ARTes launch redraws roadmap as ‘MGAs lose their way’

Underwriting profit should be measured over the market cycle rather than a ‘dip in, dip out’ open market approach, argues Chris Thomas of ARTes.

A desire to return to the true nature of managing general agents (MGAs), something that has been “lost in the noise of continuing acquisitions and mergers”, and an alignment of fortuitous and market-driven events led to the launch of UK-based MGA ARTes Specialty in February 2022.

“It was fortuitous in that my business partners and I all found ourselves at the end of projects or at crossroads in our careers, and all shared a vision of what we wanted to achieve in setting up an underwriting operation,” explained Chris Thomas, founder and director at ARTes, speaking to Intelligentinsurer.com. 

“It was market-driven by the hardening rating environment, the effects of COVID-19 on target industries for ARTes and a growing feeling from strategic partners we have established over the years of becoming disillusioned with the inefficiency and inconsistency of the London Market in its current guise.”