More referrals of declined non-standard customers are reaching brokers, but most arrive without any information from the provider that turned them away, according to a new survey of 98 brokers in the non-standard market commissioned by MGA Prestige Underwriting.
The survey found that 91% of brokers believe consumers who struggle to obtain non-standard insurance are still being lost after a decline. More than two-thirds (69%) said customers almost never arrive with referral details passed on by the insurer or provider that declined the risk. In most cases, the customer must begin their search from scratch.
There are signs of volume progress. More than half of respondents (52%) reported an increase in referrals of customers declined elsewhere over the past year. Direct insurers were the main source, cited by 64% of brokers, followed by price comparison websites at 29% and retail banks or supermarkets at 26%. Yet only one in five brokers (20%) reported an increase in referrals from those channels specifically since the British Insurance Brokers' Association (BIBA) and Association of British Insurers (ABI) Total Signposting Commitment launched in January.
The gap between those two figures is where the commitment's limits show. A referral without any details on why the risk was declined leaves the broker starting from scratch on the customer's situation. For a customer who may already have spent time being turned away by an insurer or aggregator, that friction adds delay at the point when they are already without cover.
The broader access picture carries a related tension. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) doubled the premium loading threshold that triggers a mandatory referral to specialist directories from £100 to £200 in January. A segment of consumers who previously triggered an automatic referral will no longer do so under the higher bar.
The BIBA and ABI Total Signposting Commitment, launched alongside BIBA's 2026 Manifesto in January, is a voluntary initiative covering all classes of personal lines general insurance across online, telephone and face-to-face channels. It builds on existing agreements for age, flood, medical conditions and protection insurance, which have handled more than 1.7 million enquiries since the programme began, according to BIBA. BIBA's Find Insurance Service received around 430,000 enquiries in 2025 from consumers looking for cover.
Alison Williams, managing director at Prestige Underwriting, said the progress on volume was encouraging but that implementation needed to go further.
"More non-standard customers are reaching brokers after being declined elsewhere, which is encouraging," Williams said. "Yet too many consumers are still being left to find specialist help on their own. Signposting has to become more consistent. The opportunity now is to make sure customers are not simply declined and left to find their own way."
Prestige Underwriting commissioned the survey from Context Skythorn. Fieldwork was conducted in two phases: April 27 to May 28 and August 10 to September 4.
