Bid rigging is an agreement between two or more insurers or brokers. Simply stated, it is price fixing and market allocation, and it involves an agreement in which one party of a group of insures or brokers will be guaranteed to win the client account. Some practices considered to be bid-rigging in the context of insurance are: - "Blocking the Market": this is where a broker will approach all insurers in the marketplace in order to "block" other brokers from obtaining a quote, with no intentions of presenting the quotes to the client or presenting them in less favorable terms compared to the broker preferred insurer (usually the one that pays more commission) - "Cover bidding" : One insurer providing quotes with conditions that they know to be unacceptable to the client, in order to make way for another insurer to quote. For example, offering liability insurance to a nuclear power plant with a nuclear exclusion, knowing well that the client will reject - "Bid Suppression": Agreement between two or more insurers or brokers to not provide a "real" quote when the partner insurer quotes, therefore not competing with one another and taking turns to do so therefore sharing the market. The list goes on . . .