“Ultimately, retail clients are concerned about performance and getting the job done in what is still a very difficult marketplace, rather than the ownership of any particular concern,” he said.

Mr. Cooke will soon be joining Marsh Inc. to take up the newly formed post of president and CEO of the companys wholesale brokerage and underwriting management group. (See related story, page 29.)

“As an independent insurance wholesaler, our clients, who are independent insurance agents, like dealing with somebody who is neutral and gives unbiased recommendations and is not supporting a competitor,” said Peter Taffae, president and CEO of e-perils.com Insurance Services, an independent wholesale broker in Santa Monica, Calif.

Some agents fear that a retailer will obtain business through its wholesale subsidiarys connections and dont want to financially support their competitors, i.e., the retail parents of wholesalers, he said.

Joseph Timmons, president of Midwestern General Agency, a Kansas City, Mo.-based wholesale broker, said the issue of a conflict of interest is more perception than reality and would not be the general practice of reputable retailers.

It would be very unethical for retailers to use their wholesale arms as a source of business, he said, noting that, as a result, strong firewalls exist between retailers and their wholesale units.

Mr. Timmons said, in general, his agent and broker clients do not seek out his agency because they have “an aversion to the national wholesalers that are owned by retailers.”

“Its usually because weve got a particular expertise in a certain area,” he said, adding that wholesalers with retail parents also will have expertise in given classes of business.

One of the biggest problems facing wholesalers is retaining good producers, he said. “With the marketplace being what it is right now, its very tempting for employees of successful wholesale brokers to jump ship and set up with another firm or set up their own firm,” he added.

While keeping good people has always been an issue for wholesalers, its even more of a problem in the current market, he said.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Edition, April 28, 2003. Copyright 2003 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved. Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.