Weston-super-Mare broker Professional Construction Risks Ltd (PCRL) has been barred from carrying out regulated activities such as arranging insurance contracts for clients.
Without detailing the reasons, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said it had imposed various requirements on PCRL. Aside from ceasing to conduct regulated activities, the company must, at the same time, protect client money which it cannot use to finance itself.
PCRL must also not dispose of, withdraw, or transfer any of the company’s own assets. Neither should it do anything that will diminish their value. Additionally, the business must ensure that client money is appropriately ringfenced in a designated account, while all books and records should be secured.
The FCA went on to note: “The firm must identify all loan, or other financing, applications it has made in the name of customers or other third parties without the relevant customer’s or third party’s consent and provide a list of those applications to the Authority by 5pm on December 15, 2020.
“The firm must write to all customers and third parties in the name of whom loans have been identified informing them, in a form and by a method to be agreed in advance with the Authority, that a loan or other financing application has been made in their name.”
Meanwhile, PCRL is mandated to notify in writing any insurance undertaking of the imposition and effect of FCA’s requirements.
By December 17, the broker must return any insurance premiums which it has not yet paid to the relevant insurer, as well as pay any claims monies owed to policyholders that PCRL has already received from an insurer but has not yet paid to the customer.
