4.11 Conflicts of Interest

You must have in place and operate a written conflicts of interest policy appropriate to the nature, scale and complexity of the regulated activities carried out by the regulated entity.

The conflicts of interest policy must:

1) identify, with reference to the regulated activities carried out by you, the circumstances which constitute or may give rise to a conflict of interest entailing a risk of damage to the interests of its customers who are consumers; and

2) specify procedures to be followed and measures to be adopted, in order to manage such conflicts.

There must be effective organisational and administrative arrangements in place proportionate to the activities you perform, and the insurance products sold in order to take all reasonable steps designed to prevent conflicts of interest from adversely affecting the interests of your customers.

You must take all appropriate steps to identify conflicts of interest between yourselves, including your managers and employees, and your clients or between one client and another, that arise in the course of carrying out your insurance business.

Where conflicts of interest arise and cannot be reasonably avoided, you must:

1) disclose the general nature and/or source of the conflicts of interest to the client in good time before the conclusion of the insurance contract, and you must provide sufficient detail to enable them to make an informed decision with respect to the insurance contract in the context of which the conflict of interest arises; and

2) ensure that the conflict does not result in damage to the interests of the consumer. You must ensure that you will not be remunerated, or remunerate or assess the performance of your employees, in a way that conflicts with your duty to act in accordance with the best interests of your clients and, in particular, you will not make any arrangement by way of remuneration, sales targets or otherwise that could provide an incentive to you or your employees to recommend a particular
insurance product to a client when you could offer a different insurance product which would better meet the client’s needs.

You must ensure where you are remunerated by a fee, commission or with any non-monetary benefit that:

1) it does not have a detrimental impact on the quality of the relevant service to the customer, and
2) does not impair compliance with your duty to act honestly, fairly and professionally in accordance with the best interests of your customers.

You must ensure that there are effective Chinese walls in place between the different business areas of the regulated entity and between the regulated entity and its connected parties, in relation to information which could potentially give rise to a conflict of interest or be open to abuse.

You must ensure you have written procedures in place relating to the maintenance of Chinese walls and the consequences of breaches of Chinese walls. These procedures must be notified to all relevant officers and employees of the regulated entity.

You must take reasonable steps to ensure that you or any of your staff do not offer, give, solicit or accept any gifts or rewards (monetary or otherwise) likely to conflict with any duties of the recipient in relation to his or her activities.

You must not allow your firm to receive commission or other remuneration linked to the achievement of targets that do not consider your best client’s interest e.g. targets relating to volume (including override commission) and bonus payments linked to business retention.

You must make available on your website a summary of the details of all arrangements for any fee, commission other reward or remuneration paid or provided to you which you agreed with product providers is available in our office on or our website – www.xxxxxx.ie. Note, If you do not have a website, the summary must be available in your office.