News analysis: Should brokers have formal qualifications?

Qualified for the job? Fiona Nicolson asks if there should be mandatory qualifications for insurance brokers.

Many professional careers require practitioners to deal with complex matters where their decisions could have a significant impact on someone’s life, home, business and finances – and insurance broking is no exception.

Yet insurance practitioners, unlike their counterparts in other professions, such as law and accountancy, are not required to prove their commitment to and ability to do the job through gaining qualifications – although some choose to do so.

But a sizeable number do not