In the week that brokers are expected to tell the FSA how conflicts of interest are being managed, Insurance Times has uncovered serious broker apathy over the issue.
Brokers have until Friday to respond to an FSA letter sent out in late November, but many brokers said they had yet to compose a reply. In a straw poll conducted by Insurance Times, only 20% of brokers said they had sent reports to the regulator.
The FSA has threatened mandatory commission disclosure if it feels brokers have insufficient systems in place to manage and mitigate potential conflicts.
One broker, who asked not to be named, said: "We didn't receive the letter and couldn't find it on the website. When we finally managed to track it down we felt we didn't need to submit a response."
Another broker said: "We think this is a non-issue and haven't bothered to reply."
The broker said staff were not told of commission levels to prevent them from being motivated by payment.
A further broker, who also did not want to be named, said: "We had a board meeting to discuss this last week, and I returned to my office to see that the letter had finally arrived from the FSA.
"We have put in a minimalist response because we don't regard it as a big problem."
Community Broking Group (CBG) is one of the companies that has responded.
Compliance manager Terence Clark said: "We sent in the report before Christmas with details of our conflicts policy to show evidence of how we are managing conflicts."
Steve White, Biba compliance manager, said members had been proactive in responding to the FSA. "The evidence shows our members to be taking this very seriously," he said. "There is no evidence that brokers are ignoring this."
