgroup.com

OUR PRIVACY POLICY

This privacy policy is provided by BMS Risk Solutions (NZ) Limited (BMS), NZBN 9429047279339, FSP696531.

At BMS, we are committed to protecting your privacy in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020. This Privacy Policy describes our current policies and practices in relation to the collection, handling, use and disclosure of personal information. It also deals with how you can complain about a breach of the privacy laws and how you can access the personal information we hold and how to have that information corrected.

What information do we collect and how do we use it?

When we arrange insurance on your behalf, we ask you for the information we need to advise you about your insurance needs and management of your risks. This can include a broad range of information ranging from your name, address, contact details, age to other information about your personal affairs including your assets, personal belongings, financial situation, health and wellbeing. We provide any information that the insurers or intermediaries who we ask to quote for your insurances and premium funding require to enable them to decide whether to insure you and on what terms or to fund your premium and on what terms.

Insurers may in turn pass on this information to their reinsurers. Some of these companies are located outside New Zealand. For example, if we seek insurance terms from an overseas insurer (eg Lloyd’s of London), your personal information may be disclosed to the insurer. If this is likely to happen, we inform you of where the insurer is located, if it is possible to do so.

When you make a claim under your policy, we assist you by collecting information about your claim. Sometimes we also need to collect information about you from others. We provide this information to your insurer (or anyone your insurer has appointed to assist it to consider your claim, eg loss adjusters, medical brokers etc) to enable it to consider your claim. Again this information may be passed on to reinsurers.

From time to time, we will use your contact details to send you direct marketing communications including offers, updates and newsletters that are relevant to the services we provide. We always give you the option of electing not to receive these communications in the future. You can unsubscribe by notifying us and we will no longer send this information to you.

What if you don’t provide some information to us?

We can only fully advise you and assist in arranging your insurance or with a claim if we have all relevant information. The insurance laws also require you to provide your insurers with the information they need in order to be able to decide whether to insure you and on what terms. You have a duty to disclose the information which is relevant to the insurer’s decision to insure you.

When do we disclose your information overseas?

If you ask us to seek insurance terms and we recommend an overseas insurer, we may be required to disclose the information to the insurer located outside New Zealand. For example, if we recommend a policy provided by Lloyd’s of London, your information may be given to the Lloyd’s broker and underwriters at Lloyd’s of London to make a decision about whether to insure you.

We will tell you at the time of advising on your insurance if they are overseas and in which country the insurer is located. If the insurer is not regulated by laws which protects your information in a way that is similar to the Privacy Act, we will seek your consent before disclosing your information to that insurer.

New Zealand and overseas insurers acquire reinsurance from reinsurance companies that are located throughout the world so in some cases your information may be disclosed to them for assessment of risks and in order to provide reinsurance to your insurer. We do not make this disclosure. This is made by the insurer (if necessary) for the placement for their reinsurance program.

We may also disclose information we collect to the providers of our policy administration and broking systems that help us to provide our products and services to you. These policy administration providers and broking systems may be supported and maintained by organisations in Australia or overseas and your information may be disclosed to those organisations. Please note that the Privacy Act may not apply to these organisations.

How do we hold and protect your information?

We strive to maintain the reliability, accuracy, completeness, and currency of the personal information we hold and to protect its privacy and security. We keep personal information only for as long as is reasonably necessary for the purpose for which it was collected or to comply with any applicable legal or ethical reporting or document retention requirements.

The information you give us may be stored physically and in electronic format, including in Cloud storage. We will always do our best to ensure your information is securely stored.

We may hold the information we collect from you initially in a working file, which when completed is electronically imaged and stored. After which any paper is destroyed in our onsite shredder. In some cases, your file is archived and sent to an external data storage provider for a period of time. We only use storage providers located in New Zealand who are also regulated by the Privacy Act.

We ensure that your information is safe by protecting it from unauthorised access, modification, and disclosure. We maintain physical security over our paper and electronic data and premises, by using locks and security systems. We also maintain computer and network security; for example, we use firewalls (security measures for the Internet) and other security systems such as user identifiers and passwords to control access to computer systems where your information is stored.

Will we disclose the information we collect to anyone?

We do not sell, trade, or rent your personal information to others.

We may need to provide your information to contractors who supply services to us, e.g. to handle mailings on our behalf, external data storage providers or to other companies in the event of a corporate sale, merger, re-organisation, dissolution, or similar event. We may also disclose information we collect to the providers of our policy administration and broking systems that help us to provide our products and services to you. However, we will take reasonable measures to ensure that they protect your information as required under the Privacy Act.

We may provide your information to others if we are required to do so by law, you consent to the disclosure or under some unusual other circumstances which the Privacy Act permits.

How can you check, update or change the information we are holding?

Upon receipt of your written request and sufficient information to allow us to identify the information, we will disclose to you the personal information we hold about you. We will also correct, amend, or delete any personal information that we agree is inaccurate, irrelevant, out of date or incomplete.

If you wish to access or correct your personal information, please write to our Privacy Officer at BMS Risk Solutions (NZ) Limited.

Address: Level 4, 360 Little Collins Street, Melbourne VIC 3000
Phone: 0800 999 267
Email: Enquiries_nz@bmsgroup.com

We do not charge for receiving a request for access to personal information or for complying with a correction request. Where the information requested is not a straightforward issue and will involve a considerable amount of time then a charge will need to be confirmed for responding to the request for the information.

In some limited cases, we may need to refuse access to your information or refuse a request for correction. We will advise you as soon as possible after your request if this is the case and the reasons for our refusal.

What happens if you want to complain?

If you have concerns about whether we have complied with the Privacy Act or this Privacy Policy when collecting or handling your personal information, please write to our Privacy Officer at BMS: Email Enquiries_nz@bmsgroup.com, Phone 0800 999 267, Website www.bmsgroup.com/New Zealand

Your complaint will be considered by us through our Internal Complaints Resolution Process. We will acknowledge your complaint within 24 hours and we will respond with a decision within 30 days of you making the complaint. If we need to investigate your complaint and require further time, we will work with you to agree to an appropriate timeframe to investigate.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner can investigate privacy complaints from individuals about our business if you are not satisfied with the final decision that we make.

Before a client can lodge a complaint with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, you will generally need to complain directly to us and allow time for us to respond.

Further information on the complaints process is available for clients wishing to complain regarding a Privacy Breach at Office of the Privacy Commissioner.

Your consent

By asking us to assist with your insurance needs, you consent to the collection and use of the information you have provided to us for the purposes described above.

Website information and content

The information provided on this website does not cover all aspects of the law on the relevant subject matter. Professional advice should be sought before any action is taken based upon the matters described and discussed on this site.

To the extent permitted by law, we make no representations about the suitability of the content of this site for any purpose. All content is provided without any warranty of any kind. We disclaim all warranties and conditions with regard to the content, including but not limited to all implied warranties and conditions of fitness for a particular purpose, title and non-infringement.

We will not be liable for any damages or injury caused by, including but not limited to, any failure of performance, error, omission, interruption, defect, delay in operation of transmission, computer virus, or line failure. To the extent permitted by law we will not be liable for any damages or injury, including but not limited to, special or consequential damages that result from the use of, or the inability to use, the materials in this site.

We believe the content of this site to be accurate, complete and current, however there are no warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or currency of the content. It is your responsibility to verify any information before relying on it. The content of this site may include technical inaccuracies or typographical errors.

We reserve the right to modify the content of this site from time to time.

Anonymous data – We use technology to collect anonymous information about the use of our website, for example when you browse our website our service provider logs your server address, the date and time of your visit, the pages and links accessed and the type of browser used. It does not identify you personally and we only use this information for statistical purposes and to improve the content and functionality of our website, to better understand our clients and markets and to improve our services.

Cookies – In order to collect this anonymous data we may use “cookies”. Cookies are small pieces of information which are sent to your browser and stored on your computer’s hard drive. Sometimes they identify users where the website requires information to be retained from one page to the next. This is purely to increase the functionality of the site. Cookies by themselves cannot be used to discover the identity of the user. Cookies do not damage your computer and you can set your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie so that you can decide if you want to accept it. Once you leave the site, the cookie is destroyed and no personal or other information about you is stored.

Forms – If we collect information via on-line forms it will be sent to our offices via EMAIL (not encrypted) and would also be stored on a database which is accessible by BMS staff only (password protected).

We also use your information to send you requested product information and promotional material and to enable us to manage your ongoing requirements, e.g. renewals, and our relationship with you, e.g. invoicing, client surveys etc.

We may occasionally notify you direct marketing about new services and special offers, events or articles we think will be of interest to you. We may send you regular updates by email or by post on insurance matters. If you would rather not receive this information or do not wish to receive it electronically, email or write to us.

We may use your information internally to help us improve our services and help resolve any problems.

Any personal information that you provide to obtain a quotation or purchase insurance products on a BMS website is collected and managed by BMS.

We have implemented an automated messaging system (chatbot) on some BMS websites. If you decide to communication with us via the chatbot, it will collect your personal information and refer those details to us to enable us to respond to your enquiry. If you do not want to interact with our chatbot, you can communicate with us directly at bmsaus@bmsgroup.com

Tell us what you think

We welcome your questions and comments about privacy. If you have any concerns or complaints, please contact our Privacy Officer.

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