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Comedian, actor and chat show host Brian Conley sang a few top tunes and even ate fire before handing out five-star service awards at the Natural History Museum in London in, front of 650 of the industry's leading lights.

Bright Grey, Standard Life, Legal & General, Suffolk Life, Scottish Widows, Skandia, Zurich Assurance, Just Retirement, Paymentshield, Winterthur and The Hartford scooped five-star awards in the life and pensions providers category.

Roger Edwards, proposition director for Bright Grey, said: "We are here tonight with our customer service staff and getting the five-star award is a tribute to their hard work in the last 12 months whether it has been on the telephone, the internet or developing the underwriting system.

"It has all come together and this award is testament to the hard work we have put in."

The most improved company in the life and pensions category was MGM Assurance.

HBoS dominated the mortgage providers and packagers category with Bank of Scotland, Halifax, Intelligent Finance and BM Solutions joining Bristol & West, Just Retirement, The Mortgage Works, Accord and Pink Home Loans in scooping five-star prizes.

The award for most improved mortgage lender and packager went to Hodge Lifetime.

Five-star winners in the investment category were Scottish Widows, Scottish Widows Investment Partnership, Skandia, The Hartford, T Bailey, Sterling Assurance, part of Zurich Intermediary group, Winterthur, GAM, Williams de Broe and Transact.

The most improved investment provider and packager this year was Thames River.

The results of this year's Service Awards were based on a survey in which more than 10,500 advisers took part - the biggest poll of the financial services industry.

Intermediaries were asked to rate the service they received from product providers in the last 12 months and their views were analysed independently to decide the star ratings - five stars for the best and one-star for those considered to offer very poor service.

Mr Conley, who also managed to recreate David Brent's comedy dance with Peter Chadbourn, protection specialist of Essex-based IFA CBK, said: "It is no exaggeration to say these awards have become the industry benchmark for service standards."

For the first time this year providers and advisers can also access seven-years of detailed service awards results and interrogate the data yourself by purchasing a licence to the new online Financial Adviser Service Terminal.

More details about who was deemed a top provider compared with who was slated by advisers this year are also contained in our Service Awards supplement.