I raised quite a ruckus with my June 5 blog entry, when I asked: "Is the term 'independent agent' an oxymoron?" After all, I pointed out, you can't buy insurance from just any carrier when you enter an independent agency office–only from those insurers the agent represents.

Is that fact made clear to clients? In these times of full disclosure, shouldn't it be?

I was confronted with this conundrum in late April, in my interview with J. Robert Hunter, insurance director of the Consumer Federation of America. We had been talking about the controversy over producer compensation, when Mr. Hunter challenged "a far more fundamental conflict."

Recommended For You

Want to continue reading?
Become a Free PropertyCasualty360 Digital Reader

Your access to unlimited PropertyCasualty360 content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:

  • Breaking insurance news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
  • Weekly Insurance Speak podcast featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders
  • Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
  • Critical converage of the employee benefits and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, BenefitsPRO and ThinkAdvisor
NOT FOR REPRINT

© Touchpoint Markets, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more inforrmation visit Asset & Logo Licensing.