Public Disclosure

Financial Advice Provider Licence

Rothbury Insurance Brokers Limited (“Rothbury”) has a licence from the Financial Markets Authority (“FMA”) to provide fire & general and other insurance advice. General insurance means cover for your personal and business assets, business liabilities and specialist risks.

Our licence requires us to:

• keep records of all financial advice;
• have an internal process for resolving client complaints; 
• provide reporting to regulatory authorities
• perform due diligence on any supplier we outsource to;
• maintain a business continuity plan including maintaining technology security;
• comply with the Financial Markets Conduct Act requirements for licensees; and, 
• notify FMA of material changes to our financial advice service 

Financial Advice Services

Rothbury offers financial advice about general insurance cover offered by a range of insurers. For a list of those insurers whose products we will advise on click here.

Adviser Duties

Rothbury brokers are bound by the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013. This requires them to:

• meet standards of competence, knowledge, and skill which are described in the Code of Professional Conduct for Financial Advice Services;
• give priority to clients’ interests whenever a conflict of interest arises;
• exercise care, diligence, and skill in giving financial advice; and
• meet standards of ethical behaviour, conduct, and client care set out in the Code of Professional Conduct for Financial Advice Services.

Service Charges

Rothbury will not charge you for the time we spend understanding your needs, identifying and negotiating offers of insurance or otherwise advising you, except where you ask us to provide specialist risk management advice or surveys. If you choose not to take our advice then there is no other cost to you. If we put any cover in place for you then we will charge you a service margin as a percentage of the insurer premium plus a documentation charge in order to provide and maintain our high service.

Incentives

The insurer will pay Rothbury brokerage equal to a percentage of the insurer premiums you pay.

Note: brokerage rates differ between insurers (for the same type of policy) and between policy types (for the same insurer).

Our brokers are, paid by us out of our income. The majority of brokers’ remuneration is a fixed salary. Remuneration may also include amounts calculated as a proportion of new and continuing Rothbury revenue, as our measure of the value and difficulty of risk covered, the quality of advice provided and the level of personal service provided to our clients. However, individual instances of advice may not receive any identifiable incentive. 

Brokers’ remuneration is also affected by client management and regulatory compliance measures. From time to time we may also reward staff who excel in meeting client needs, which may also be based on revenue, service or compliance measures. 

Rothbury actively monitors client feedback to ensure advice given by our brokers consistently targets the best client outcomes. We also review examples of advice for each broker on an ongoing basis to ensure advice meets our standards.

Conflicts of Interest

Rothbury Instalment Services Limited offers clients the ability to spread their premium payments instead of paying by lump sum. It earns interest and pays Rothbury Insurance Brokers Limited a referral fee. We avoid a conflict of interest by our brokers not offering advice about this service and we do not reward individual brokers when their clients choose to spread their payments.

Rothbury may give advice about cover provided by underwriting agencies which are related parties:

• NZ Underwriting Agencies Ltd offer cover options under the Classic Cover brand;
• Southern Pacific Underwriting Agency Ltd offers cover options backed by Lloyds of London;
• Steadfast Underwriting Agencies Holdings Pty Ltd in Australia has interests in various agencies who may, from time to time, be the underwriter for a product which our brokers give advice on.

If we put cover in place via an underwriting agency which is a related party, then they will pay us brokerage equal to a percentage of the insurer premiums you pay. This is instead of and not in addition to brokerage from an insurer.

Brokers are not incentivised to prefer any products provided by a related party.

We register and manage all conflicts of interest. If a conflict of interest arises between a client and one of our staff involved in giving them advice then we advise the client of the steps we will take to manage that conflict and give their interests priority.

We or another member of Rothbury Group may provide services to insurers from time to time which are unrelated to the advice we give clients and for which the insurer pays us a fee. We may also receive training in products, sponsorship for conferences or other non-monetary consideration from time to time which assists us to provide effective services to our clients. We do not believe these things create a conflict of interest with our advice to clients.

Complaints and Dispute resolution

For information about our internal complaints process and dispute resolution scheme click here.