Homeowners

QANW is an insurance intermediary company based in the town of Ayr, on the west coast of Scotland. We work closely with building contractors and trade associations from all over the British Isles to allow them to offer an additional degree of consumer protection for their products and standards of workmanship.

The consumer protection we offer comes in the form of policies of insurance in favour of the householder. These are issued directly by us, to you whenever you have work done by a participating contractor. They provide the type of protection that only policies of insurance can provide.

Please feel free to use the menu bar on the left to browse a selection of the products we have on offer.

These insurance schemes are underwritten by Guarantee Protection Insurance Ltd, which is a UK based, FSA registered insurer. The insurer is a member of both the Financial Ombudsman Service and the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, meaning that householders have very strong rights to recourse in the unlikely event that things go wrong.

Although QANW offers a variety of products, our primary focus is on Insurance Backed Guarantees. The Insurance Backed Guarantee is an important consumer protection mechanism.

Your contractor's written guarantee sets out his obligation to rectify defects in your installation. It cannot however guarantee that they will always be around. If a contractor ceases to trade, and defects subsequently develop in your installation, the contractor's guarantee, although made in good faith, with the best of intentions, would be functionally useless. This is a particularly relevant concern in these uncertain economic times.

Contractors registered with QANW however are in the position of being able to "insurance back" their guarantees. This means that their guarantees can be protected by an insurance policy, underwritten by an onshore, UK-based, FSA registered insurer. In the event that the installing contractor ceases to trade, and is unable to honour the terms of their written guarantee, with the insurer and its agents taking the place of the contractor, and the policy of insurance taking the place of their written guarantee.

An important aspect of QANW's work is in the self assessment schemes we run. Whenever a repair or replacement window or door is installed in a domestic property in England or Wales, the homeowner receives a building control certificate. The default position is that this certificate is issued by the relevant Local Authority, however, certain installing contractors, who have been certified as a competent person by a governmentally recognised scheme (such as Certass, BSI or FENSA) have been vetted to self certify works.

Membership of a competent person scheme is conditional (amongst other things) upon being able to facilitate the provision of insurance protection to you, the homeowner. To this end, we work with members of all competent person schemes in order to provide these insurance products to directly to you. All of our self assessment insurance products are underwritten by Guarantee Protection Insurance Limited, which is a UK based, FSA regulated insurer who is a member of both the Financial Ombudsman Service and the Financial Services Compensation scheme, meaning that there is considerable recourse for homeowners in the unlikely event that things don't go satisfactorily.

The collection of deposits has been an expected part of the home improvement and building industry for many years. Contractors may expect a deposit to demonstrate a commitment on your behalf to pay, or to begin what may be expensive or time consuming work.

Unfortunately, in today's uncertain economic times contractors may cease to trade subsequent to a deposit being collected. This means that there is an inherent, but necessary risk associated with deposits. It is hoped that good market practice will gradually move away from taking deposits and replace the customer commitment by using Bondpay.

In the meantime, contractors registered with QANW however are in the position of allowing the risk to be passed from you to the insurer. When a contractor registered with one of our deposit protection schemes collects a deposit, you will be passed a Deposit Protection slip, which you will be asked to complete and return to QANW. Once this has been done, QANW shall issue you with confirmation that cover is in place.

Deposit Protection normally lasts for 90 days, or until work commences, and lapses if the contract is cancelled.