Adviser able to offer a full range of products from financial services companies or from a selected panel on grounds of merit. IFAs may work on their own account or for firms. Key principles they must follow include: ‘know their client’ by means of a fact find to form a comprehensive view of the client’s needs in order to offer ‘best advice’. IFAs can be remunerated by commission and/or fees. He must give full details at the outset of fees and, under the FSA’s disclosure rules, full details of any commission they will receive on recommended transactions. Regulated by the FSA, they must contribute to an industry wide compensation scheme.
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an intermediary who provides potential investors and policy holders with advice on a range of products from different companies (contrast tied agent).

Two (or more) policies, each covering a range of risks, are of independent range when each covers property of a specific description that is within the non-identical range of the other. The policies overlap in that they have common ground (e.g. Policy 1 insures stock in buildings A, B, and C; Policy 2 insures stock in A and B only).
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Insurance policies are said to be of independent range when one cover property of certain classes or at certain situations and the other covers classes of property or situations which are not identical. If there is some overlap in cover the respective insurers must contribute in the settlement of a loss.

Trustee unconnected to the pension scheme, its members or the employer. Such an appointment may be compulsory when an insolvency practitioner has taken over from an employer (PA 1995, ss.22-26).

A means of continually measuring the movement of a particular set of statistics over periods of time. Most unit trust fund managers measure their fund’s performance against that of an appropriate ‘benchmark’ index with the aim of at least matching or beating its progress. Weather derivatives are based on movements in an underlying index.

An index tracking fund aims to follow a particular index as closely as possible, not necessarily aiming to beat it. It invests only in the companies that make up that index. Index tracking removes the need to employ fund managers and so reduces charges.

Option contracts based on an index. The value of a derivative is derived from the underlying index as in the case of weather derivatives. Variations between the actual losses and those derived from the index creates the basis risk.

1. Business transacted with the insurer through an intermediary such as a broker or agent. 2. Business accepted by way of reinsurance.
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Insurance received by insurer through a broker or agent entitled to commission, or through another insurer, as distinct from business transacted directly between the insurer and the insured. Indirect Damage

Same as INCONTESTABLE CLAUSE.