More than 30 financial advice firms have dropped pension transfer advice in three months due to problems in securing professional indemnity insurance, the Personal Finance Society says.

The lack of Professional Indemnity insurance availability for IFA firms is ‘the biggest threat to adviser businesses’ in 2020, the chairman of Beaufort Group Simon Goldthorpe has warned.

The Personal Finance Society warned today that it has evidence of financial advisers struggling to obtain professional indemnity insurance - and being unable to advise on defined benefit pension transfers - due to big increases in the Financial Ombudsman Service compensation limit.

Andrew Bailey, chief executive of the FCA, told the ABI’s annual conference today that reform of professional indemnity cover for advisers and the way the FSCS is funded are on the agenda for the FCA and he urged ABI members to engage with the regulator on any changes.