Two-thirds of UK brokers don’t think the industry has responded well to the Covid-19 crisis

Two-thirds of UK brokers said that the profession has not reacted well to the Covid-19 pandemic as it did not ensure that consumers and businesses had adequate cover to navigate the crisis, said research by independent financial research agency FWD Research.

The research findings are from the firm’s first Insurance Brokers Pulse Point Tracker (PPT) – a coronavirus-focused industry confidence barometer. This is based on 150 telephone interviews across FWD’s Broking Now panel, conducted in May and early June.

Other results from the survey include:

• Nearly all of the brokers polled agreed that policy wordings need to be reviewed as a result of Covid-19.
• Almost all brokers said that business interruption (BI) insurance is important to their book of business and is increasingly critical across larger brokers.
• The majority confirmed that unoccupied premises wordings need an urgent review.
• Significantly more brokers are concerned about policy wordings from Lloyd’s of London and the London market compared to other markets.

However, brokers’ confidence in their trading future has increased as the pandemic has developed.

Simon Staplehurst, senior research director at FWD Research, said: “When it comes to [a] long-term outlook, there were a number of ongoing concerns over the success of some of their customer groups, particularly across some micro and small SMEs, [as well as concerns about] their own jobs, with a quarter of brokers feeling uncertain about job security. However, the survey finds only 1% of brokers have had to make redundancies and a third of brokerages have put staff on furlough.

“Business confidence for the long-term [is] focused more on business survival rather than anything else, particularly as brokers predict they could lose nearly a quarter of new business GWP this year.”