In brief

Chancellor, Gordon Brown will be lifting his red budget box on 17 March this year. The Chancellor announced both the Miles Report on long-term fixed rate mortgages and the Barker review on housing supply during the budget speech last year. Both reports are due out this spring, at an unconfirmed date.

Select & Protect joins AMI

Select & Protect has joined the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries (AMI) as an affiliate member.

Simon Hood, CEO of Select & Protect, said: “We want to ensure our views and expertise surrounding the sale of general insurance through the general insurance market are heard. In addition we want to hear the views of mortgage intermediaries about developments they would like to see in the marketplace, so we want an interactive relationship with the AMI and its membership.”

NU takes insurance brokers off high street

Norwich Union has announced that it will be closing its high-street insurance broker subsidiary Hill House Hammond, meaning 1,200 compulsory redundancies.

The insurer plans to close 240 branches. It said consumers were more likely to buy insurance online or go direct to providers than use insurance brokers. NU said the business was still profitable, but that ‘this was unlikely to continue indefinitely’.

The commercial insurance division of the company will be sold and all motor, home and travel insurance will now be handled through Norwich Union Direct.