Consolidators mull over admin fee

Fellow consolidators are set to follow Bluefin’s example by introducing an administration charge to help cover spiralling regulation costs.

Following last week’s news in Insurance Times that Bluefin has introduced a mandatory £25-per-policy administration fee, CCV regional managing director for southern England David Perry said the Towergate sister company had considered a  similar charge. “It’s something that we have considered but at the moment decided not to do. We will come back to it as costs escalate.”

Oval chief executive Phillip Hodson said that while the company had no plans to introduce such a charge, it would be looked at as part of a wider review of budgets for next year.

Towergate chief executive Andy Homer confirmed that the consolidator had introduced its own charge, which had helped it to offset increased fees and levies.

The parliamentary all-party group on insurance and financial services began its inquiry into the increasing cost of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme last week.

Chairman Jonathan Evans, citing banking industry sources, said that the total cost of the payment protection insurance mis-selling compensation bill was likely to rise to £4bn.

Biba head of compliance and training Steve White pointed out that a substantial proportion of the final compensation bill would be shouldered by financial institutions themselves rather than the FSCS, which picks up the tab for insolvent companies.