At last we are back with a new look insurance blog in the week that Black Rod smashed his way into the House of Lords with a new look Government that might actually put him out of a job if the Queen gets the parliamentary sack!
In a week that’s seen inflation, mortgage lending, and economic growth indicators higher than expectations, it’s almost possible to believe that we are coming out of recession… until you look around and speak to people the length and breadth of the country……
So what does the future hold for insurance under the new administration?
In a month where the UK Insurance regulator, the Financial Services Authority (‘the FSA’) have continued to show the results of its enforcement action through a series of arrests and bans for regulatory failings such as insider dealing, the FSA have given further insight into their ‘new’ intensive supervision culture and how it will be applied in practice in a series of press releases.
The problem is…. The majority party in the unholy alliance squatting in Whitehall has got it in big time for the FSA and nobody in Parliament is really listening to the success stories coming out of Canary Wharf. In fact it’s even part of the Conservative Manifesto to replace it….
Hmm….. probably due to intensive Insurance Brokers Lobbying!
Now that Cameron and Osborne are in power though the question is….Replace it with What? Remember GISC and all the other predecessors.
The reality of the task and the size of the behemoth would take an eternity to dismantle and can only really be chunked away at. Which is precisely what the Tories intend to do with the FSA.
Little by little they will disarm it and shift the jobs to civil servants and away from the ex-insurance company employees, who all landed soft jobs there at it’s creation.
This will help to placate Corporal Clegg whose Party is firmly against the destruction of the FSA.
They’ve already started, by the way!
The Financial Reform Bill outlined in the Queen’s speech opening of Parliament this week indicates in line with the recent treasury counterpart in the USA, announced that all macro economic regulation functions will be handed over to the Bank of England.
Hidden deep down inside the depths of the Con Dem Nation agreement, Insurance Blogger has found that the alliance have agreed to transfer the part of the FSA that deals with Fraud and Serious Financial crime, to a specialist new team comprised of elements of the Police Serious Fraud Office and the Office of Fair Trading.
So don’t worry Taxpayers, the 6 billion pounds of cuts necessary to keep us afloat can probably be made at the FSA and keep our front-line services intact. Hopefully they’ll slash the registration fees as well and allow the British People a more diverse Insurance Market and some real competition!