Briefing: ‘Growth Britain’ needs resilience in every postcode

John Healey’s first major speech as chancellor on 7 September set out a mission to make Great Britain ’Growth Britain’ again.

He put fiscal discipline first, promised to draw a line under the rise in business costs since Covid, committed to cutting the regulatory burden by a quarter during this Parliament and said he would convene major regulators to identify where they are holding British businesses back.

At the upcoming budget on 28 October, he will also publish a roadmap to fiscal devolution, moving money and power, in his words, “into every postcode”.

There is a lot in that agenda for insurance brokers to welcome and Biba has positioned its budget submission as an offer to help deliver it.

Brokers are a good fit for his agenda. They are one of the more geographically dispersed parts of financial services, with Biba’s 1,700 member firms operating from 2,700 offices. Two-thirds are outside London, collectively employing around 132,000 people and arranging some £150bn of premium each year.

That footprint provides exactly the kind of local expertise the chancellor wants mayors and strategic authorities to build growth around.

Rating request

The submission, available on the Biba website, makes one immediate request for October and four proposals for the longer term.

The pressing request is that insurance premium tax (IPT) stays where it is, alongside a commitment to hold both rates for the remainder of this Parliament.

We understand the pressure the chancellor is under. IPT raised £9bn in 2025-26, up £157m from the previous year, and we do not dispute that it is a dependable source of revenue.

But it sits inside the premium paid for a car, home or business and customers cannot easily avoid it. WPI Economics puts the average household’s IPT bill at around £146 a year. More than half of people it polled said they would cut back elsewhere if IPT rose, while more than a quarter would reduce their cover.

Businesses said they would raise prices, invest less or buy less protection.

Increasing IPT would therefore work against the chancellor’s ambition to draw a line under rising business costs and the government’s efforts to support household finances.

Holding it steady keeps the revenue coming in without undermining that affordability message.

Four proposals

Our longer-term proposals are aimed at the government’s 10-year Plan for Growth and Resilience.

On cyber, we have proposed a time-limited IPT exemption for qualifying SME cyber policies, reviewed after three years, alongside a joint push with the National Cyber Security Centre and our Accredited Cyber Insurance Broker Directory to close the protection gap.

Some 43% of UK businesses suffered a breach or attack last year, while around a third of SMEs still have no cyber cover.

Government is investing in technical cyber resilience. Financial resilience is the other half of the job.

On devolution, we have proposed SME resilience partnerships operated through strategic authorities in three to five pilot areas and funded through existing local growth arrangements rather than new bodies.

Local brokers know which industrial estates flood and which manufacturing clusters face cyber exposures. Combine that knowledge with local leadership and you can build better continuity plans and faster recoveries.

We have also asked for devolved investment in housing and infrastructure to consider insurability at the planning stage, so public money creates assets that remain protected.

On young people, the chancellor was right to identify youth unemployment as a major challenge.

We have asked for insurance broking to be included in new technical pathways, bursaries and SME apprenticeship incentives. Around half of brokers will reach retirement age within 15 years and our Talent Toolkit and work with the Chartered Insurance Institute are ready to support whatever recommendations emerge from the Milburn review.

Finally, the commitment to reduce regulatory burdens by 25%, alongside plans to halve the burden associated with the senior managers and certification regime, is welcome. We want those benefits to reach smaller firms too.

The number of authorised general insurance intermediaries has fallen to 3,494, down 9% in a year and 54% since 2006.

The Financial Services and Markets Bill provides an opportunity to reform the Ombudsman and ensure authorisation and appointed representative reforms work for small brokers as well as larger businesses.

When the chancellor convenes regulators, we would be glad to give him the broker perspective.

The idea running through all of this is simple – resilience is a form of fiscal discipline.

Every household or business that can absorb a shock without falling back on the state represents a future cost avoided. Insurance helps make that possible and brokers make it work for customers in every postcode.

We have written our submission in the government’s own terms because we believe its objectives are right and want to help meet them.

We want members to read it and, when speaking to local MPs, mayors or business groups, make the case for holding IPT first and strengthening local resilience second.

The chancellor has some hard choices to make on 28 October. We hope this is one he will find easy.