Nicholas Gruen of clubtroppo has a home loan company, Peaches . I was reading a couple of speeches that were linked to in an email of how he structures his operation in a decentralised manner to maximise efficiency and minimise cost.

I was trying to think of an equivalent in the US, in the finance sector, and not one sprang to mind. Either they are too small to pop up into mainstream consciousness, though my wife works in commercial banking so I am guessing I would be more aware than most, or the American companies aim at being big initially and are prepared to carry the bureaucracy that goes with that even in their early stages.

A good example of that is Scottrade. They marketed themselves as a cheap broker, under-cutting the 'big' market dominating stock-houses, and offering services for the little guy. But their sell included them having offices all over the US which you could go and visit. So immediately they are carrying the overhead of a physical presence in the US. Not only that, when I was in Denver, their office was in the downtown [CBD] area. Not a cheap location.

Another example which happened this morning was a fellow turned up from the insurance office to take photos of my house since I work from home. As software consultants are such high risk entities, my business insurance is $180 for the year. In North Virginia, stepping out of the office and starting the car costs $70 immediately. Not to mention the phone calls that went back and forth before I paid up. They may have wanted my house/car insurance, which they didn't get, but even so.

The insurance market is heavily agent driven with constant requests for face to face visits. I went looking at Liberty Mutual for life insurance and to get a quote I went through several levels of agents before coming to a local one. So many layers, they cant be fully efficient markets.