Zurich offers FSA regulation support package

Zurich Financial Services has launched a support package to help brokers comply with Financial Services Authority regulation and, speaking at the Professional Broking roadshow, Mike Chester, compliance manager at Zurich, gave brokers a quick guide to compliance. Chester pointed out that brokers would have to state which insurers' products they can provide as well as passing on insurers' policy summaries.

He also pointed out that composite brokers whose life products are already regulated by the FSA will have to ensure that their whole business is compliant.

Chester said: "It is not possible to be both authorised and exempt. If you are authorised for one part of your business, you will have to be authorised for the other, whether you belong to an appointed representative network or not.

"If you are currently authorised and wish to expand it should be easy - you just apply for a variation or extension of your current premium. The alternative is to divide your company into two legal entities."

Chester said he expected brokers to rise to the challenge posed by FSA regulation. He said: "Commentators were predicting consolidation and the rise of the AR, but as details of FSA regulation become better understood, there seems to be more options. We're not looking at very different distribution."