Regulation: Abiding by the rules

There has been a number of different regulators over the years - Association of British Insurers (ABI) Code, Insurance Brokers Regulation Council (IBRC), General Insurance Standards Council (GISC) and, of course, the Financial Services Authority (FSA).

Each regime has sought to leave an imprint and what is really telling is the growing size of the rule books. ABI Code was two pages but that still caused problems, GISC Rules ran to 44 pages and the pages of the FSA Handbook, if stacked, would