Why does ChatGPT recommend other insurance brokers and not us?

The operations director of a haulage firm opens her renewal and sees the premium has gone up again. Before she rings anyone, she types into ChatGPT: "who are the best fleet insurance brokers for a haulage company in the Midlands". She gets three names and a short paragraph on each. You place more fleet business than any of them. You are not on the list.

That first conversation used to happen on the phone or through the client's accountant. Those routes still matter, but more early research now happens in ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini and Google's AI answers. Forrester found in January 2026 that 94% of business buyers use AI in their buying process, and that business buyers are four times as likely as consumers to use Microsoft Copilot. By the time they call, they already have a shortlist and a view on the cover they think they need.

You answer these questions every day for clients who trust you, yet most brokerages publish almost nothing that shows it, and assistants can only recommend what they can read. This guide explains what they read, why specialists get named more often, and how to write about cover in a way that helps clients, sits comfortably with the FCA and gives assistants something to quote.

#What are business owners asking ChatGPT about insurance?

They ask about their own situation, not about brokers, and the assistant then decides whether a broker belongs in the answer. The questions arrive at renewal, after a premium rise or after something has gone wrong, and they are specific:

• "Do I need employers' liability insurance if my only staff are two part-timers?"
• "How much professional indemnity insurance does a UK tech consultancy need?"
• "Which brokers specialise in cyber insurance for SaaS companies in the UK?"
• "Who are the best fleet insurance brokers for a haulage firm in the Midlands?"
• "Do insurance brokers have to tell me how much commission they earn?"
• "Is it cheaper to use a broker or buy business insurance direct?"
• "What does directors' and officers' insurance cover for a private company?"

Most are questions about cover: the assistant answers them and then, if it has evidence, suggests who could help. If your site answers the question well, you are the natural name to put next to it. The questions that do ask for a broker almost always name a niche and often a place. An assistant cannot match those words to a brokerage whose website promises "tailored solutions for businesses of all sizes". Our piece on building content around the questions customers ask sets out how to turn a list like this into pages.

#How does ChatGPT decide which brokers to name?

It names the brokers it can describe with confidence, and that confidence comes from specific evidence that agrees across several sources. No single ranking decides it. ChatGPT has shown labelled ads to UK users on its Free and Go plans since 11 August 2026, but OpenAI says ads do not change the answer itself, so a sponsored slot beside the answer is a different thing from being named in it.

Whether it draws on training or a live web search, it looks for four things:

• A stated specialism. Pages that say plainly who you insure and for what, in the words clients use.
• Evidence you know the subject. Explanations of cover, exclusions and claims for that niche that go further than a brochure.
• Named people. Directors and account executives with profiles, qualifications and sector experience.
• Agreement from elsewhere. The FCA Register, Companies House, BIBA, review sites, trade press and your clients' trade bodies saying the same thing about you.

The last one catches out many brokers. Acquisitions, trading names, appointed representative arrangements and old addresses leave a trail of slightly different descriptions, and an assistant that sees conflict hedges. We saw the same pattern with TCC Group, a regulatory compliance group with three brands: "ChatGPT already placed TCC top for outsourced suitability reviews. But on Consumer Duty and Section 166, the two areas the group backs hardest, the assistants named other firms and not TCC. One had stopped recognising the UK firm altogether, and none of them connected the three brands." Our guide on why ChatGPT describes firms wrongly explains how to find and fix this.

The other catch is volume without depth. A hundred thin product pages, each three paragraphs long and interchangeable with every other broker's, give an assistant nothing worth quoting. Ten pages that each fully answer one type of client's situation will do far more.

#Why do specialist brokers get named and generalists do not?

Assistants recommend specialists because buyers ask specialist questions. A brokerage clearly known for one or two niches will be named in those niches far more often than a generalist of the same size is named anywhere.

This is not an argument for turning business away. Most good brokerages already have two or three areas where they place a large share of their book. The job is to make that visible. For example, a regional broker that writes most of its business for manufacturers and logistics firms, with a growing book of care providers, but whose website leads with "commercial insurance for businesses across the North West", looks like a generalist. Rebuilt around three labelled specialisms, each with its own section, named team and client questions answered, the same firm becomes a candidate every time someone asks about insuring a manufacturer, a haulier or a care home in the region.

If you really are a generalist, organise by client type rather than by product. "Insurance for professional services firms" gives an assistant something to match. "Our products" does not.

#A worked specialism: insurance for tech and SaaS firms

Technology is a niche where the questions are specific and generalist pages fail. Founders of SaaS firms and tech consultancies ask about three covers in particular:

The PI answer shows why depth wins. There is no single right figure for a tech consultancy, and a page that says so, then explains how contracts and the type of work set the limit, is far more useful than a quote form, and it is the answer an assistant can repeat. Name the account executives who handle technology clients, add anonymised examples of claims you have handled, and get listed where tech buyers look: BIBA's Find Insurance service has a dedicated cyber insurance directory, and your clients' trade press, not only the insurance titles, is where an assistant looks for experts in the niche. Our guide for B2B technology companies shows what those clients ask from their side of the desk.

#How to write about cover without sounding like a sales page

Write the way you would explain cover to a client across the desk: plainly, fairly and including the parts that do not help you sell. That is what assistants trust, and it matches the FCA's rules. ICOBS 2.2.2R says that when a firm communicates information, including a financial promotion, it must be clear, fair and not misleading, and Principle 7 says the same. Where retail customers are involved, the Consumer Duty applies in place of Principles 6 and 7 and sets a higher standard. Financial advisers face the same tension, and our guide for financial advisory firms covers how they handle it.

#Say plainly how you are paid

Explain on your site whether you are paid by commission from insurers, a fee or both. You already owe clients much of this: under ICOBS 4.3, an intermediary must tell a customer the nature of its remuneration before the contract is concluded, and the amount of any fee. Under ICOBS 4.4, a commercial customer can ask for the commission you and any associate receive, and you must disclose it promptly, in cash terms and in writing. FCA guidance says that includes profit shares, volume-based payments and payments from premium finance companies. A clear page costs nothing and answers "do insurance brokers get paid by the insurer?" before the client asks an assistant.

Premium finance is on the FCA's agenda too. Its premium finance market study, which reported in February 2026, covered motor and home insurance customers and found the cost of paying monthly had fallen since the Consumer Duty came in. If you arrange credit for commercial clients, explain the cost and the alternative of paying annually.

#Compare fairly, including going direct

Is it cheaper to use a broker or buy direct? The honest answer depends on the risk, and saying so makes you quotable. A broker that writes "for a one-person consultancy wanting basic professional indemnity, going direct is often fine; once you have staff and contracts with liability caps, advice starts to pay for itself" is far more believable than one that claims a broker is always better.

#Explain claims, not only policies

Pages that walk through what happens after a flood, a cyber incident or an injury on site, anonymised and with permission, show the part of your job comparison sites cannot do.

#Keep it current

Put a "last reviewed" date on each guide and revisit anything about pricing, capacity or regulation at least once a year.

#Which outside sources matter most for a broker?

Assistants trust what others say about you more than what you say about yourself. In Muck Rack's analysis of more than 25 million links cited by AI tools, earned media made up 84% of citations and paid content 0.3% (May 2026). For a UK broker, check these first:

Reviews matter to buyers inside AI answers too: in G2's April 2026 survey of 1,076 software buyers, 45% said citations of review sites were the most confidence-inspiring signal in an AI answer. One relevant article or comment a month for a year does more than a flurry in the spring.

#What should a broker's specialism page look like?

Each specialism needs a small cluster: one main page saying who you insure and how, and several pages that each answer one client question in full. A good main page for, say, insurance for manufacturers would:

• Open with two sentences that say who it is for and what you do for them.
• Name the covers that matter and explain each briefly, including common gaps, such as whether business interruption responds when a key supplier's factory burns down rather than your client's own.
• Introduce the people who handle that book, with qualifications and years in the sector.
• Include two or three anonymised examples of problems you have solved.
• Answer six to eight common questions in plain prose, and link to the deeper question pages.

Structured data, the labels in the page code that tell search engines this is an insurance broker, where it is and who works there, helps them read your facts correctly. Google says its AI features need no special markup, so keep it accurate rather than treating it as a ranking trick. Our guide to schema markup for AI assistants explains what to include.

#How long does it take, and how do you tell it is working?

Fixes to listings and inconsistencies can show up within weeks in assistants that search the web live. Answers drawn from a model's memory change only when it is retrained, which takes months, and becoming the name an assistant reaches for in a niche depends on other people writing about you.

Write down a fixed list of 20 to 50 questions your best clients would ask, including some that ask for a broker by niche and region. Run each several times a month in ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini and Google in a clean session, because answers vary from run to run, and record whether you are named, who is named instead and how you are described. For ID-Pal, the method was: "The same buyer questions run every month in ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude, in a fresh chat. A win only counts when it repeats, and losses are reported too." A spreadsheet is enough to start, and enquiries that mention an assistant are the commercial signal.

#What to do this month

1. Make your details match. Check your FCA Register entry, Companies House record, BIBA and Lloyd's listings, Google Business Profile and website agree on your name, trading names, address and what you do.
2. Choose your niches. Pick the one or two client types where you have the deepest book and the best stories, and agree internally that these lead the website.
3. Publish how you are paid. One plain page on commission, fees and how a commercial client can ask for the figures.
4. Write the first three question pages. Take three questions your account executives answer every week in that niche and publish full answers with a named author and a review date.
5. Ask for niche-specific reviews. After the next few renewals or settled claims in that niche, ask the client for a short review that says what you did.

#Frequently asked questions

#Do insurance brokers have to tell me how much commission they earn?

For a commercial customer, yes, if you ask. ICOBS 4.4 says an intermediary must, on a commercial customer's request, promptly disclose the commission it and any associate receive, in cash terms and in writing. Every customer must also be told the nature of the broker's remuneration before the contract is concluded, and the amount of any fee.

#How do we compete with comparison sites and direct insurers?

By answering the questions they cannot. Comparison sites handle simple, standard risks well and struggle with anything that needs judgement: contract wording, unusual exposures, a claim that goes wrong. When an assistant answers a complicated question, it needs a specialist to point to.

#Should our account executives publish under their own names?

Yes. Assistants and clients both trust named people with visible experience more than an anonymous brand. A short profile for each executive, with qualifications and the sectors they handle, plus a few articles in their niche, ties that expertise to the firm.

#Does publishing this kind of content cause problems with the FCA?

It should not. Educational content that is clear, fair and balanced sits comfortably with ICOBS 2.2. Where a page makes product or price claims, or could be read as a promotion, run it past your compliance lead.

#We are part of a larger group. Does that help or hurt?

It can do both. A group name brings standing, but it confuses assistants if your trading name, the group brand and your appointed representative status are described differently in different places. Decide how you want to be described, say it clearly on your own site, and make the group site and your listings match.

The broker who gets named is rarely the biggest. It is the one whose specialism is easiest to see and easiest to check. If you want to know how you compare with other brokers in your niche today, book a free Growth Review: 30 minutes with David Adams, and three fixes in writing afterwards.

#Sources