Brokers hold steady as myths dissolve

April was as good an example as any of the enduring value of independent intermediaries, adding credence to the hackneyed cliches of some insurers of late that they really are a resilient bunch.

Ongoing wranglings with Norwich Union over Hill House Hammond and its intentions to quote other insurers' policyholders happy and entice them into its direct arm show that the idea has been met with great resistance.

But, this resistance is not only a client ownership issue between NU and the insurers involved. While, on one level, the resistance of some on the HHH insurer panel boils down to a bun fight over who gets the renewal rights, an underlying factor is that not all customers want to exchange professional face-to-face advice for the anglicised contrivances of an overseas call centre.

Brokers know the value of independence and, circumstances permitting, guard it to the bitter end - a fact that some that have sought to club groups of them together have underestimated. Yes, the month that was also saw the second change of tack by a network start-up almost exactly one month after that of Total Broker Solutions - and only four months after its inception. Camberford Law's Network Extra admitted that it had been hit by the "reality that brokers were unwilling to place 100% of their business through a network." It has been said before that many of the assumptions about the future of broking, particularly personal lines, are now being called into question as the broker's true value continues to transpire and rally in the face of scepticism.

The HHH saga is the most publicly played-out broker versus direct writer argument to date, with insurers doing open battle to win and retain policyholders.

And, although the end-result of this tussle will be interesting, it would be impossible to tell if they represented a public preference for one or the other.

As time rolls on, the stubborn continuation of independents challenges many assumptions about consumer choice. Direct writers thrive on volume and swift transactions, providing cost savings for a proportion of the market. But this will not suit all of the people all of the time - especially if their risk profiles are not straightforward.

Now is the time that, almost on a monthly basis, some of the idle assumptions of recent years are beginning to erode to reveal some of the base elements of the future market.