Clients are demanding more services from their brokers, according to the latest report by the Risk and Insurance Management Society (RIMS) and Advisen Ltd.

The findings of the Broker Services and Remuneration Study, which was officially released at the RIMS 2008 conference in San Diego on Monday, reveal that insurance buyers want to see brokers change the services they offer and the way brokers are compensated.

The report, which is part of the 2008 RIMS Benchmark Survey, also shows that, for the insurance industry's largest programmes, buyers are spending most of their money on fees instead of commissions.

"The big thing that I have to take away is that there are services that risk managers want that they do not believe they get from their brokers," said Thomas Ruggieri, CEO of Advisen.

"They include more related services, loss and safety and servicing throughout the year, and that is what comes out loud and clear — that risk managers are willing to pay for these services."

These services range from captive services and feasibility to risk financing and safety programmes, and even enterprise risk analysts, said Mr. Ruggieri.

"They are some of the topics that they feel they are not being offered by their brokers in large numbers," he said. "Marsh and Aon have those services somewhere, but others do not, or to a lesser degree."

The survey is the first comprehensive one of its kind into the relationship between commercial insurance buyers and brokers since the sector tumult of 2004-05.

It reports that insurance buyers are calling for a wider array of service options having benefited from the dynamics of a soft market in which brokers have shifted the basis of competition to offerings of new services and aggressive pricing models. The study covers the current state of the brokerage market to allow risk managers to benchmark broker costs and services and identifies a number of key trends affecting broker pricing models and new service offerings.

Buyers were surveyed about how their brokers are compensated, how much their brokers receive for their services and what types of services their brokers provide.

The majority of respondents agreed that brokers are moving from commissions to fee-based compensation and noted a trend towards supplementing dwindling commission income with added services.