NIBA has received the eagerly awaited report by independent reviewer, Cameron Ralph Khoury, on the Insurance Brokers Code of Practice (the Code). One strong message from the report: step up standards, transparency and accountability – or face the prospect of heavier external regulation.
“Overall, we found that the sector, led by NIBA needs to respond to stakeholder concerns through an upgraded, rewritten Code,” said the report.
The report said the profession is built on specialised knowledge and trusted relationships and that to maintain these in the much more testing and sceptical environment that exists today, will require more transparency and more “proof of trust”.
The report concluded that the profession faces significant challenges to its reputation and its self-regulation and that NIBA must respond in a substantive way to stakeholder concerns in the next version of the Code.
It paints a picture of a sector operating in a rapidly changing environment – from shifting consumer expectations and climate-related risk to spiralling repair costs and growing regulatory and media scrutiny – and finds that the current Code is no longer sufficient to sustain community trust.
NIBA has welcomed the review as a key milestone in the Code review process and as a test of the profession’s commitment to meaningful self-regulation, with the board now weighing its formal response.
