FSA questionnaire costs £280,000

More than £280,000 of the £800,000 eaten up by the Financial Services Authority for its review of commission disclosure was spent on a questionnaire sent to brokers.

As revealed by Insurance Times three weeks ago, the authority spent £797,311.47 between January 2007 and March this year on its review into whether brokers should disclose their commission earnings to commercial clients.

In a breakdown of the costs, Insurance Times can now reveal that £282,936.69 went to CRA International when the authority commissioned it in 2007 to carry out cost benefit and market failure analyses.

The CRA study judged that the cost of forced disclosure would outweigh the benefits, and led to further reviews.

At the time brokers called the questionnaire “complicated” and “impossible to complete”.

Other costs released to Insurance Times under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that authority staff costs for time spent on the review totalled £439,703.53.

Finally, more than £74,000 went on independent customer research carried out by IFF Research.