RF3 notes – Part 10
10. Insurance mediation
You may deal with a variety of insurance contracts such as life policies, after-the-event legal expenses policies, unoccupied property insurance, restrictive covenant and defective title indemnity policies. As the Financial Services Authority (FSA) regulates most contracts of insurance, you will need to consider whether you can carry out insurance mediation activities.
Insurance mediation is the term used to describe the financial services activities which arise in respect of insurance contracts. You will be carrying out an insurance mediation activity if you
- deal as an agent in contracts of insurance;
- arrange, or make arrangements with a view to a person entering into, a contract of insurance;
- assist in the administration and performance of a contract of insurance;
- advise on the merits of buying or selling a contract of insurance; or
- agree to carry out any of the above.
Firms working from within the designated professional body (DPB) regime, which will be the vast majority of firms, will be able to carry out insurance mediation activities, provided they can satisfy the basic conditions in the Solicitors' Financial Services (Scope) Rules 2001.
All firms carrying out insurance mediation activities, (whether they are regulated by the FSA or not), must be included in the FSA Register and appoint a compliance officer. We will ensure that firms regulated by us, under the DPB regime, will
- comply with this requirement if they advise us that they are carrying on insurance mediation, and
- provide us with details of the firm's compliance officer.
Here, we are asking firms to confirm whether they are carrying out insurance mediation activities.
The EPF register can be found at www.fsa.gov.uk. To search for firms on this register, follow the link to the FSA register and then click on the tab named "EPF Search".
FSA compliance officer
Please tick the box if you are nominated as the compliance officer for your firm. The compliance officer is the individual within the management structure of the firm who is responsible for ensuring compliance with the Solicitors' Financial Services (Scope) Rules 2001 and the Solicitors' Financial Services (Conduct of Business) Rules 2001. The compliance officer need not be a partner/director or a solicitor, but ought to be someone with sufficient seniority within the management structure, such as the practice manager.