The Treasury is going to pocket up to £700,000 of brokers' money that built up under the Insurance Brokers Registration Council (IBRC), a spokeswoman admitted this week.
Officials from the Treasury took hold of the IBRC funds and files on Monday, when the 1977 act which formed the statutory body was repealed.
There was a surplus of more than £700,000 in the IBRC accounts, which the Treasury has earmarked to pay for the run-off. But there are no plans to distribute the money back to brokers once the final IBRC case has been resolved.
“The money is just government funds,” the spokeswoman said.
“We have effectively taken over the run-off from the IBRC and will use the money to pay for some of the cases that will arise in the future. But, once that is completed, we don't plan to divide it up”
Former IBRC councillor Simon Bolam said he expected there would be a healthy surplus after run-off has been completed, but said it could take years to complete.
He added that the IBRC anticipated the Treasury would have kept the money.
“In an ideal world, it would be nice to see the final surplus used for the benefit of the insurance community, especially the intermediary sector,” he said.
“But in the real world, that is unlikely to happen.”
The IBRC managed to reduce the surplus by about £200,000 after it stopped taking fees from broker members in January.
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