Thinking of joining us?

The process is of course subject to the speed of your responses and the FCA in reviewing each application on their own merits. The process can be as fast as a few days and as slow as a few months depending on the complexity of the application. We're used to very quick turnarounds and a responsive team in the FCA. Our current average turnaround time is 5 weeks.

We have permission for most types of insurance, including non-investment life insurance. We can also do ‘advised’ sales and credit broking.

Typically, from a standing start it will take at least a few months. The bit that takes longest is getting an insurer on board for capacity and technical integration into a complex insurance ecosystem.

A keynote at Broker Expo 2022 said it costs £200-300k and takes around 12-16 months to become directly authorised. It doesn’t make sense for startups, particularly to go this route immediately.

Yes, and no. Yes, plenty of other brokers offer appointed representative status, but you’ll struggle to find another which can compete with our compliance led eco-system, technology platform, connections, insurance experience and friendly commercial approach.

We have relationships with personal-lines, commercial, and Lloyd’s of London underwriters. IRL is also a Lloyd’s broker. 

In layman’s terms, managing general agent is a bit like a mini insurance business. An insurer delegates authority to enter into insurance contracts, so the MGA acts on the insurer’s behalf, within strict parameters.

You aren’t expected to be experts out of the box, but we will help up-skill you and issue you with training to get up to speed. We’re experts and ensure you have everything you need whilst taking ownership for oversight, performance and reporting to the FCA. 

IRL communicates with the FCA, not you. However, it is a regulated business, so there are policies and procedures (we’ll give you templates and training) that need to be followed.

Yes. See this newsflash from Insurtech UK.

IRL does all the FCA reporting. We ask you to complete an attestation which provides us with the complete overview of the performance of your business, from business written to complaints, handling of complaints, claims performance, product performance and so on. Each attestation is designed to be fit for purpose for each of our AR's as different business lines often require different data. Additionally, you'll have other responsibilities throughout the trading year - e'll share all when you make contact. We do keep it effortless and straightforward. 

• Due diligence: prior to onboarding.

• Onboarding: to ensure you have all the right policies, procedures and skills in place.

• Pre go-live checks: ensuring the customer journey is compliant. 

• Ongoing: monthly attestation, quarterly reviews in more detail, annual review (all things the FCA requires of us).

• Spot checks: and mystery shopper checks, ad-hoc.

• Approval for all ‘financial promotions’ - i.e. marketing of insurance services.

It is likely you, and maybe one other in your firm, would be a CF1 - the FCA terminology for Customer Function 1 - being responsible for ensuring customers are treated fairly. We will support you with online training to keep up to date, with things like anti-bribery and how to deal with complaints in a regulated business. This role is done by a competent, diligent person but doesn’t necessarily need to be somebody with prior insurance experience.

You’ll put standard wording on all pages and adverts - we’ll advise you of this. You’ll also need to consider the consumer duty regulations. Again, we’ll help with this.

In addition to our regular reporting schedule, we recommend you set up monthly recurring meetings, with a standing agenda. This ensures you’re regularly reviewing things like customer feedback (do they keep asking the same question? if so, update the website), cancellation rate, checking the system is sending documentation correctly, etc.