Conflicts of interest

Insurers should not own independent brokers, brokers should not own insurers or underwriters and aggregators should be truly independent, argues Tony Cornell

There were two interesting developments over the last few weeks: one was the purchase by Standard Life of an IFA and the other was the Parliamentary select committee review of energy price comparison sites. 

The purchase by Standard Life again raises the question of conflicts of interest and vertical integration in the insurance market. Within general insurance, we have insurers owning brokers, brokers owning insurers, brokers managing underwriting agencies and brokers and insurers owning