Aon, Willis, Jardine Lloyd Thompson and Alexander Forbes have invested £100,000 to develop an interactive training programme.

The idea is that the brokers' staff will be able to study online to comply with training and competence rules of the General Insurance Standards Council (GISC).

The website will also be linked to the rest of the insurance market through the Chartered Insurance Institute's (CII) homepage.

A CII spokesman said: "The motivation for the development of this training aid was in part the brokers' shared desire to raise levels of staff awareness and knowledge within their own organisations.

"Additionally, they and the CII recognised that an initiative of this sort would align with the latter's aim of developing a compliance and competency strategy for the industry as a whole."

The programme was created by Unicorn Training, the CII's e-learning software development partner.

It covers data protection, law of agency, GISC, money laundering, insurance principles, and the insurance environment.

The site will be linked to a continuing professional development log, which automatically records the amount of time spent on tutorials.

There is also an assessment system, which allows users to test their technical knowledge.

Unicorn Training chief executive Peter Phillips said: "Members of the London Market have got together in a consortium.

"They are following GISC requirements and this is one way of doing it."

CII director-general Dr Sandy Scott said: "We are excited at the prospect of further collaborative efforts that will help to raise industry standards and increase the effectiveness and competitiveness of the UK insurance industry."