Financial Services Guide

Our Financial Services Guide (FSG) is designed to assist you in deciding whether to use any of our services and contains important information about how we operate.

The purpose of this guide

This FSG sets out the services that we can offer you. It is designed to assist you in deciding whether to use any of those services and contains important information about:

the services we offer you.
how we and others are paid.
any potential conflict of interest we may have.
our internal and external dispute resolution procedures and how you can access them.
arrangements we have in place to compensate clients for losses.

We will provide you with further information whenever we provide you with advice which takes into account your objectives, financial situation and needs. This information may include the advice that we have given you, the basis of the advice and other information on our remuneration and any relevant associations or interests. This information may be contained in a statement of advice (SOA).

When you ask us to recommend an insurance policy for you, we will usually only consider the policies offered by the insurers or insurance providers that we deal with regularly. In giving you advice about the costs and terms of recommended policies, we have not compared those policies to policies available from other insurers and insurance providers.

Lack of independence

We, Master Builders Insurance Brokers Pty Ltd (Master Builders Insurance Brokers), are not independent, impartial, or unbiased pursuant to section 923A of the Corporations Act because:

We may receive commission when we provide personal advice to you in relation to insurance products and other financial products; and/or
We may have associations or relationships with issuers of insurance products and other financial products.

Further information about these benefits and relationships is set out in this FSG.

If you have any questions about this information, please ask us.

Product disclosure statement

If we offer to arrange the issue of an insurance policy to you, we will also provide you with, or pass on to you, a product disclosure statement (PDS), unless you already have an up to date PDS. The PDS will contain information about the particular policy which will enable you to make an informed decision about purchasing that product.

From when does this FSG apply?

This FSG applies from 1st July 2020 and remains valid unless a further FSG is issued to replace it. We may give you a supplementary FSG. It will not replace this FSG but will cover services not covered by this FSG.

How can I instruct you?

You can contact us to give us instructions by post, phone or email on the contact number or details listed here.

Who is responsible for the financial services provided?

Master Builders Insurance Brokers Pty Ltd (Master Builders Insurance Brokers) is responsible for the financial services that will be provided to you, or through you to your family members, including the distribution of this FSG.

Master Builders Insurance Brokers holds a current Australian Financial Services Licensee no: 281729.

What kinds of financial services are you authorised to provide to me and what kinds of financial product/s do those services relate to?

Master Builders Insurance Brokers is authorised to ‘advise and deal in general insurance products to wholesale and/or retail clients’. We will do this for you as your insurance broker unless we tell you otherwise.

Sometimes we will act under a binder or agency from the insurer. When we act under a binder or agency, we will be acting as the agent of the insurer. This means that we represent and act for the insurer, not for you. We will tell you when we act under a binder or agency to arrange your insurance or advise you about your insurance needs.

Will I receive tailored advice?

Maybe not in all cases. However, we may need information about your personal objectives, details of your current financial situation and any relevant information, so that we can arrange insurance policies for you, issue insurance policies to you, or to give you advice about your insurance needs. We will ask you for the details that we need to know.

In some cases, we will not ask for any of this information. If we do not ask, or if you do not give us all of the information we ask for, any advice you receive may not be appropriate to your needs, objectives and financial situation.

You should read the warnings contained in any SOA, or any other warnings that we give you, carefully before making any decision about an insurance policy.

Where we provide you with advice about your insurance arrangements, that advice is current at the time that we give it. We will review your insurance arrangements when you inform us about changes in your circumstances, at the time of any scheduled status review or upon renewal of your insurances.

Contractual Liability and your insurance cover

Many commercial or business contracts contain clauses dealing with your liability (including indemnities or hold harmless clauses). Such clauses may entitle your insurers to reduce cover, or in some cases, refuse to indemnify you at all. You should seek legal advice before signing and accepting contracts. You should inform us of any clauses of this nature before you enter into them.

What information do you maintain in my file and can I examine my file?

We maintain a record of your personal profile, including details of insurance policies that we arrange or issue for you. We may also maintain records of any recommendations or advice given to you. We will retain this FSG and any other FSG given to you as well as any SOA or PDS that we give or pass on to you for the period required by law.

We are committed to implementing and promoting a privacy policy, which should ensure the privacy and security of your personal information. A copy of our privacy policy is available here.

If you wish to look at your file, please ask us. We will make arrangements for you to do so.

How will I pay for the services provided?

For each insurance product, the insurer will charge a premium that includes any relevant taxes, charges and levies. We often receive a payment based on a percentage of this premium (excluding relevant taxes, charges and levies) called commission, which is paid to us by the insurer. However, in some cases we will also charge you a fee.
These will all be shown on the invoice that we send you.

You can choose to pay by any of the payment methods set out in the invoice. You are required to pay us within the time set out on the invoice.

If there is either a refund or reduction of your premium as a result of a cancellation or alteration to a policy, or based on a term of your policy (such as a premium adjustment provision), we will retain any fee we have charged you. We will also retain commission depending on our arrangements with the insurer, or charge you a cancellation fee equal to the reduction in our commission.

When you pay us your premium, it will be banked into our trust account. We retain the commission from the premium you pay us and remit the balance to the insurer in accordance with our arrangements with the insurer. We will earn interest on the premium while it is in our trust account or we may invest the premium and earn a return. We will retain any interest or return on investment earned on the premium.

How are any commissions, fees or other benefits calculated for providing the financial services?

Our commission will be calculated based on the following formula:

X = Y% x P

In this formula:

X = our commission

Y% = the percentage commission paid to us by the insurer. Our commission varies between 0 and 30%.

P = the amount you pay for any insurance policy (less any government taxes, charges and levies included in that amount).

Any fees that we charge you will be calculated taking into consideration the cost of services provided. Our fees also take into account the costs associated with the preparation and production of tax invoices and any supporting documentation.

We do not often pay any commissions, fees or benefits to others who refer you to us or refer us to an insurer. If we do, we will pay commissions to those people out of our commission or fees (not in addition to those amounts).

Our employees that will assist you with your insurance needs will be paid a market salary. They may also be entitled to receive bonuses based on the performance of our overall business at the end of each financial year. Some employees receive bonuses based on the new business they introduce.

If we give you personal advice, we will inform you of any fees, commission or other payments we, our associates or anyone referring you to us (or us to any insurer) will receive in relation to the policies that are the subject of the advice.

See below for information on the Steadfast association and commission.

Do you have any relationships or associations with the insurers who issue the insurance policies or any other material relationships?

Master Builders Insurance Brokers is a Steadfast Group Limited (Steadfast) Network Broker. Steadfast has exclusive arrangements with some insurers and premium funders (Partners) under which Steadfast will receive between 0.5 – 1.5% commission for each product arranged by us with those Partners. Steadfast is also a shareholder of some Partners.

As a Steadfast Network Broker, we have access to services including model operating and compliance tools, procedures, manuals and training, legal, technical, banking and recruitment advice and assistance, group insurance arrangements, product comparison and placement support, claims support and group purchasing arrangements. These broker services are funded by Steadfast, subsidised by Steadfast or available exclusively to Steadfast Network Brokers for a fee.

You can obtain a copy of Steadfast’s FSG here.

If we arrange premium funding for you, we may be paid a commission by the premium funder. We may also charge you a fee (or both). The commission that we are paid by the premium funder is usually calculated as a percentage of your insurance premium (including government fees or changes). If you instruct us to arrange or issue a product, this is when we become entitled to the commission.

Our commission rates for premium funding are in the range of 0 to 3% of funded premium. When we arrange premium funding for you, you can ask us what commission rates we are paid for that funding arrangement compared to the other arrangements that were available to you.

If we refer you to a life insurance broker, we may be paid a commission by the life insurance broker. The commission that we are paid is usually calculated as a percentage of your life insurance premium.

What should I do if I have a complaint?

If your complaint is not satisfactorily resolved within 5 business days, please contact our Complaints Manager on 03 9411 4565 or put your complaint in writing and send it to the Complaints Manager at the address noted at the beginning of this FSG. We will try and resolve your complaint quickly and fairly.

Master Builders Insurance Brokers is a member of the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA). If your complaint cannot be resolved to your satisfaction by us, you have the right to refer the matter to the AFCA. AFCA provides fair and independent financial services complaint resolution that is free to customers. AFCA can be contacted at:

Post: Australian Financial Complaints Authority, GPO Box 3, Melbourne, VIC 3001
Phone: 1800 931 678
Email: info@afca.org.au
Website: afca.org.au

What arrangements do you have in place to compensate clients for losses?

Master Builders Insurance Brokers has a professional indemnity insurance policy (PI policy) in place.

The PI policy covers us and our representatives (including our authorised representatives) for claims made against us and our representatives by clients as a result of the conduct of us, our employees or representatives in the provision of financial services.

Our PI policy will cover us for claims relating to the conduct of representatives who no longer work for us.

This policy satisfies the requirements for compensation arrangements under section 912B of the Corporations Act.