Terms of Business of Con Friel & Company Limited

These terms of business will remain in force and shall apply to any business service provided to you now or at a future date. Should my firm change any of its business terms at a future date I will advise you at our next meeting.

• The full name of the firm is Con Friel & Company Limited and the registered office address is Ballaghderg, Letterkenny, Co. Donegal.

• Con Friel & Company Limited is authorised and regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Central Bank reference number is C427770.

• Con Friel & Company Limited is registered to undertake insurance mediation under the European Union (Insurance Distribution) Regulations 2018; as an Investment Intermediary, authorised under Section 10 of the Investment Intermediaries Act, 1995, and as an Investment Product Intermediary, under Section 10 of the Investment Intermediaries Act, 1995 (as amended). Copies of our regulatory authorisations are available on request. The Central Bank of Ireland holds registers of regulated firms. You may contact the Central Bank of Ireland on 1890 777 777 or alternatively visit their website at www.centralbank.ie to verify our credentials. (Our reference number is C427770)

• Con Friel & Company Limited is subject to the Minimum Competency Code 2011, the Consumer Protection Code 2012 and Fitness and Probity standards which can be viewed on www.centralbank.ie

• Con Friel & Company Limited offer a range of products and services including life assurance, pensions and investments

• Con Friel & Company Limited holds written appointments with a number of insurance undertakings, lenders and product producers; however, Con Friel & Company Limited has selected one preferred product producer, Irish Life Assurance Plc for life insurance plans (including life assurance, specified illness cover, income protection, unit linked savings, investments, and pension plans), tracker bonds, and Personal Retirement Savings Accounts (PRSAs). Analysis of the market will be limited to products provided by Irish Life Assurance Plc. A list of the product producers with which Con Friel & Company Limited holds an agency appointment outlined at the end of this document.

• Con Friel & Company Limited may receive commission and other payments from the life assurance provider to whom orders are transmitted. Summary details of these payments will be included in a product information document, under the Customer Information Notice section, which you are legally entitled to receive before an application for a product is completed. These payments are included in the charges of your product. Any ongoing commission shown in the Customer Information Notice will be paid to me as long as I continue to be your Financial Adviser. The full details of the commission Con Friel & Company Limited receives for Life Assurance products (excluding Company Pension products) will be included in your Welcome Pack which is issued to you. Details of company pension and bank products’ commission are available upon request. In certain circumstances the firm may charge you a fee for the services provided. If we do this we will provide you with a written estimate of this in advance of providing any business service.

• Your data will be passed to the relevant product producers with whom Con Friel & Company Limited has agencies for the purpose of arranging transactions agreed with you. Your data will be processed only in ways compatible with the purposes for which it was given and as outlined in our Data Privacy Notice and Data Protection Policy and Procedures. This information will only be used to provide you with business services, to meet any legal and regulatory obligations, and for legitimate business reasons. From time to time, we will send information about other financial products and services, provided by us or associated companies with which we have a formal business arrangement, which we think may be of interest to you.

• Con Friel & Company Limited comply with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation 2018 and the Irish Data Protection Act 2018. The data which you provide to us will be held on a computer database and paper files for the purpose of arranging transactions on your behalf. Your data will be passed to the relevant product producers with whom Con Friel & Company Limited has agencies for will only be used to provide you with business services, to meet any legal and regulatory obligations, and for legitimate business reasons. From time to time, we will send information about other financial products and services, provided by us or associated companies with which we have a formal business arrangement, which we think may be of interest to you. You have the right to ask us not to send you this marketing material and, at any time you can ‘opt out’ of receiving marketing material. You have a right to see the information that is held on you and you can do this by writing to me at the address given. We would like to contact you by way of letter, email or telephone call. If you would like to receive to receive such marketing information please complete the permission statements contained in the Terms of Business Client Acknowledgement Letter attached. You have the right at any time to request a copy of any ‘personal data’ within the meaning of the GDPR) that our office holds about you and to have any inaccuracies in that information corrected. Contact us at con@confriel.ie if you have any queries about your personal data.

• It is the policy of Con Friel & Company Limited to avoid any conflict of interest when providing business services to its clients. However, where an unavoidable conflict may arise we will advise you of this in writing before proceeding to provide any business service. If you have not been advised on any such conflict you are entitled to assume that none arises.

• Con Friel & Company Limited will, if necessary, exercise its legal rights to receive any payments due to it, from clients for business services provided by it and to be reimbursed for any value obtained by it for clients arising from payments to it by clients which subsequently default. Irish Life Assurance Plc may withdraw benefits on default of payments due under any products arranged for your benefit. Details of these provisions will be included in your product terms and conditions.

• Any complaint that you may have in relation to the business services provided should be made in writing to Con Friel & Company Limited outlining the nature of your complaint. All complaints will be acknowledged in writing within 5 working days of the complaint being received. The complaint will be fully investigated by Con Friel & Company Limited and a full response will be provided to you as soon as possible. We will aim to provide this response not later than 40 working days from receipt of your complaint and will provide you with a regular update on the progress of the investigation of the complaint at intervals of not greater than 20 working days, starting from the date on which the complaint was made. In the event that you remain dissatisfied with the firm’s handling of and response to your complaint you are entitled to refer your complaint to the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman (contact details below).

  Address:
  Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman,
  Lincoln House, Lincoln Place,
  Dublin 2
  E-mail: info@fspo.ie
  Website: www.fspo.ie
  Phone: 01 567 7000 

• Con Friel & Company Limited is a member of the investor compensation scheme run by the Investor Compensation Company Limited. The scheme provides a way of paying certain investors compensation, subject to the relevant limits, if they suffer financial loss caused by an investment firm being unable to meet its financial obligations (in other words, pay everything it owes) purpose of arranging transactions agreed with you. Your data will be processed only in ways compatible with the purposes for which it was given and as outlined in our Data Privacy Notice and Data Protection Policy and Procedures. This information. In the event that a right to compensation is established, the amount payable is the lesser of ninety per cent of your loss, which is recognised as being eligible for compensation, or €20,000.

OUR SERVICES

• Con Friel & Company Limited is a member of Brokers Ireland. Our principal business is to provide advice and arrange transactions on behalf of clients in relation to life, pensions & investments.
  • Life Assurance Cover
  • Specified Serious Illness Cover,
  • Hospital Cash Cover and Accident Cover,
  • Income Protection and other Protection policies.
  • Lump Sum Investments in various types of non-linked, unit-linked, and other collective investment funds.
  • Regular contribution Savings Plans in various types of non-linked, unit-linked, and other collective investment funds.
  • Pension Planning Products including Retirement Income Plans and PRSA’s.
  • Post Retirement Pension Products including AMRFs, ARFs and Annuities.

• Con Friel & Company Limited holds written appointments with the following life assurance companies to act as an intermediary:
  • Aviva Life
  • BCP Asset Management
  • Royal London (formerly Caledonian Life)
  • Zurich
  • Irish Life Assurance plc
  • Friends First
  • Canada Life (now Irish Life)
  • Standard Life 
  • Phoenix Ireland (formerly Scottish Provident)
  • New Ireland Assurance

• Con Friel & Company Limited has selected one preferred product producer, Irish Life Assurance plc, for life insurance plans (including life assurance, specified illness cover, income protection, unit linked savings, investments, and pension plans), tracker bonds, and Personal Retirement Savings Accounts (PRSAs). Analysis of the market will be limited to products provided by Irish Life Assurance plc.

REGULAR REVIEWS

• It is in your best interests that you review, on a regular basis, the products which we have arranged for you. As your circumstances change, your needs will change-you must advise us of those changes and request a review of the relevant policy so that we can ensure that you are provided with up to date advice and products best suited to your needs. Failure to contact us of changes in your circumstances, or request a review, may result in you having insufficient insurance cover and/or inappropriate investments.

DEPOSITS

• Con Friel & Company Limited provide deposit advice to clients on a limited analysis basis (providing services on the basis of a limited number of contracts and product producers available on the market). We provide advice on the following product provider:
  • BCP Asset Management

LIFE, PENSIONS & INVESTMENTS

• Con Friel & Company Limited will provide assistance to you for any queries you may have in relation to the policies, or in the event of a claim during the life of the policies and we will explain to you the various restrictions, conditions and exclusions attached to your policy.

  It is however, your responsibility to read the policy documents, literature and brochures to ensure that you understand the nature of the policy cover, particularly in relation to PHI and serious illness policies.

  Specifically on the subject of permanent health insurance policies, it is our policy to explain to you:

• The meaning of disability as defined in the policy:
• The benefits available under the policy:
• The general exclusions that apply to the policy:
• The reductions applied to the benefit where there are disability payments from other sources.

  For a specified illness policy, we will explain clearly to you the restrictions, conditions and general exclusions that attach to that policy.

  These Terms of Business are effective from March 2021 until further notice.

APPENDIX 1

CODES OF CONDUCT

Con Friel & Company Limited is subject to the Consumer Protection Code, Minimum Competency Code and the Fitness & Probity Standards which offer protection to our consumers. These Codes can be found on the Central Banks website www.centralbank.ie

APPENDIX 2

INVESTOR COMPENSATION ACT 1998

Under the Investment Intermediaries Act 1995 and as an Insurance Intermediary under the European Communities (Insurance Mediation) Regulations 2005.

Under Section 38 (1) of the Investor Compensation Act, 1998 we wish to draw your attention to the following:

(a) The Investor Compensation Act, 1998 provides for the establishment of a compensation scheme and the payment, in certain circumstances, of compensation to certain clients (known as eligible investors) of authorised investment firms, as defined in that Act;

(b) Our firm is a member of the compensation scheme;

(c) Compensation may be payable where money or investment instruments owed or belonging to clients and held, or in the case of investment instruments, administered or managed by my firm cannot be returned to those clients for the time being and there is no reasonably foreseeable opportunity of the firm being able to do so;

(d) A right to compensation will arise only:

• if the client is an eligible investor as defined in the Act:
• if it transpires that our firm is not in a position to return client money or investment instruments owned or belonging to the clients of the firm; and
• to the extent that the client’s loss is recognized for the purposes of the Act:

(e) Where an entitlement to compensation is established, the compensation payable will be the lesser of

• 90 per cent of the amount of the client’s loss which is recognized for the purposes of the Investor Compensation Act, 1988;     or
• compensation of up to EUR20,000.

APPENDIX 3

CUSTOMER COMPLAINTS PROCEDURES OPERATED BY Con Friel & Company Limited.

Our Objectives:

• To respond to complaints in a courteous, timely and fair manner.
• To endeavor to address the specific issues raised by our clients, where appropriate to update our procedures to avoid re-occurrence of problems.
• Where a formal complaint – oral or written – has been made and an initial attempt to resolve this complaint has not resulted in a positive outcome.
• The complaint is to be referred to the “signing off” person Mr. Con Friel, Compliance Officer as nominated.

Complaints Procedures

• A written acknowledgement of the complaint will be sent to you our client not later than 5 working days of the complaint being received by the firm.
• You will be provided with the name of the individual in the firm appointed to deal with your complaint.
• You will be provided with written updates on the progress of the investigation of your complaint every 20 working days.
• Your complaint will be actively investigated and a comprehensive response is sent to you not later than 8 weeks (40 working days) of receipt of the original complaint.
• Where your complaint has not been resolved, we will inform you of the anticipated timeframe within which we hope to resolve your complaint. We will also advise you, our client, of your right to refer the matter to the Financial Services & Pensions Ombudsman.
• Where your complaint relates to one of the Financial Institutions with whom business has been placed by us on your behalf, we will forward the complaint to the Institution involved. However, we will ensure that the Institution deals with the complaint until a satisfactory conclusion is reached.
• When the complaint has been fully investigated a summary letter will be issued to you within 5 working days of completion of the investigation. The summary letter will set out, if appropriate, details of any offer of settlement.
• Where it has not proved possible to resolve your complaint and you remain dissatisfied with the outcome and the firm believes it cannot make any further progress on the matter, we will advise you of this.
• We will advise you that you are entitled to refer your complaint to the Financial Services & Pensions Ombudsman

Financial Services & Pensions OmbudsmanLincoln House, Lincoln Place, Dublin 2.

Tel: +353-1-567-7000

Email: info@fspo.ie

Should you wish to refer your complaint to the Financial Services & Pensions Ombudsman, Mr. Con Friel, compliance officer, will issue you with a formal “final response” letter within a maximum time frame of 25 working days of receipt of the official notification of the request.