It's a lazy assumption that when a "middleman" is getting a commission then the result will be a more expensive premium.

Following loss of a loved one is a good time for most professional sales people to stay away from the bereaved family. Except for the life insurance salesman, who is there to deliver.

A friend of mine recently sent her policy into BigCo for a change of policy owner. Her experience tells us just how far life insurers - even one that is arguably amongst the best - have to come to measure up to the standards we see in banking. I can't tell you how much it hurts to say that, as banks haven't exactly covered themselves in glory recently.

When incomes are shrinking clients with indemnity policies may quickly find that their income protection cover is miles above their pre-disability earnings.

I remember the first time I heard a real, true to life claims story... there I was, dreading one of those awful staff meetings at one of my early jobs and we were asked for examples of how life insurance worked.

There are many changes afoot in our industry, most of which will land - after so many years in the making - this year. However, spare a thought for the insurance broker in the US.

Cases of non-disclosure which initially sound breathtaking are often genuinely innocent - because clients have been told "you don't have a problem" by health professionals, and therefore don't think they need to tell you. A proposed law change probably won't help much.

The surprising thing about the divergence between Sovereign's upfront life insurance offer and Fidelity's spread offer is not that they are moving in different directions - it's that for so long some sort of unspoken consensus has existed about the life insurance industry.

A company I was speaking to the other day were proudly showing off an analysis tool which they felt ‘gives us an advice process'. But we've all seen clever tools for identifying a need and working out how much cover is required.

This is a big part of an advice process, but it's the easy part and therefore doesn't even cover most of what is required.

The top five questions life advisers should be asking their insurers about compliance:

Since you can insure your pets, your hands and even the weather, you might well ask if there is anything left to insure. Well, perhaps not, but there are plenty of things that are not insured very well, and maybe we should set about improving those.

There is a lot of focus on what represents good process going on out there now. Education is going to be much under the spotlight, as everyone worries about how they can demonstrate "reasonable skill, care, and diligence".

After ‘how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?', one of the stranger questions I hear is ‘will we be allowed to not recommend a product when regulation comes in?'

There is a lot of hot air written about how all sorts of things will become free (or a lot cheaper) as many services move to the internet.

Over in the UK there is a bit of debate going on about whether commission is a defensible form of remuneration.