She added that most risk managers feel “truly disappointed and let down” by the incidents of bid-rigging and incentive fee abuse exposed by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and other law enforcement agents. Some buyers, she added, are outraged by the scope of the problem, “because when everything started to happen we kept hearing it was an isolated case.”

While bid-rigging might in fact be the exception rather than the rule in doing business with brokers and carriers, she cited a more common concern–”the stretching of conflict of interest to what I would consider not only bad business practice but probably non-competitive business practice. That is illegal. The breadth of that is getting larger, and I think we haven't seen the end of it.”

Although Ms. Vinck said she has a “great relationship” with her broker, she added that insurance buyers are “seeing so much of this that we are disappointed in the industry as a whole.”

What's more, she said, the many brokers doing a good job have had a “great disservice” done to them by their less ethical colleagues.

However, she emphasized that the issue of conflicts of interest is not new to risk managers, who have complained over the years to deaf ears.

“Regulators didn't care,” she said. “Now all of a sudden you get somebody like [Eliot] Spitzer in there. He hasn't uncovered anything that wasn't common practice and accepted practice. Everybody knew about contingent commissions–there's nothing illegal about them. Is it a conflict of interest? Probably.”

Risk managers, however, are not off the hook, she added. Even though many complained about the issue, she said some blame has to be placed on buyers for accepting the status quo.

“They accepted it because that was the protocol,” she said. “It wasn't hidden–everybody knew it. We were supposed to make sure our brokers were disclosing to us. The problem was our brokers didn't disclose to us and the risk managers didn't scream loud enough–and shame on us.”

Her biggest question, she said, is if the carriers were paying the brokers, “how come the carriers are all silent? How come they haven't been dragged through the mud on this? They're the ones who instigated the whole thing. That's my primary source of frustration.”

Ms. Vinck said she believes brokers should only be paid by the insured, emphasizing: “I have no problem compensating my broker.”

On renewal, she anticipates a few changes. “I expect a refund,” she said, adding that she has no problem “taking that bucket of money and paying my broker more, if I feel my broker deserves it.”

In the future, she said, “I see tremendous change in the relationships within this triangle–the broker, insured and underwriter–I see it changing for the better.”

Brokers and carriers, however, have a “huge job” ahead when it comes to rebuilding relationships, she warned.

“We should be looking at the entire model of how we do everything in a different way,” she said. “But whatever it took to get this out is fine with me. We will be better as an industry going forward.”