Last Updated on October 5, 2026
Search for business insurance help and the results mix three different jobs as if they were one: insurance brokers, independent financial advisers and comparison sites. They hold different FCA permissions, earn differently, and leave you in very different positions at claim time. This guide separates them so you can choose on purpose. Whito is not FCA authorised and this is not advice; it is a map of who does what.
What an insurance broker does
A broker advises on insurance and arranges it: asks about your business, identifies the risks, places cover with insurers, handles mid-term changes, and acts for you when a claim goes wrong. Brokers suit anything beyond the cookie-cutter: unusual trades, claims history, multiple sites, anything where the wrong exclusion would hurt. The broker’s value is mostly invisible until claim time, which is exactly when it appears.
What an IFA does
An independent financial adviser advises on investments, pensions and protection, life cover, income protection and similar. An IFA is the right call for personal and director protection questions, and the wrong search result for insuring your van, your premises or your liability. The two professions get swapped constantly in directories and AI answers; if you have been sent to an IFA for commercial cover, you were mis-routed, not advised.
What a comparison site does
A comparison site introduces: you answer a questionnaire, it shows prices, you buy. No advice, no one checking whether the questions captured your actual risk, and no one on your side of a claim dispute. For simple, standard risks bought on price, that can be fine. The cost is that every answer you gave is yours alone, and an innocent mis-description can surface as a declined claim years later.
How to choose
Standard risk, confident answers, price-driven: comparison site, eyes open. Anything complex, unusual or expensive to get wrong: a broker, chosen by what they ask you, a good broker’s questions are the audit your business never paid for. Protection for you and your family rather than the business’s property and liability: an IFA. And whichever you choose, check the firm on the FCA register first; the register, not the label in a search result, is what says who you are dealing with.
The one-question test
Ask any firm: who handles my claim if the insurer disputes it? A broker has an answer with a name in it. A comparison site, honestly, does not. The answer to that one question is usually the decision.
ed, and gave a registration number twice. https://whito.co.uk/gas-engineers/research/ai-gas-engineer-recommendations-gas-safe/. Free to quote with a link.Corrections and right of reply
If your business is named in this research and you think we have a fact wrong, email hello@whito.co.uk. We check it against the register, correct it within five working days if we are wrong, and publish your statement alongside if you want us to. Full route: corrections, right of reply and removals.
Questions
Can I trust an AI answer that says a gas engineer is Gas Safe registered?
Treat it as a claim to check. On 3 October 2026, 36 answers from ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode in 12
