Editor’s letter - March 2013

The best word written in this month’s edition was ‘no’. It was shortly followed by the reasons why. The statement came from the likes of Aviva and LV in answer to the questions around if they were chartered and if they planned to become so. And I for one applaud them for engaging.

In her excellently crafted news analysis on pages 6-7, Caitlin Morrison sets out the findings of our exclusive survey into a range of issues around professionalism. The piece deals with the relationship of chartered status to professionalism, what insurers are actually doing for chartered brokers and what the future may hold.

I say excellent and crafted without reservation. It sets out all the viewpoints to guide brokers through the findings. Quite simply it is the most comprehensive reflection of insurer views on professionalism in today’s market. What it is not is polemic, opinionated or aggressive. Every voice deserves to be heard. The debate is too important for an unhinged or skewed diatribe. I urge you all to read the article through to draw your own conclusions.

Comprehensive as the findings are, we could never pretend for them to be complete. It is a shifting target. But what is disappointing is that a few insurers preferred to stay silent. You can read the list in the article but just as I applaud the likes of LV and Aviva loudly for engaging, so I must question those who have no opinion. For some, perhaps those providers dealing in niches where they feel the comparison would be unfair, I can understand the rationale. But for others it is hard to take them seriously when all they have to offer around what professionalism means is silence. And so the debate passes to you. It’s your forum, time to engage.