Insurance brokerage Marsh said its core U.S. brokerage operations will not accept contingent commissions from insurance companies for any coverage it arranges for U.S. clients, making it the third of the big brokers to take that position.

In February, regulators from three states freed the major brokers–Marsh, Aon and Willis–from a 2005 agreement that barred them from accepting such commissions, which insurance companies pay brokers to reward them for business. The regulators said they were leveling the playing field, since only the big brokers had been barred from accepting contingent commissions and not their smaller competitors. Aon and Willis said at the time that they did not intend to accept contingent commissions.

The Risk and Insurance Management Society (RIMS) applauded Marsh's decision and reiterated its position that such commissions "impose an inherent conflict of interests upon the insurance buying transaction."