MGAs ‘not quite as digitally sophisticated as they portray’

MGAs are “not quite as digitally sophisticated as they portray on the outside”, according to Geo Underwriting chief executive Jaime Swindle.

Swindle was speaking during an Insurance Times webinar, entitled The MGA market in 2026: Influences and impacts affecting UKGI’s MGAs today, which was held following the release of Insurance Times ‘Five Star Rating Report: MGA market 2025/26.

According to the report, 33% of broker respondents said that greater technology adoption, including artificial intelligence (AI) and automation, would most enhance their partnership with MGAs in the evolving market.

However, having acquired multiple MGAs, Swindle admitted that “many MGAs are not quite as digitally sophisticated as they portray on the outside”.

She said: “One of the challenges you’ve got in this space is technology requires a capital outlay and if you’re a startup business, or a business that hasn’t got a huge amount of cash to invest, it can be quite prohibitive in terms of that digital transformation.”

‘Removing friction’

Despite this, Swindle noted that AI and technology is becoming impactful around identifying pain points and “removing friction”, particularly in automated submissions.

Rather than directing brokers to extranets to manually enter data, she explained that the focus should be on using the tools brokers already rely on – email and structured prompts.

She added that data can then be “automatically ingested” into core systems, which improves efficiency.

Managing General Agents’ Association (MGAA) chief executive Mike Keating pointed to one MGAA member firm that implemented an inquiry ingestion system allowing brokers to submit new business in any format.

AI then ingested and triaged the submissions, he explained, presenting underwriters solely with the information needed to price and assess the risk.

According to Keating, the firm reported an increase in underwriting productivity of more than 40% after using the system for over three years.

Swindle said: “All of these [developments] not only help us to be more agile and more consistent, but also gives the balance that technology isn’t replacing the underwriting, it’s replacing the waiting that people are having.”

Meanwhile, Unitary chief executive and co-founder Sacha Haco noted that there was “good news” in MGAs beginning their digital transformation through “bite-sized” automation projects to build proofs of concept.

Haco said MGAs especially struggle with modernising digitally due to multiple “disparate tools and systems”.

She explained that approaching long-term digital transformation with an overall “vision” is important to beginning this overturn.

She continued: “That’s something that MGAs have in their favour.

“They’re known for being a bit more nimble and agile which means they can get started.”