Who’s that knocking at your door?

A word from our Head of Compliance, Emma Reynolds

The end of the calendar year is an excellent time to reflect on how your business is positioned for success in 2010. But have you featured compliance in your plans?

In 2009 Broker Network Members have seen more contact with the FSA than ever before - more TCF telephone assessments, more TCF road shows, more pro-active queries on the RMAR and crucially, more on-site visits. A clear message has been delivered in 2009. Whatever your opinion of how the FSA have handled the recent banking crisis, General Insurance intermediaries will not be left alone whilst our financial services colleagues are under the spotlight.

After five years of regulation the FSA will be quick to lose patience with those who do not understand their accountabilities and obligations under the regulatory regime. Time is running out for those who have not taken the opportunity to get a strong and robust compliance regime in place in their business. Our most recent wave of feedback from Broker Network Members indicates a particular emphasis on senior accountability – whilst structure and organisation is encouraged,
a wholesale delegation of compliance to either one director or manager or an external compliance consultant will not be satisfactory.

The Broker Network compliance team and the service it delivers has been over ten years in the making. One of our biggest strengths is that we have the experiences of all our Members to draw upon and a team of 16 people to work on how best to use it to help others. Our Members pro-actively share their experiences of the FSA with each other both informally and more formally at our biannual Regional Meetings and from these experiences, our compliance team can help identify trends in FSA feedback to develop further tools and guidance. Our portfolio never stops evolving and our aim is that through the support of the compliance team Broker Network Members will never feel that they face interaction with the FSA alone.

The compliance area of our extranet website is the most visited by our Members with over 1000 visits and 800 document downloads a month. There is a wide range of templates and guidance documents available and with the help of both this and the personal advice we offer, we can help Members sleep a little easier. So when the FSA do come knocking – you’ll be set up for success.

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