'People shouldn’t need to be a lawyer to get their head around a policy'

Why is the FSA, which this week dished out a record fine to credit card insurer Card Protection Plan, so hung up on cracking down on low-cost insurance products?

Well, let’s take my 75-year-old mum’s car insurance policy as an example of one of the issues with which the regulator is concerned. The legal expenses part was too complex, it didn’t explain what would happen in the event of a claim and was buried in the middle of the documentation. She signed up only because she had known the broker for years.

Legal expenses can be a useful product but, in this instance, it needed to be far more transparent. People shouldn’t need to be a lawyer to get their head around a policy.

Many insurers and brokers are adopting professionalism to raise standards. At the very heart of this should be a mission to speak and write in plain English when they deal with their customers. Who knows, perhaps they might even win over customers if they market their products as user friendly?

More acquisitions for Towergate

Towergate continues on its relentless mission to make acquisitions, this week snapping up more business from independent brokers. Despite this, the broking revenues are not growing. That’s worrying when you’ve got a billion pounds worth of debt hanging around your neck. The nine-month results come out on Tuesday and, if there’s no improvement, chief executive Mark Hodges, who’s been in the job for a year, will face some tough questions.