The FCA have recently issued final guidance – Coronavirus and customers in temporary financial difficulty: guidance for insurance and premium finance firms, that requires that firms should make clear in their communications, including on their websites and apps, the different options available to customers, and encourage them to make contact if they are experiencing temporary financial difficulty as a result of coronavirus. Firms should make it as easy as possible to contact them, and consider the needs of customers with different communication needs (EG those needing to communicate through channels other than telephone) to ensure all customers that need help can access it easily.

In addition they have issued a statement on how firms should handle post and paper documents. They expect firms to provide general updates on how it will treat incoming and outgoing post, and cheques, through its website and other public channels (such as social media). These communications should update customers on market conditions, explain how customers can check their financial statements (which may arrive late) and invite customers to contact the firm if they wish.

In view of this, Broker Network, of which we are a founding memeber, have created the attached notice for customers. This notice goes over Clients Experiencing Financial Difficulties and what we, at Schofields, are doing with post and paper based documents.