When the broker fails, the premium may never have bought cover

On 9 July 2026 a Kent broker agreed to stop carrying out regulated business. Its customers waited until 20 October to learn where to take a claim.

That is the day the Financial Services Compensation Scheme opened to claims against Anthony Jones (U.K.) Ltd, three months and eleven days after the firm stopped. The scheme says many customers have confirmed their cover remains in place. It also says some may find that, despite paying for insurance, the policy was never placed with an insurer, so no cover exists.

The scale is on the public record. Joint liquidators were appointed on 11 August and filed a statement of affairs at Companies House on 22 August. Insurance Age reported that document as estimating a £9.22m deficit across 148 company creditors, an average of roughly £62,000 each. The firm arranged business insurance, commercial motor and personal lines.

Here is my problem. Every claims process I know begins with an insurer, and a customer in this position has no insurer to begin with. There is no claim number, no loss adjuster, no decision to appeal. There is a payment, and a policy that was never bought.

A premium is a receipt for a promise, and a receipt is worth nothing if the promise was never made.

Travel agents learned this long ago. A holiday paid for but never booked is a different failure from a holiday cancelled, and it needed a remedy of its own rather than a louder complaints line.

So the useful step here is not a claim at all. Ring the insurer named on your paperwork and ask whether the policy exists, because the scheme is still investigating and will not assess these claims straight away. Claiming direct is free and pays 100 per cent of any compensation, so none of it needs to go to a representative.