Broker Terms

Broker Terms

These terms are the agreement between COVRA and each brokerage that uses the COVRA exchange at app.covra.com.au to receive business insurance enquiries. By registering, or by placing a bid or a hidden maximum, you agree to them on behalf of your brokerage, and you confirm you’re authorised to do so.

In short

This summary helps you find your way around. It isn’t part of the terms.

• Joining is free. You pay only for enquiries you win: your winning price plus GST, charged to your card.
• Bids are binding, and each enquiry goes to one broker only.
• You can bid on enquiries for the covers we’ve approved for you, and on enquiries that don’t name a cover.
• Contact the business within 2 business days, only about their enquiry, and never pass their details on.
• If an enquiry’s contact details don’t work, tell us within 7 days and we’ll refund you.
• We give you 30 days’ notice of changes, and you can leave at any time.

1. Meanings

In these terms:

COVRA, we and us mean the business that runs covra.com.au and the exchange.

You means the brokerage that registered, and includes anyone who uses its account.

Enquiry means a business’s request, made through covra.com.au, to be put in touch with an insurance broker, including its summary and the business’s contact details.

Exchange means the COVRA broker exchange at app.covra.com.au, and the emails we send about it.

Price means your winning bid for an enquiry, before GST.

Business day means a day other than a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday in Brisbane.

GST and tax invoice have the meanings in the A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999 (Cth).

2. Joining and approval

2.1 To use the exchange, you must hold an Australian Financial Services Licence that authorises you to deal in and advise on general insurance products, or be authorised to provide those services on behalf of a licensee, for example as its authorised representative.

2.2 We decide whether to approve your application, acting reasonably. Before we approve it, we check your licence or authorised representative number on ASIC’s professional register, and check your website for the covers you offer. Approval means you meet our requirements. It isn’t an endorsement, and we don’t assess the quality of your advice or services.

2.3 You can bid on enquiries that name at least one of the covers we’ve approved for you, and on enquiries that don’t name a cover. To add a cover, email us a link to where your website offers it.

2.4 You must keep your account details accurate. You must tell us within 2 business days if your licence or authorisation is suspended, cancelled or changed in a way that affects the covers you offer, or if you stop offering an approved cover.

2.5 You’re responsible for everything done through your account. Only your staff may use it, and you must keep its sign-in details secure.

3. How auctions work

3.1 We review each enquiry before we offer it on the exchange, including with automated checks, and we may decline to offer any enquiry.

3.2 While an auction is live, approved brokers can see a summary of the enquiry, without the business’s name, email address or phone number. Other brokers can see the current price, but not who is leading or anyone’s hidden maximum.

3.3 We set each auction’s starting price and end time. If nobody bids, we may extend the auction. We may also extend, cancel or re-run an auction if there’s a technical fault, a mistake in the enquiry or its price, suspected fraud, or the business withdraws its enquiry.

3.4 The first bid must be at least the starting price, and each later bid at least $1 more than the current price. A bid is an offer to buy the enquiry at that price and can’t be withdrawn.

3.5 A hidden maximum is an offer to pay up to that amount. We bid for you, $1 at a time, only as far as needed to keep you in the lead. You can change it while the auction is live, but not below the current price.

3.6 When an auction ends, the highest bid wins. If two offers are equal, the one made first wins.

3.7 The maximum per lead and weekly budget you set in Preferences are a tool to help you. We refuse bids that go over them, but you remain responsible for the bids you place.

4. Paying for enquiries

4.1 You must keep a valid card on your account before you bid. Card details are held by our payment provider, Stripe.

4.2 Prices are in Australian dollars and exclude GST. When you win an enquiry, you authorise us to charge the price plus GST to your card, and we email you a tax invoice.

4.3 We give you the business’s contact details once the charge succeeds. If it fails, we tell you and try again, including when you save a new card. If it still hasn’t succeeded after we’ve told you, we may cancel your win and offer the enquiry to other brokers. You don’t pay for a win we cancel.

4.4 Please contact us before disputing a charge with your bank. If you dispute a charge we were entitled to make, we may suspend your account until it’s resolved.

4.5 There’s no joining fee, subscription or minimum spend. We’ll only introduce another fee by changing these terms under clause 12.

5. Using enquiries

5.1 We give each enquiry’s contact details to one broker only. We won’t give the same enquiry to another broker unless your win is cancelled under clause 4.3 or refunded under clause 6. A business may make a new enquiry later, which is a separate enquiry.

5.2 For each enquiry you win, you must:

• (a) make a genuine attempt to contact the business within 2 business days
• (b) contact the business only about their enquiry and their business insurance needs. The business asked to be contacted about its enquiry, not to receive other marketing, so don’t add them to marketing lists unless they separately agree
• (c) not sell, share or pass on the enquiry, except to your own staff, your licensee, or insurers and underwriters where needed to arrange cover the business asked for
• (d) give the business any disclosures the law or your code of practice requires, including about the fees and commissions you receive and, where required, about paying for the referral
• (e) not say or suggest that COVRA recommended you, assessed the business’s needs, or acts for you
• (f) handle the business’s personal information in line with the Australian Privacy Principles, even if you’re otherwise exempt from the Privacy Act, keep it secure, and delete it when you no longer need it
• (g) tell us within 3 business days if you become aware that enquiry details you hold have been accessed or disclosed without authority, and work with us to deal with it

5.3 You must comply with the laws that apply to your business, including the Corporations Act 2001, the Insurance Contracts Act 1984, the Australian Consumer Law, the Privacy Act 1988, the Spam Act 2003 and the Do Not Call Register Act 2006, and any code of practice you subscribe to.

5.4 The advice and services you give a business are yours alone, and complaints about them go through your own complaints process and, where eligible, the Australian Financial Complaints Authority. If a business asks us which brokerage received its enquiry, we may tell them.

6. Enquiry quality and refunds

6.1 We check enquiries, but we can’t guarantee that the details a business gives are accurate, that it will answer, or that it will buy insurance.

6.2 Tell us within 7 days of winning an enquiry, with the details, if:

• (a) neither the phone number nor the email address works, after genuine attempts to use both
• (b) it duplicates an enquiry from the same business that you won in the previous 90 days, or
• (c) it’s clearly false, such as a prank or an enquiry the business says it never made

6.3 We’ll look into it in good faith and let you know our decision within 5 business days. If we agree, we’ll refund the price and GST to your card.

6.4 A business not answering, changing its mind or buying elsewhere isn’t grounds for a credit.

7. Our role and the exchange

7.1 COVRA is a referral service. We don’t give financial product advice, we aren’t your agent or the business’s agent, and nothing in these terms creates a partnership or employment relationship.

7.2 We don’t promise any number or kind of enquiries.

7.3 We take reasonable care to keep the exchange running, but it may sometimes be unavailable, for example for maintenance or because of a fault with a service provider. If a fault affects an auction, we may extend, cancel or re-run it under clause 3.3.

8. Privacy and confidentiality

8.1 Our privacy policy explains how we handle personal information about you and your staff.

8.2 Keep enquiry details, and anything you see on the exchange that isn’t public, confidential. We keep your bids and hidden maximums confidential, except as needed to run auctions or as the law requires.

9. Intellectual property

9.1 The exchange, its content and the COVRA name and logo belong to us or our licensors. You may use the exchange only as these terms allow, and must not copy it, scrape it or try to get around its security.

9.2 You may say that you receive enquiries through COVRA, but not in a way that suggests we recommend you.

10. Liability

10.1 Nothing in these terms excludes, restricts or changes any right or remedy you have under the Australian Consumer Law, or any other law, that can’t be excluded.

10.2 Where the law allows, our liability for failing to meet a consumer guarantee is limited to supplying the service again, or paying the cost of having it supplied again.

10.3 Subject to clauses 10.1 and 10.2, our total liability to you under or in connection with these terms is limited to the amounts you paid us in the 3 months before the event giving rise to the claim.

10.4 Neither of us is liable to the other for loss of profit, revenue or opportunity, or for indirect or consequential loss. This doesn’t limit your obligation to pay for enquiries you win, your indemnity under clause 10.5, or liability for fraud or wilful misconduct.

10.5 You indemnify us against claims by others, and fines, penalties and reasonable costs, arising from your advice or services to a business, or from your breach of clause 5 or of the law. This indemnity is reduced to the extent that we caused or contributed to the loss.

11. Suspension and ending

11.1 You can close your account at any time by emailing us. We’ll cancel your hidden maximums, but an auction you’re already leading when you ask may still close in your favour.

11.2 We may suspend your account, or end these terms, straight away by telling you, if your licence or authorisation lapses, you breach clause 4 or 5, you commit fraud, we receive serious or repeated complaints about how you deal with businesses, or the law requires it. We may do the same if you breach these terms in another significant way and don’t fix it within 5 business days of our notice.

11.3 We may also end these terms for any reason by giving you 30 days’ notice.

11.4 While you’re suspended, your hidden maximums stop bidding, but an auction you’re already leading still closes in your favour.

11.5 When these terms end, amounts you owe remain payable, and clauses 4, 5, 8, 10 and 13 continue to apply.

12. Changes to these terms

12.1 We may change these terms by giving you at least 30 days’ notice by email and on the exchange. A change doesn’t affect an auction that ends before it takes effect.

12.2 If you don’t agree to a change, you can close your account before it takes effect, and it won’t apply to you.

12.3 If a change is needed to comply with the law, it can take effect sooner, and we’ll tell you as soon as we can.

13. Disputes and general terms

13.1 If there’s a dispute about these terms, tell the other party in writing. People with authority to settle it must try in good faith to resolve it for 20 business days before either of us starts court proceedings, unless urgent relief is needed.

13.2 These terms are governed by the laws of Queensland, and the courts of Queensland have jurisdiction.

13.3 We send notices to the email address on your account. You send notices to admin@covra.com.au.

13.4 You can’t transfer your rights under these terms without our written agreement. We may transfer ours to someone who takes over the exchange, and we’ll tell you if we do.

13.5 If any part of these terms is unenforceable, it’s severed and the rest continue. A failure or delay in enforcing a term isn’t a waiver.

13.6 These terms, with our privacy policy, are the whole agreement between us about the exchange.

Contact

Questions about these terms: admin@covra.com.au