General insurance brokers

Visit our latest news section for information about insurance brokers that we have declared in default.

Here are some examples of areas of insurance mediation that may give rise to claims if an authorised firm cannot pay claims against it:

  • If the firm had not yet placed cover with an insurer before its date of default, the customer could be entitled to a return of premium, or payment of a claim if one was outstanding at that date.
  • If a firm places insufficient cover for its customer, or fails to tell the customer about a relevant exclusion in the contract, which causes the insurer to reject the claim.
  • Fraud, for example if premiums are inflated for the intermediary's own gain; or even fraudulent selling, where the customer is told they have cover but no insurer actually exists.
  • If the firm uses the services of a secondary intermediary to arrange cover for its customers, and the secondary intermediary becomes insolvent before passing premiums to an insurer. In this situation, all of the firm's customers may suffer if there is any shortfall in client monies. Customers may be able to receive compensation from FSCS for any financial loss incurred as a result of this.

If you think you may have a claim that we can help with, please contact us.

Limitations to the protection available

FSCS can only consider claims relating to policies arranged on or after 14 January 2005, which is the date when the protection of FSCS was extended to include customers of general insurance brokers. Firms must have been fully authorised by the FSA at the date the policy was arranged. You can check whether a firm is authorised by using the FSA's firmcheck service.

For the Scheme to be able to pay compensation we are required under our rules to declare a firm in default.

There are limits to the compensation FSCS can pay