There is a light at the end of the tunnel over the long-running saga of general insurance regulation. If Andrew Paddick fails to attract a minimum 1,000 members by May 1 to his alternative regulatory body to the General Insurance Standards Council (GISC), then he will call it a day.
Paddick is a big enough man to swallow his pride, and, after all, the Institute of Insurance Brokers is not a charity. It would be rather ironic to set up a regulatory regime on the grounds that the alternative is not good enough, when your own is unable to reach critical mass.
But news that the GISC has set a September 1 deadline for implementing its monopolistic rule
F 42, gives Paddick just the breathing space he has been desperately fighting for. Brokers no longer face an either/or choice when the Insurance Brokers Registration Council is repealed on April 30. If they choose to join Paddick, there is no immediate sanction of having their agencies cancelled by insurers.
Maybe this is why some insurers are “jumping the gun”, according to Paddick, by threatening to cancel agencies of non-GISC members in April.
