Richard Hobbs, Lansons

The party conference season began this week. Insurance practitioners do not normally need to bother too much about them. This year is different.

For the first time, the FSA is co-hosting a reception for delegates at all three of the main party conferences. Odd for an organisation that is about to disappear. Only it doesn’t really disappear; it splits into two. And that makes things interesting.

Through the autumn, a joint committee of both Houses of Parliament is scrutinising a draft Financial Services Bill, which splits the FSA and recasts the objectives of the two new regulators. It is the latter that is creating interest.

The extent to which competition can do the bidding of consumer protection policy is just one uncertainty the scrutiny committee must consider. So the conversation at the party conferences includes issues close to this industry’s interests this year.

Insurance companies sending public affairs teams to the conferences should be briefing them to say what you want to see in the new regulatory regime.

Richard Hobbs is director of Lanson