Our Remuneration
We, HC Financial Advisors Ltd (Trading as HC Financial) act as intermediary (Broker) between you, the consumer, and the product provider with whom we place your business.
The Background
Pursuant to provision 4.58A of the Central Bank of Ireland’s September 2019 Addendum to the Consumer Protection Code, all intermediaries, must make available in their public offices, or on their website if they have one, a summary of the details of all arrangements for any fee, commission, other reward or remuneration provided to the intermediary which it has agreed with its product producers.
What is Remuneration?
Remuneration is the payment earned by HC Financial for work undertaken on behalf of both the provider and the consumer. The amount of remuneration is generally directly related to the value of the products sold
What is Commission?
Commission is payment that may be earned by HC Financial for work undertaken for both provider and consumer. There are different types of remuneration and different commission models:
Single commission model: where payment is made to HC Financial shortly after the sale is completed and is based on a percentage of the premium paid/amount invested/amount borrowed.
Trail/Renewal commission model: Further payments at intervals are paid throughout the life span of the product.
Indemnity Commission
Indemnity commission is the term used to describe a commission payment made before the commission is deemed to be ‘earned’. Indemnity commission may be subject to a clawback (see below) if the consumer lapses or cancels the product before the commission is deemed to be earned.
Other forms of indemnity commission are advances of commission for future sales granted to intermediaries in order to assist with set up costs or business development.
General Insurance Products
General insurance products, such as motor, home, travel, health, retail or liability insurance, are typically subject to a single or standard commission model, based on the amount of premium charged for the insurance product.
Profit Share Arrangements
In some cases, the intermediary may be a party to a profit-share arrangement with a product provider and will earn additional commission. Any business arranged with these product providers on a client’s behalf will be placed with the product provider because that product provider is at the time of placement, the most suitable to meet the client’s requirements, taking all the client’s relevant information, demands and needs into account.
Life Assurance/Investments/Pension Products
For Life Assurance products commission is divided into initial commission and renewal commission (related to premium), fund based or trail (relating to accumulated fund).
Trail commission, bullet commission, fund based, flat commission or renewal commission are all terms used for ongoing payments. Where an investment fund is being built up though an insurance-based investment product or a pension product, the increments may be based on a percentage of the value of the fund or the annual premium. For a single premium/lump sum product, the increment is generally based on the value of the fund.
Life Assurance products fall into either individual or group protection policies and Investment/Pension products would be either single or regular contribution policies. Examples of products include Life Protection, Regular Premium Life Assurance Investments, Single Premium (lump sum) Insurance-based Investments, and Single Premium Pensions.
Investments
Investment firms, which fall within the scope of the European Communities (Markets in Financial Instruments) Regulations 2007 (the MiFID Regulations), offer both standard commission and commission models involving initial and trail commission. Increments may be based on a percentage of the investment management fees, or on the value of the fund.
Credit Products/Mortgages
Commission may be earned by intermediaries for arranging credit for consumers, such as mortgages. The single, or standard, commission model is the most common commission model applied to the sale of mortgage products by mortgage credit intermediaries (Mortgage Broker).
Clawback
Clawback is an obligation on the intermediary to repay unearned commission. Commission can be paid directly after a contract is concluded but is not deemed to be ‘earned’ until after a specified period of time. If the consumer cancels or withdraws from the financial product within the specified time, the intermediary must return commission to the product producer.
Fees
The firm may also be remunerated by fee by the product producer such as policy fee, admin fee, or in the case of investment firms, advisory fees. Include arrangements etc
Other Fees, Administrative Costs/ Non-Monetary Benefits
The firm may also be in receipt of other fees, administrative costs, or non-monetary benefits such as:
- Attendance at product provider seminars
- Assistance with Advertising/Branding
Click on a links below to access a details from the list of the providers that our firm deals with, which for ease of reference is in alphabetical order.
Life Companies (Fair Analysis)
HC currently hold letters of Appointment from the following Product Producers.
- Acorn Life Limited
- Aviva Life & Pensions Ireland DAC
- BCP Asset Management DAC
- BlackBee Investments Limited
- Cantor Fitzgerald Ireland Limited
- Greenman Investments
- Independent Trustee Company Limited
- Irish Life Assurance Plc
- JP Morgan Asset Management
- KBC Bank Ireland Plc.
- Merrion Solutions Limited
- MMPI Limited (Broker Solutions)
- New Ireland Assurance Company plc
- Quintas Wealth Management Limited
- Royal London
- Scottish Provident Limited
- Standard Life International
- Utmost (formerly Generali PanEurope Limited)
- Wealth Options Limited
- Zurich Life Assurance plc
Mortgage (Fair Analysis)
We are authorised by the following Financial Institutions in relation to mortgages.
- KBC Bank Ireland Plc
- Permanent tsb plc
- Dilosk DAC
- Haven Mortgages Limited
- Finance Ireland Residential Mortgages
Deposits (Fair Analysis)
We are authorised by the following Financial Institutions in relation to Deposits
- *Permanent TSB plc
- KBC Bank Ireland Plc.
*(HC Financial do not get any commission from Permanent tsb plc on deposit accounts. We do however, hold an active agency with Permanent tsb plc.)
General Insurance (Limited Analysis)
We are authorised by the following Financial Institutions in relation to General Insurance
Note:
HC Financial Advisers Limited can also provide advice on products by companies with whom we do not hold an appointment.
HC Financial do not get any commission from KBC on deposit accounts. We do however, hold an active agency with KBC.
Wealth Options: 5% Max with max 0.5% per annum ongoing.
Cantor Fitzgerald:- max commission of 3.5% with Nil Trail.
Merrion Solutions Ltd.:- max commission of 3.5% with Nil Trail.
HC hold an agency with JP Morgan Asset Management, however, we are currently not receiving any commission