MGAs are thriving and here to stay

The number of managing general agents (MGAs) being launched is growing fast, navigating growth, capacity and innovation in a shifting market. As the model matures across Europe and beyond, the sector is seeing a surge in innovation, capital interest and regulatory scrutiny.

In attendance:
Alex Hardy, director of sales and distribution at SiriusPoint
Enrico Bertagna, managing director of Bowood Europe (Howden Re)
Laurent Lemaire, founder and CEO of Elseco
Paul Dilley, chief underwriting officer of Bridgehaven
Vicky Carter, chairman of Global Capital Solutions, International at Guy Carpenter

That encapsulates the overall sentiment of an inner circle discussion in Monte Carlo on September 8 hosted by Intelligent Insurer and sponsored by SiriusPoint. The session, called ‘MGA momentum: navigating growth, capacity and innovation in a shifting market’, was moderated by Aditi Mathur, deputy editor of Intelligent Insurer.

The participants agreed that the momentum of this growing sector now rests on discipline: stable, long-term capacity aligned to profit (not just premium); cleaner, near-real-time data flows and tight cost governance that avoids duplicate spend between carriers and MGAs.

Very importantly – they also agreed – on the ability of MGAs to innovate and fill the insurance gaps. With capital plentiful, but selective, the winners will turn niche expertise into deeper portfolio partnerships, deploy AI once the basics are right and build operating models

Participants agreed the MGA model has moved on from volume aggregation to a more rigorous, data-led route to profitable growth. In Europe the market is expanding quickly, they pointed to about 20% year-on-year growth on a base now in the tens of billions, while the US remains the template for scale and operating maturity. The thread running through the session was of alignment, data and cost discipline that will separate leaders from followers.

Alignment beats ambition

The round table began with a discussion around “value”. What real value do the MGAs bring to the market and how they differentiate in a crowded market. The answers were practical: access to distribution that carriers struggle to reach; specialist products for underserved niches; faster execution on modern systems and service levels that smaller brokers often do not receive from large incumbents. Energy and ambition still matter, but they must translate into results.

Alignment came up repeatedly. Incentives should focus on bottom-line profit rather than top-line growth. Capacity works best when it is stable and, ideally, multi-year. Traditional “parent-child” oversight is giving way to integrated partnerships with shared planning, data and course-correction. Transparency is vital. Problems will occur; fixing them early and openly, with current information, keeps relationships intact.

Costs also matter, the executives agreed. A recurring frustration is duplicated expense between carriers and MGAs. If an MGA runs underwriting, operations and often claims end-to-end, carriers should not layer on full internal expense ratios as well. That destroys the very efficiency the model promises. Practical fixes include dedicated delegated-authority teams at carriers and clearer portfolio-level underwriting, both of which reduce friction and speed decisions.

Data, not spreadsheets

Data flow is now the backbone of operational performance. Many MGAs have an edge here with modern platforms, but carriers are catching up. What matters is end-to-end linkage: rating, binding, bordereaux, claims, exposure management, regulatory reporting and audits joined up cleanly.

AI is entering in sensible ways. Personal lines MGAs are further along; niche specialty is earlier in the curve. Use cases include cleaning messy data, speeding coding and documentation, triaging claims and ingesting large data sets for underwriting support. But there’s caution – “get the basics right first”.

Capacity is available, including alternative capital, but it is selective. What investors and carriers want is a demonstrable track record, disciplined management, credible governance, high-quality data and a scalable plan. A notable shift is towards portfolio placements and fewer, deeper partnerships across multiple lines.

Finally, innovation. MGAs are the test bed for new lines – carbon markets, energy transition, even emerging nuclear. Carriers want access, but with tight controls, transparency and the ability to pivot. Europe can learn from the US and, with modern data plumbing and cycle-resilient incentives, even leapfrog it. Big coverage gaps remain; closing them will take real product craft and deep domain expertise.

Key takeaways

Alex Hardy, director of sales and distribution at SiriusPoint, summarises his main takeaways from the discussion.

“The MGA segment is thriving and here to stay,” Hardy said, summarising the key takeaways from the inner circle round table. He said over the past decade MGAs have moved from volume to value, “meeting underserved customer segments, driving innovation, doing things better than they’ve been done to date”.

Hardy sees Europe at an inflection point. There is “a massive opportunity, particularly in the UK and in Europe, to learn from the US, where the concept of delegated MGAs or programmes is very well established”, he said. With that comes the chance “to leapfrog in terms of technology”, as brokers “lean in towards this opportunity” – whether placing into MGAs to fill gaps or using them in place of traditional carriers for specific needs.

What makes MGAs attractive to capacity? “There’s lots of reasons that MGAs can succeed – to access segments that [insurers] can’t get to; [or] enact change more nimbly,” Hardy noted. But one condition overrides the rest: “alignment was really crucial”, a point “all of the round table participants agreed on”. In practice that means profit over premium, shared planning, shared data and the ability to course-correct quickly “with a long-term mindset”.

The aim, in Hardy’s view, is a tighter partnership model: MGAs converting niche expertise into portfolio solutions, carriers gaining transparent, near-real-time oversight and brokers helping stitch the pieces together. Get the basics right – clean data, clear incentives, credible governance – and the momentum, he suggested, will look after itself.

For more news from Monte Carlo Today, click here.

Did you get value from this story? Sign up to our free daily newsletters and get stories like this sent straight to your inbox.