Barry's blog: Get off the fence

‘Benefit cheats’ really bug me. People who want to gain from whatever’s going but won’t contribute - they simply pass the burden on to those that recognise that there is always a cost to weigh against benefit received. Whilst that angst seems to be a popular stance when it comes to considering those that insist on milking the State system, the same credo applies in business – our business at that.

Whilst I have a vested interest in the future prosperity of the IIB, I have almost a stronger interest in the survival and prosperity of the insurance broking fraternity faced as it is with obscene fees and a regulator (Hector Sants) who thinks that all that are regulated by the FSA should, in future, be frightened.

The only way to combat unfair regulation, where anyone involved in the business of insurance or assurance or banking are lumped together in one amorphous mass, is to lobby, fight and be heard. For those of us who believe that fighting one’s corner is and can be meaningful and procure favourable results, we know that a lone voice is often not heard. The professional trade association, like IIB or, indeed, Biba, is not a lone voice - it is the combination of hundreds if not thousands of voices.

To come back to my point about benefit cheats, there are still hundreds if not thousands of insurance broking firms who don’t join in; who don’t or won’t join a trade association. They sit on the fence and take the benefits of hard won changes in regulation or legislation without contributing.

The daft thing about being a ‘freeloader’ (I’d prefer to call them that rather than benefit cheats!) is that they don’t see the benefits for the trees. Not only has a trade association member got experts lobbying and protecting their interests in the corridors of power (wherever they may be) but also a member receives a sensible, considered distillation of the hundreds of pages of white, green and pink paper that emanates from those corridors - some of which will have a direct impact on the broking business itself.

For the freeloader, presumably, they crib the benefits or take the time out to read, mark, learn and digest these official papers - surely time is money so, if the annual subscription fee is the barrier to joining, doing a simple piece of maths will demonstrate that the benefits do outweigh the actual monetary cost alone.

We have seen recently in this country the effect of some BA employees seeking strike action and the immediate involvement of government in trying to soften the impact of such proposed action. Over the past few decades there have been umpteen similar issues. No I’m not mooting, nor suggesting, such draconian action for our industry, merely trying to demonstrate that if the trade associations had more members - representing a really significant majority of trading insurance brokers - they would have more to invest in real terms to fight the insurance broker’s corner as well as being able to awaken interest from the ‘powers that be’ in the plight of brokers who are being treated unfairly.

So you freeloaders out there, join up now and make government, regulator and EU Commissioners know that the efforts of IIB, or Biba, or both are truly representative of the insurance broking business. So, BOO to freeloaders! Get off the fence!

To paraphrase John F. Kennedy : “think not of what your industry can do for you: think of what you can do for your industry!”

Barry Fehler is a director of IIB, chairman of Broker Direct and deputy chairman of South Essex Insurance Brokers.