Around 50% of brokers believe their training programmes are deficient in one way or another according to research carried out by the UK insurance training company Searchlight Solutions.

Although 97% of respondents believed they understood how the FSA's T&C stipulations impact on their staff, 20% admitted to not having an annual competency assessment process in place, and more than 10% lacked a training plan in place for all members of staff.

Respondents also confessed to a lack of confidence in the competence of their customer-facing staff. 10% could not confirm that all staff advising clients had an adequate technical knowledge of the main insurance products in which they dealt, and a similar number doubted their employee's grasp of core insurance principles, and equally their managers and supervisors' ability to oversee work and assess competence.

Searchlight managing director Ian Jerrum said: "It is more than a little alarming that – one year on from the undertakings made in their applications – brokers still admit to being under-prepared for the FSA's supervision of T&C.

"A key problem area seems to be competency assessment, with one in five having no annual assessment procedure in place and one in four uncertain as to how to assess the competencies required for each job role.

"I would predict that the FSA will be taking a close look at broker's T&C provisions within the next six to twelve months; so time is fast running out for brokers to get these issues right."

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