Harness Insurance Limited
Disclosure Statement
HARNESS FINANCIAL NEW ZEALAND
Before We Get Started
As professional advisers, there is important information you need to know before we can provide you with the best advice we can offer. Please read on to understand the information on how we are licensed, plus:
- What services we can provide and what they may cost you.
- How we operate
- Complaints handling
- Conflicts of interest
- Our conduct
- Data privacy and collection
It is important to note that the regulatory environment for Financial Advisers was reworked on March 15, 2021. Before this date, Advisers were divided into AFA’s, RFA’s and QFE’s. These terms no longer apply.
Key Definitions:
– FAP = Financial Advice Provider
– FAP Licence = Licence issued by the Financial Markets Authority enabling a FAP to provide advice
– Accreditation = Agency agreements between financial product providers such as Insurers, Banks, or Investment Product Providers enabling FAP (Financial Advisers) to provide advice on specific products.
Harness Insurance (FSP1004250), trading as (Harness Financial) holds a licence issued by the Financial Markets Authority to provide financial advice.
We have no license limitations.
- Harness Insurance Limited
- Email: service@harnessfinancial.co.nz
- Ph: 04 384 7113
- PO BOX 24514, Manners Street, Wellington, 6142
- Level 6, 114 The Terrace, Wellington Central, Wellington, 6011
Taking into account their financial goals and current financial position; Harness Financial provides advice to clients regarding the following product types:
Insurance as an Employee Benefit/Group Insurance Arrangements
Life, Income, Trauma, Total Disability and Health Insurance are implemented at a discounted ‘group rate’ for staff, often with most pre-existing conditions covered.
- Business Risk Insurances (Key Person, Shareholder Protection)
Forms of Life, Trauma, Total Disability, Income Protection (or Loss of Revenue Cover), and Health Insurance for the purpose of protecting a business’s profitability or ensuring the swift action of a planned succession.
· General Financial Planning
We can assist you with establishing your financial priorities and goals. We can also provide general commentary on your current financial position. This does not include investment advice
Lifetime Cashflow Modelling
We use software called Planolitix to effectively capture and report on your current financial position and trajectory. These outputs enhance and contribute to our Insurance Planning advice.
- Budget Planning, Debt management
We can assist you with general advice on these matters and refer you to experts for product-specific solutions. We do not provide specific product advice on lending facilities such as mortgages. - Life Insurance
Pays out a lump sum in the event of death or terminal illness. - Income Protection Insurance
Replaces loss of income in the event of illness or injury on a monthly basis. - Health Insurance
Covers the cost of private medical treatment, specialist appointments, tests, diagnostic procedures, and treatment/drugs not covered by state-funded entity Pharmac. - Trauma Insurance
Pays out a lump sum upon diagnosis of up to 55 pre-set health conditions (depending on the insurer) - Total and Permanent Disability Insurance
Pays out a lump sum in the event of total and permanent disability.
The Providers we are accredited with whose services we offer are:
To ensure that our financial advisers prioritise the client’s interests above their own, we follow an internationally recognised professional advice process to ensure our recommendations are made based on the client’s goals and circumstances.
We want to understand what your objectives are, what values you want to live by and then tailor a financial plan that best supports you and your business.
At Harness Insurance Limited, and anyone who gives financial advice on our behalf, have duties under the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013 relating to the way that we give advice.
We are required to:
- give priority to your interests by taking all reasonable steps to make sure our advice isn’t materially influenced by our own interests.
- exercise care, diligence, and skill in providing you with advice.
- meet standards of competence, knowledge and skill set by the Code of Professional Conduct for Financial Advice Services (these are designed to make sure that we have the expertise needed to provide you with advice)
- meet standards of ethical behaviour, conduct and client care set by the Code of Professional Conduct for Financial Advice Services (these are designed to make sure we treat you as we should and give you suitable advice).
This is only a summary of the duties that we have. More information is available by contacting us, or by visiting the Financial Markets Authority website at https://www.fma.govt.nz.
Remuneration & Commissions
Remuneration (what do our services cost?):
Typically, we are remunerated by way of commissions received directly from product providers.
For Group Insurance as an employee benefit. This ranges between 10% and 20% of the company premium. We will always disclose commission options to you, how they affect premiums and negotiate with you accordingly.
As we get to know you and what is important, we will provide more specific information in relation to any remuneration we receive as a result of any advice we provide. In line with the spirit of professional disclosure below are some guidelines.
In the interest of remaining impartial in our advice process, we use independent research from Quality Product Research Limited in Auckland, and dedicated software to provide you an overview of the options available to you market wide.
Additional comments: Commission is generally paid on a percentage of total API (Annual Premium Income), Less GST and policy fees.
Aggregator group: Harness Insurance Limited is a member shareholder of co-operative Plus4 Insurance Solutions, a Financial Adviser association dedicated to continual professional development, client advocacy and adviser advocacy. Remuneration in the form of 10-20% commission may also pay the business from product providers via the Dealer Group, this is based on production of the group as a whole and Rees-Thomas Financial. The Business can also receive other services or benefits Rees-Thomas Financial from the dealer group such as discounted software and systems.
Costs for Insurance Advice:
Our initial consultation (the Needs Analysis Meeting) is always free of charge.
For written advice, and our second meeting, a fee of $195 p/h +GST depending on complexity (capped at 15 hours unless pre-agreed) will apply for the Insurance Statement of Advice we’ll prepare for you.
However please note, we are not charging advice fees for the 2024 financial year.
The standard process from that point is for services to be provided at no cost to you with remuneration for services received via commission (this includes support from administrative staff team or advice from our advisers regarding any administrative or claim related matters going forward).
Alternatively, we can provide Fee-based advice by request only.
Fees regularly apply where we are providing advice for restructuring a business’ insurance portfolio with a range of existing policies in place (requiring restructuring), and no commission is paid to Rees-Thomas Financial Services Ltd (i.e., primarily a consulting service).
We take any perceived or real conflicts of interest very seriously and have a dedicated policy for dealing with such issues whereby we avoid, disclose and/or manage any conflicts so that our client’s interests are placed first and foremost.
For life insurance and health insurance, Harness Insurance Limited receives commissions from the insurance companies on whose policies we give advice. If you decide to take out insurance, the insurer will pay a commission to Harness Insurance Limited. The amount of the commission is based on the amount of the premium.
To ensure that we prioritise the client’s interests above their own, we follow an advice process that ensures our recommendations are made on the basis of the client’s goals and circumstances. We undergo annual training about how to manage conflicts of interest. We undertake a compliance audit, and a review of our compliance programme annually by a professional compliance adviser.
From time to time, product providers may also reward us for the overall business we provide to them. They may give us tickets to sports events, hampers, or other incentives.
Complaints Handling & Dispute Resolution
If you have a problem, concern, or complaint about any part of my service, please tell us so that we can try to fix the problem.
You may contact the internal complaints programme by sending your complaint to hello@harnessfinanical.co.nz or by phoning 04 384 7113. You can also write to us at:
- Harness Insurance Limited
- PO Box 24514
- Wellington
- 6011
- New Zealand
When we receive a complaint, we will consider it following our internal complaints process:
- We will consider your complaint and let you know how we intend to resolve it. We may need to contact you to get further information about your complaint.
- We aim to resolve complaints within 10 working days of receiving them. If we can’t, we will contact you within that time to let you know we need more time to consider your complaint.
- We will contact you by phone or email to let you know whether we can resolve your complaint and how we propose to do so.
If we cannot agree on how to fix the issue, you can contact our external disputes resolution scheme, Insurance & Savings Ombudsman (IFSO). IFSO provides a free and independent dispute resolution service that may help to resolve your complaint. To contact IFSO:
- Call: (04) 499 7612 or 0800 888 202
- Email: info@iombudsman.org.nz
- Write to: PO Box 10845, Wellington 6143
- Address: Level 11, Classic House, 15-17 Murphy St
At Harness Insurance Limited our financial advisers have duties under the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013 relating to the way that we give advice.
We are required to:
- give priority to your interests
- exercise care, diligence, and skill
- meet standards of competence, knowledge and skill set by the Code of Professional Conduct for Financial Advice Services
- meet standards of ethical behaviour, conduct and client care set by the Code of Professional Conduct for Financial Advice Services
To give our clients the very best advice we need to collect personal information about their financial circumstances. When providing advice on Insurance as an Employee Benefit, this also includes personal information about your staff. In the digital age that we live in, we take our responsibilities under the Privacy Act 2020 very seriously. Some key points:
- We only collect information relevant to the nature and scope of the advice we are providing.
- The accuracy of this information to our advice is critical, this is where we need your help.
Once collected we will protect any client information:
- You can request any personal information or ask for it to be amended at any time
- We will only share information where it is necessary to do so in providing the agreed services provided. If this is not part of our normal business, we would only consider this with your express consent to do so. However, there are some third parties you may not be aware of that we may need to share your information with such as:
- Financial Markets Authority (FMA) – the Regulator of financial services in New Zealand
- External compliance agencies we may engage for quality assurance purposes.
- To a subsidiary of the Harness Financial Group Limited
- We have policies and procedures for dealing with any data breaches ASAP. Any information no longer needed will be destroyed
You can find out more by visiting our Privacy Policy at our website: Privacy Policy – Harness Financial
We welcome any questions or queries you have in relation to this important information but more importantly, we look forward to working with you.