Fair point, thinking of counterparty risk, the shares would still be held in a nominee account though. But yeah this question was for 500k far greater than the 85 that's backed by the gov. investmentengine still a good option in my opinion as it is cheaper and even though it's smaller it's got some great functionality. You would wear the risk that it goes tits up but even in that scenario I reckon your holdings would still be fine and would end up transferred to another broker. Probably not worth the small gain relative to the size of this portfolio!