This article investigates the impact of contingent commissions on the competitive equilibrium in insurance markets when information intermediaries are exclusively concerned with the identification and transmission of risk information. For this purpose, we extend the Rothschild and Stiglitz, (Q. J. Econ 90:629–649, 1976) model by including information intermediaries with an imperfect identification technology. The model shows that intermediaries won’t always classify risks correctly when remunerated before the loss-event occurs. When intermediaries receive profit-based contingent commissions, intermediaries prevent adverse selection and have no incentives for misclassification. As long as the intermediation costs are below a certain threshold, the presence of intermediaries leads to a utility improvement for the good risks, while the utility of the bad risks remains unaffected. In case of prohibitively high intermediation costs, no intermediaries enter the market.