The Best MGA in Insurance in the UK |
Brokers on MGAs 2023

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Value-adding intermediaries

The more than 300 MGAs in the UK are vital cogs in the insurance industry, placing more than 10% of the country’s £47bn in general insurance premiums, according to the Managing General Agents’ Association (MGAA).

Michael Keating, CEO of the MGAA, states that top-performing MGAs:

offer a clearly defined segment or risk appetite
show demonstrable underwriting expertise by product line or industry sector
have access to state-of-the-art data
deliver excellent service for new service and renewals
provide great overall responsiveness

“Responsiveness, the use of technology, and the ability to place complex risks – that’s exactly why MGAs exist”
Andy TalbotARAG

IBUK’s 2023 winners all display these skills and are valued by their broker partners.

Keating explains, “The community continues to grow and thrive due to (a) the speed to market of new products; (b) unrivalled service delivery to distribution partners; (c) innovative underwriting approaches; and (d) a real drive for success for all stakeholders.”

As part of the Brokers on MGAs survey, brokers nationwide were canvassed to find out their key factors when deciding to work with MGAs, with the results displayed below.

What brokers want from the best MGAs in insurance

The 2023 IBUK Brokers on MGAs survey also queried hundreds of brokers to find the best MGAs in the UK insurance industry. They ranked the following in order of importance:

Douglas Brown, managing director of award winner Renovation Underwriting, reflects on the top five categories:

Technical expertise and product knowledge

“Providing technical understanding and advice to brokers is at the centre of what we do. It is important that the outcome be right for our customers, so we’d rather support brokers to achieve that outcome than let them flounder.”

Overall responsiveness

“The timescales for the majority of our business are very short. To meet that demand, we need to gear up with a group of underwriters who are the most experienced in the market and give brokers access to them. If the referral chain is too cumbersome and response times are too long, then often the wrong decisions are made.”

Ability to place niche or emerging risks

“The ability to do what others can’t will always make you either an attractive proposition or a novelty. Thankfully, I think we are past being a novelty and regarded as a serious business that constantly finds ways to write challenging risks by the way they structure their capacity. For us, what started out as a necessity has become one of our leading propositions.”

Reputation

“If, despite the time frames and sometimes pretty shocking ambivalence, we always do what we said we would do and are consistent and act with complete integrity, then I think we are worthy of the reputation we have earned. The moment we stop doing the right thing, then we deserve to fail. Our word is our bond; we tackle problems head on and never get involved in situations where we cannot add value.”

Pricing

“Buying the right thing is always cheaper than buying the wrong thing twice. What we provide isn’t a discount product or solution; it is a proper product at the correct price,” Brown says.

Andy Talbot, head of sales and marketing at award winner ARAG, lists what his experience has taught him about what brokers seek from MGAs:

doing business quickly and efficiently
access to decision-makers via technology
being responsive and getting ahold of the right people

“Their can-do attitude is absolutely vital for brokers... It’s not uncommon to be in a meeting – or on a call with someone and have the phone ring. It’s a broker. And one of the senior people will take the call, and the broker goes off happy. No more referrals or extensive time delays.

“Responsiveness, the use of technology, and the ability to place complex risks – that’s exactly why MGAs exist. But I was quite surprised to see pricing lower down the list, which is heartening because you don’t always have to be the cheapest to win business,” Talbot explains.

The Best MGAs in insurance specialties

IBUK rewarded MGAs in niches such as:

Accident and health
Commercial motor/transport
Construction (large)
Contractors
Cyber
Charity
Directors and officers
Flood
General liability
Management liability
Marine
Private client
Professional indemnity
Property
Schemes
SME

Renovation Underwriting won gold medals for construction (large) and private client.

“What our product does is combine two things,” explains Brown. “One is a retail product, which is the private client bit, and the other is a construction project product, and it mashes them together.”

The majority of the firm’s customers are private clients and brokers.

“This is a non-retail product,” adds Brown. “If you strip it back to its bare bones, it is a non-retail product and what that means is they’re not experts at advising on it and they don’t know a lot about the topic. They still need to sell it to their clients, and their colleagues in commercial know all about it but are not very good at doing private client work.”

In addition, Renovation Underwriting was awarded a silver medal for contractors.

“We have a capability to write very large existing structures and large works together, whereas most of the market is quite happy writing large works but doesn’t want to write the existing structures that go with them, particularly if those are what we call in the UK ‘listed buildings,’” says Brown.

ARAG won a silver medal for schemes.

“While legal expenses insurance does form a significant part of what we do, we all like to work with schemes and brokers and MGAs that have schemes because it allows us to build something bespoke,” says Talbot. “It just makes our job more interesting... The staff likes the bespoke nature of the schemes. It gives them greater capability to show their expertise and intelligence.”

“Buying the right thing is always cheaper than buying the wrong thing twice. What we provide isn’t a discount product or solution; it is a proper product at the correct price”
Douglas BrownRenovation Underwriting

MGA’s trump card: technology

For Brown, the rationale for being one of the UK’s best MGAs in insurance is to cater to markets underserved by cost-conscious, siloed insurers with limited appetites.

MGAs also possess a strategic attribute: innovation.

“As technology further refines that [abovementioned] approach, it means there are ever-widening gaps between these silos that the MGA market seeks to fill – if it can gear up to deal with the demand and provide the expertise required to make their offer substantive,” explains Brown.

Recently, the CEO of Capacity Place and director of the MGAA, Marco Del Carlo, expounded on the importance of technology to MGAs in an article on sheffieldhaworth.com.

“Technology plays a key role in the new MGA market because with good technology, the capacity providers get better and more immediate information, they analyse and manage exposures better, and the MGAs have stronger governance and control, enabling them to run their books better,” he says.

Talbot sums the issue up well.

“Brokers want to do things quickly and easily,” he says. “MGAs are able to do that.”

The Best MGA in Insurance in the UK |
Brokers on MGAs 2023

Ability to place niche or emerging risks

Renovation Underwriting

ARAG
Choice Insurance
DUAL Group
Instant Underwriting

Compensation (commissions, bonuses, profit-sharing, etc.)

Renovation Underwriting

Acies
ARAG
Choice Insurance
DUAL Group
Instant Underwriting
NBS Underwriting

Geographical reach

Renovation Underwriting

CFC
Choice Insurance
DUAL Group
Instant Underwriting
NBS Underwriting