How Independent is your broker...really?

Happy New Year to all our customers and friends.

That time of year again - reviewing business for 2007 and wondering where it will all come from in 2008.

In January last year I published details of where the mortgage business went to in 2006. See this post. This year, I've done the same exercise and expanded on it.

In 2007, we placed mortgage business with six lenders and no one lender got more than 32% of our overall mortgage business. In the same year, we placed life/pension/investment business with eight companies and no one company got more than 44% of our life/pension/investment business.

While many brokers will claim independence, the acid test is how many can confirm that they actually placed business with fourteen different financial institutions on behalf of clients in a business year? Be wary of so-called brokers who only place business with two or three companies - you've got to ask why.