Ex-Bluefin boss says FCA fine was “unfair”

Former Bluefin chief executive Robert Organ has said the FCA was unfair to slap the broker with a £4m fine last year.

The fine was imposed for how the broker was accused between 2011-2014 of promoting the products of then-owners AXA on customers, at the expense of better deals with rival insurers.

Organ, Bluefin’s chief finance officer between 2011 and 2013, said AXA’s purchase of Bluefin would not have made a difference to brokers selling to customers.

“Knowing the brokers across the UK in Bluefin, they were doing the right thing for their clients,” said Organ.

“The behaviours and intention of the brokers across Bluefin were and continue to be spot on.”

Strict processes

On handing Bluefin the fine in December 2017, the FCA said that it failed to implement ‘adequate systems and controls’ to properly assert its independence from AXA.

In one example presented within the FCA report, a broker placed business with AXA instead of another insurer which had said verbally it would do the renewal £45K cheaper.

But Organ, who would go on to become chief executive of Bluefin in 2015 following a stint as AXA’s finance director, said the FCA didn’t give enough consideration to the fact that proportionately, AXA’s share of Bluefin’s GWP did not increase during its period of ownership.

He added: “It just didn’t feel like at the time that the AXA-ownership was an issue, and at the coalface the brokers were doing the right thing by the client.

“There were no incentives for anyone to do anything other than the right thing. There were strict processes and controls in place around what to do, and AXA was treated no different to anyone else – not better not worse.

“It was all very balanced and felt like a non-issue to a lot of people in the broking community.”

Conflict of interest

Since the FCA began investigating AXA’s ownership of Bluefin, the broker has been sold to Marsh, and no major insurers have since purchased a broker.

Organ says he believes the FCA was opposed to insurer-owned brokers at the time and wanted to use Bluefin to make an example of what could arise from the potential conflict of interest.

“The FCA were very clear at that time of managing great corporate conflicts, and they wanted to get that message out there,” he added. “No insurers have since bought any of the big consolidators, so maybe the message got across.”

 “At a higher level there were things that the FCA had concerns about, but I don’t think that was at a client level, and I don’t think there was client detriment at all.”

Organ is now at Tasker Group, where he has been chief executive since August 2017.