Claims management is the ‘lever’ for MGA profitability in softening market

MGAs can add margin back into profitability by focusing on boosting claims processes.

This is according to MGAA chief executive Mike Keating, who explained that in tougher market conditions, it is only in the claims system where MGAs “have a lever to put profitability back in”.

He made the claim following the release of Insurance Times’ ‘Five Star Rating Report: MGA market 2025/26’, which evaluated the service 1,673 UKGI brokers have received over the past 12 months by MGA partners.

According to the report, 55% of surveyed brokers felt the state of play was a soft market, 30% felt they were in a neutral market and 8% felt they were in a hard market.

Speaking during Insurance Times’ webinar, The MGA market in 2026: Influences and impacts affecting UKGI’s MGAs today, held in association with Unitary, Keating explained ”there is an opportunity to put margin back in from a profitability perspective in terms of best-in-class claims delivery”.

He felt ways to improive claims processes would be through “reducing cycle try times, increasing full detection, indemnity sort of mitigation, while ensuring [the delivery of] right customer outcomes”.

He said: ”By all means, MGAs [should] continue to slow down the other aspects like rate reductions, but claims is a real area of opportunity if you get it right.”

‘Data is the hand that pulls the lever’

Meanwhile, Geo Underwriting chief executive Jaime Swindle noted that “data is the hand that pulls that lever” when it comes to claims.

Swindle explained that understanding where claims management sits both from an in-source and an outsource perspective is key, but it is important that this does not come at the expense of the central operational processes.

“The focus on the cost and the leakage aren’t necessarily at the forefront of minds when it’s outsourced, more so when you’ve got delegated claims handling authority,” she said.

“[It is important to be] understanding that process end-to-end, understanding where there may be opportunities to, at the front end, mitigate those losses and being really clear about your underwriting discipline.”

Evolving trading partnerships

Meanwhile, Keating noted that in a soft market, MGAs will “suffer slightly” when insurers expand their risk appetite and venture into MGA-dominated specialist areas.

According to this year’s ’Five Star Rating Report: MGA market, 96% of surveyed brokers said that MGAs form a strategic part of their overall placement strategy – up from 94% in 2025.

Swindle explained that the trading relationship between brokers and MGAs is evolving and expectations and demands are rising significantly.

She continued that ensuring that MGAs are clear about their appetite and consistent about service levels is important to remaining dominant in the space during the softening market.

She said: “Not only are we being compared to insurers in the way that we interact with our brokers, and possibly more so with a higher expectation because we’re expected to be more nimble and more agile, but they’re also comparing us to other digital experiences and other service experiences their clients are having more broadly in their lives as well.”

However, Keating said that he believes it is yet to be seen whether those insurers will leave those trading spaces to MGAs when the market switches.

He continued: “I don’t need to preach to brokers because they’re experts, but they need to look at behaviours in a softening market and whether that’s going to be consistent when that market changes.”