Almost 40 brokers have signed a letter to Indepen-dent Insurance's provisional liquidator Pricewaterhouse-Coopers (PWC), refusing to pay back commission demanded by the firm.
The letter was sent to PWC last Friday (26 October) by the Creditors of Independent Insurance Group (CIIG).
Class Law partner Stephen Alexander told brokers not to return their commission because their contracts with Independent were invalid.
"In our view, Independent had misrepresented its financial position to brokers and customers," Alexander said.
"Independent was in breach of those contracts. To fight that, the liquidator would have to prove Inde-pendent was run properly," he argued in the letter.
Young said the cost would go down if more brokers were interested getting involved in a special CIIG sub-group on broker issues. "We're not being confrontational, we'd like to work with the liquidators, but we're looking to protect the brokers' position," he said.
British Insurance Brokers' Association (Biba) chief executive Mike Williams urged brokers to take group action.
"The sensible thing is to look at a collective approach, but Biba doesn't have a bottomless pit of money with which it can protect every broker," he said.
PWC liquidator Dan Schwarzmann said he was willing to consider brokers' arguments.
