Biba slams FSA levy increases

The British Insurance Brokers’ Association has voiced its concerns over the proposals contained in the FSAs Consultation Paper CP09/7.

Eric Galbraith, BIBA’s chief executive said: “Whilst we appreciate that the FSA has an ever-growing workload and that the fees for 10,000 small firms have been frozen, we are alarmed that medium and larger insurance intermediary firms are facing a year on year increase on their regulatory fees and levies of between 30 to 70%.”

He added: “Insurance intermediaries are recognised as one of the very lowest risk groups to the regulator’s statutory objectives and yet are facing huge percentage year on year increases for the levies they pay to both the Financial Ombudsman Service and the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. This is patently unfair and puts insurance intermediaries in the UK at a significant competitive disadvantage to their peers elsewhere in Europe.”

Galbraith concluded: “These fee and levy proposals add a significant burden at a very difficult time in the economic cycle and we want to see the FSA give a much more detailed justification for these increases.”