In the retail world, there's now far, far less corruption than there used to be. When buyers from Home Depot came to visit my employer, they wouldn't even accept a soda because there was a strict, zero tolerance, no receiving anything from a manufacturer policy.
This was driven initially by Walmart, which has a similar policy, because executives at Walmart realized that if manufacturers were bribing their buyers, the cost of those kickbacks was being built back into the price of the product. By loudly (and actually) having and enforcing a "no taking anything" policy, they could then demand further price reductions. This is now widespread.
A broker offering kickbacks or discounts is recouping the cost somewhere. If the product is the same but they're cheaper by the broker, then it's likely that the product isn't the same in fact--perhaps there's some special rider in the contract, or maybe the broker just knows how to slow-walk or otherwise chip away at claims. The insurance industry is famous for some parties failing to provide the future service you're purchasing on technicalities or just bureaucratic abuse.
In a market where expert assistance is needed, and end users can't fully protect themselves with informed purchasing, requiring parties offering the same service to charge the same price is a way of forcing honest dealing. That's the idea, anyway.
This was driven initially by Walmart, which has a similar policy, because executives at Walmart realized that if manufacturers were bribing their buyers, the cost of those kickbacks was being built back into the price of the product. By loudly (and actually) having and enforcing a "no taking anything" policy, they could then demand further price reductions. This is now widespread.
A broker offering kickbacks or discounts is recouping the cost somewhere. If the product is the same but they're cheaper by the broker, then it's likely that the product isn't the same in fact--perhaps there's some special rider in the contract, or maybe the broker just knows how to slow-walk or otherwise chip away at claims. The insurance industry is famous for some parties failing to provide the future service you're purchasing on technicalities or just bureaucratic abuse.
In a market where expert assistance is needed, and end users can't fully protect themselves with informed purchasing, requiring parties offering the same service to charge the same price is a way of forcing honest dealing. That's the idea, anyway.