Business Services Industry
Spitzer fallout: Brokers optional? Insurance probe could hasten shift to direct selling, hurt Aon, others.(News)(Eliot Spitzer)(Aon Corp.)
Crain's Chicago Business, November, 2004 by Daniels, Steve
Byline: STEVE DANIELS With New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's investigation questioning the honesty and fundamental business practices of the insurance brokerage industry, including Chicago-based Aon Corp., a simple question arises: Do consumers and businesses really need costly middlemen to help them buy insurance? Other middlemen, notably travel agents and computer resellers, have been mowed down in recent years as the Internet and other direct- buying channels flood the market with information, making comparison shopping far easier and bringing prices down.
Those forces are already strongly felt in consumer insurance, where Internet shopping, though a tiny percentage of personal lines insurance sales, can dictate pricing for most of a market. The...
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