After being extolled into "shaking it up", at the CII conference in Birmingham, (27 September, Conference Times) how did we do?
My overall impression is one of having undergone a course of psychiatric treatment on how to be a nice guy without first turning the question and asking: why don't the public trust us?
It was the same with regulation. The FSA explained all about how it is going to regulate us. The only problem is that it doesn't understand what it is regulating, because it doesn't have a definition of insurance and appears to think the Treasury is going to give it one.
I must also express disappointment on our failure to bite the bullet. An examples of this was during the session on "An issue of trust".
In reply to the question "Can the panel explain why there has never been a second-hand market in unit-linked policies?" came answer: "That is a very good question. I suggest we go away and think about it very carefully."
Another example was during the session on "I'm a name not a number". It became apparent when discussing transparency as a means of regulation, we have failed to take into account this year's Reith lecture in which Professor O'Neill argued that trust is the first casualty of the cult of transparency, thus illustrating the difference between knowing and understanding and the need for balance.
John Lynch
Insurance Advisory Service
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