Along the continuum of ethical duties to customers, insurance professionals fall somewhere between the extremes of "complete stranger" and "conservator." It is both a sliding scale and a slippery slope, especially when courts struggle with the decision whether to apply the broker's duty as a fiduciary one.

Fiduciary describes a relationship in which one person reposes trust and confidence in another to perform some important service, but that barely scratches the subject's surface. Not every trusting relationship is a fiduciary one. A fiduciary's special status imposes three main duties:

• Loyalty: Always put the client's best interest at least on an equal footing with one's own.

• Disclosure: Inform the client of all material facts that arise during the fiduciary relationship.

• Confidentiality: Maintain the client's private information in confidence, unless authorized by the client or required by law to disclose it.

But here's what a fiduciary relationship is not: It isn't an Über-standard of care in the performance of professional services. In procuring insurance coverage for a client, a broker who has a fiduciary relationship with the client is still held to the standard of care of a competent broker performing the same services in the same community.

A fiduciary does not guarantee that his or her services will protect against all possible loss. Lawyers, who usually are considered to be in fiduciary relationships with their clients, are still held to the professional standard of care in the community for attorneys who specialize in the particular service.