How authentic is disclosure argument?

Alex Peterkin and Toby Foster clearly cling to the hope that if you say something long and often enough it will become true.

I refer to your loaded article (News, 30 November) regarding commission disclosure. I don't know what the vested interest is of FSA Solutions, but I certainly know that of Marsh.

If they, with the other American-owned international brokers, had actually acted in this matter for reasons of altruism, ethics or even in response to client demand that would be one thing, but the reality is something altogether different as anyone involved in the industry and Eliot Spitzer knows only too well.

So please, folks, don't try to pretend you now hold the higher moral ground here; it is just so transparently inauthentic.

And what 'surveys of insurance buyers' are we talking about?

The contention that insurance buyers are desperate for compulsory commission disclosure is completely at odds with the opinions expressed by FSA chief executive John Tiner in his recent speeches, which suggest that the reverse is actually true.

He first offered this view in his speech at the Rendevous in Monte Carlo on12 September.

He said: "The fact which continues to surprise me, that buyers are not more demanding of their brokers about price transparency."

He expanded on it during his speech to the Insurance Institute of London on 2 October, when he made clear his comments were not directed at the typical SME buyer, but the sector of "sophisticated buyers looking to transfer significant risks in a market that they know and understand".

He said: "It would seem that disappointingly few buyers are exercising their right to request disclosure..." and "as I have said on previous occasions, I am not a little surprised by the lack of customer-power that is exercised in this market".

Come on IT, let's have some informed, intelligent reporting please - the facts are out there.

Rod Gibson

Group compliance manager

Alan Boswell Group