The Financial Conduct Authority has fined Moorhouse Group Limited £159,300 for failures in relation to the oversight and control of its telephone sales.

Moorhouse is a general insurance broker based in Caerphilly, Wales, and sells motor and liability related-insurance products to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) including very small businesses known as micro-SMEs. The fine relates particularly to the sale of commercial vehicle add-on insurance products during 2012.

Georgina Philippou, acting director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA said: "Moorhouse had a responsibility to treat its customers fairly and this is true whether they are individuals or small businesses.

"Moorhouse failed to put in place systems and controls to ensure customers were given the right information. This put customers at risk of buying the wrong products and not having the right insurance cover."

Moorhouse failed to disclose appropriate information about the limitations and exclusions of commercial vehicle add-on products to consumers before they were sold.

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During 2012, Moorhouse failed to ensure that a consistent and effective quality assurance process was in place to monitor the telephone sales process and failed to identify that customer data was being recorded inaccurately by sales agents, potentially affecting whether any claims later made by those customers were accepted. The FCA found that the board and senior management failed to give sufficient attention to compliance issues and did not take adequate steps to address them.

Moorhouse will be required to communicate the outcome of the FCA's investigation to customers who purchased commercial vehicle add-on products during 2012.

Moorhouse agreed to settle at an early stage of the FCA's investigation and therefore qualified for a 30% (stage 1) discount. Were it not for this discount the FCA would have imposed a penalty of £227,670.