Who pays InsuranceFX, and on what basis?
Providers pay us under written agreements. Your firm pays InsuranceFX nothing for blind quotes, cost reviews or rate checks.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Who pays us | The FX or payment provider your firm chooses, under a signed agreement |
| Which legal entity receives it | Introvisory Ltd, of which InsuranceFX is a trading name |
| On what basis | A share of the markup the provider earns on your conversions, a fixed fee when your firm is onboarded, or both. We tell you which applies to each shortlisted provider before you choose |
| When | A share of markup is paid periodically in arrears and only while your firm converts with that provider. A fixed fee is paid once, after onboarding |
| What your firm pays InsuranceFX | Nothing. Blind quotes, cost reviews and rate checks are free to your firm |
| How it shows in your rate | It is inside the rate the provider quotes, not a separate line on your statement |
| How to see our share | Ask us. Before you choose, we tell you in writing the basis on which each shortlisted provider would pay us |
| What a referral partner receives | If a captive manager, Lloyd's broker or reinsurance broker referred you, it may receive part of our payment. We tell you who, on what basis and roughly how much before any introduction to a provider |
| Who pays the referral partner | InsuranceFX, out of what we receive. Not your firm |
Does an introducer's fee come out of my exchange rate?
It comes out of the provider's margin, and that margin is inside your rate. So the number to judge is your all-in markup to mid. It is the number every blind quote shows and every cost review measures.
A provider pays an introducer from what it earns on your conversions. In principle a provider could widen its markup to cover that payment, so compare the all-in rate you would get against the market mid at that moment, whoever introduced you. On a blind quote several providers price the same requirement in the same window, which is a practical check on any one of them padding its price.
Illustration only, with assumed figures that are not our terms. On a $1,000,000 premium conversion at an all-in markup of 20 basis points, the provider's margin is about $2,000. If that provider shared a quarter of its margin with its introducer, $500 of the $2,000 would reach the introducer. Your cost is still 20 basis points, and 20 basis points is the number to compare with other quotes and with what you pay today.
If you would rather compare with a provider's direct pricing, ask it. We would expect a provider's rate through InsuranceFX to stand up against what it would offer your firm directly, and we want to hear if it does not.
Why do you show us every quote, even ones that would pay you less?
Because a comparison with gaps in it is no use to you, and because the reason we suggest a provider has to stand up on its own.
Your quote table includes every price we received, ranked by all-in cost. Where we suggest one provider over another, we write down why in terms of your requirement: markup, charges, cut-offs, payment reach for your claim currencies, experience of insurance flows, safeguarding and onboarding time. That record is kept separately from what each provider would pay us, and you can ask to see it.
Why are the cost review and blind quotes free?
Because providers pay us when a firm chooses to convert with one of them, so the work before that point is how we earn the chance to be useful.
There is no obligation after a quote or a review. A cost review that shows your current bank is pricing fairly is a perfectly good outcome, and we will say so. Ask for a cost review or request a blind quote.
Do referral partners get paid for introducing us?
They may be. If a captive manager, Lloyd's broker or reinsurance broker referred you and receives part of our payment, we tell you before any introduction to a provider.
Captive managers, Lloyd's brokers and reinsurance brokers can refer their clients to us for blind quotes and cost reviews. Any payment to a partner comes out of what InsuranceFX receives, not from your firm, and it does not change the quotes you see. How referrals work is on our refer a client page.
For brokers there is a further point. A referral fee can raise conflicts of interest and inducements questions under the insurance distribution rules, so a broker that refers clients to us needs its own compliance view on whether and how it can be paid. We tell the client about any payment, and we expect the broker to disclose it under its own rules as well.
How does InsuranceFX manage conflicts of interest?
By writing them down, keeping our reasons for suggesting a provider separate from what it pays, and showing you every price we were given.
- A conflicts register covering each provider relationship, each referral partner and anything else that could influence a suggestion, reviewed every quarter.
- Reasons for every suggestion recorded before payment terms are considered, and kept apart from commission records.
- Every quote received shown to you, including those from providers that would pay us less or nothing.
- No provider can pay to be shown first or to be included in a quote request.
- Each provider's FCA status and safeguarding rechecked every year on the same basis, whatever its terms with us.
- Any payment to a referral partner disclosed to you before any introduction to a provider.
- Complaints about our service handled under our complaints procedure.
Are you tied to one FX provider, and do you cover every provider in the market?
InsuranceFX is not owned by any FX or payment provider. But we are paid by providers, and our panel is the set we have agreements with and have checked. That is smaller than every firm offering FX to insurance businesses.
If a provider you use or are considering is not on our panel, tell us and we will say plainly whether we can include it in a blind quote, and if not, why not. You can always set your current bank's rate beside the blind quotes. A cost review does exactly that from your statements.
What should a finance director or compliance officer take from this page?
That you can ask us to confirm in writing, before you choose a provider, who pays us, on what basis, roughly how much in your case and what any referral partner receives.
A finance director can then compare all-in rates knowing our payment sits inside them. A broker's or MGA's compliance officer can record the arrangement for its own conflicts and inducements checks. Introductions are made through Introvisory Ltd for professional clients only, and our regulatory status is set out on important information. The whole process is on how InsuranceFX works.
What we commit to. We tell you who pays us and on what basis before you choose a provider. We show you every quote we receive. We record why we suggest a provider separately from what it pays us. We never hold your money, make payments, send payment details or tell you which product to use.