Ryan Gill: Steering Bspoke ‘delicately’ through a broker service transformation

For MGA firm Bspoke Group, 2025 was replete with structural and leadership changes that were intended to sharpen its competitive position in the UK specialist insurance market.

At the centre of this restructuring was a shift in leadership at the top, with Ryan Gill taking over the role of chief executive from Tim Smyth in September 2025. Smyth stayed on as deputy chair of the company.

Alongside Smyth, Gill co-led on rebranding UK General Insurance and Precision Partnership Limited into the Bspoke Group in 2022. Three years on, Gill then stepped up from his role as chief commercial officer at Bspoke to take the helm of the organisation he co-founded.

Prior to the rebrand, Gill had served as chief financial officer at Bspoke acquired MGA UK General Insurance for nearly seven years, as well as at RCHL Group and Precision Partnership Limited from 2021.

Meanwhile, Smyth led UK General Insurance as chief executive from 2020 and was also group chief executive at Precision Partnership Limited from 2013. 

From these positions, Smyth and Gill led a management buy out to set up Bspoke Group, initially encompassing Bspoke Underwriting – formerly UK General Insurance – Bspoke Lifestyle, formerly known as Binnacle Insurance Services,  Bspoke Commercial, which was formerly One Commercial, Provego and One Commercial Specialty.

Today, the group comprises a portfolio of MGA, MGU and insurance distribution businesses with gross written premium in excess of £200m.

Musing on the firm’s “humble origins”, Gill tells Insurance Times that the vision was to create a place in the market for an MGA dedicated to a niche and specialist market that focused on underwriting results and sustainable underwriting.

He expands: “We knew four years ago we were loss making [but] that was in the strategy.

“The focus was let’s invest the money, let’s do this right, let’s build the infrastructure, let’s build the technology, let’s build the platform, let’s get the experts in the products and the volume will come.

”That’s why we did it the right way, rather than chasing volume and every year our results have [stepped] up, they’ve followed what we’ve said.”

Enthusiastic to keep driving steady progress under his leadership, Gill stresses that the MGA’s success has never been determined by an overnight transformation but in a “culmination of this steady and balanced approach to build a business the right way over time” as well as “margin enhancement and the bottom-line improvement.”

A further milestone came in August 2025, when Bspoke Group was acquired by Aon-owned NFP, which served to advance its specialist insurance capabilities in the UK.

Jumping into the hotseat during the early stages of integration, Gill says that he believes the firm has “found the right home to take the business to the next level”.

He continues: “NFP have been fantastic from a cultural and people perspective as we continue to operate independently to pursue Bspoke strategy and they don’t interfere in that.

“Importantly, we have their backing from a leadership and a firepower perspective, which is transformational for the business as well. [There are] exciting times ahead and it’s been a very enjoyable journey I would say.”

A year of changes

Alongside the NFP acquisition and leadership transition, Bspoke also undertook a structural reorganisation, moving to a three-division model spanning retail, commercial and MGUs at the time of Gill’s appointment.

He notes that the restructuring was by design to “make sure that we are ready for real scale growth and we can be very pointed and focused in our agenda”.

However, transformational changes are often swiftly followed by operational challenges.

Indeed, in this year’s Insurance Times Five Star Rating Report: MGA Market 2025/26, Bspoke slipped from seventh to 19^th place out of 28 MGAs, with its overall rating falling from five stars to four.

The report revealed that this dip in the rankings stemmed from broker concerns regarding inconsistent underwriting appetite, loss of capacity, slower quote turnaround times and limited access to underwriters.

While this outcome may have been modest in comparison to its standout debut in 2024, Gill says that it reflects a “short-term disturbance in a particular area for [delivering] the long-term gain”.

He notes that one area where they fell in the reviews was the integration of three previously separate specialist operations onto SchemeServe, a platform designed to improve service delivery and quotation capability.

During the transition, Gill explains that demand surged with quote volumes in the affected division “nearly quadrupling” and placed temporary pressure on service levels, particularly call handling, reflected in the survey results.

In turn, the integration primarily impacted Bspoke’s private clients business, where the MGA had identified market dislocation following capacity withdrawal.

He says: “There’s a lot of interest in that market so we’ve come with a solution at quite a fast pace to provide customers in the market with options.

“It’s grown fast. We put three systems into one very quickly and invested a lot. In that short period of disturbance, that could be why we basically couldn’t get through the volume of calls as we were transitioning systems, which is a problem. I think that we’ve now solved that problem through our strategic approach, which is now in place.”

Despite bumps along the way, the MGA market report’s broker feedback is on Gill’s radar and he says that he is “confident” that the business will return to five stars this year.

Meeting expectations

While last year’s MGA market report revealed some challenges in Bspoke’s service for brokers, Gill notes that system solutions can be fixed, but people and product expertise form its focus.

Paired with its adoption of sleeker technology for underwriters, he explains that both investments will “free up our people by taking away those mundane tasks” to increase responsiveness.

He notes that investment in technology is a firm priority to align with rising customer and broker expectations.

For example, following the subscription-based insurtech Arma Karma acquisition in March 2025, Gill explains that Bspoke has begun deploying its digital and customer journey capabilities more widely across the group, which will “start to permeate across 2026”.

He continues: “[Arma Karma is] one of those nuggets in the market where we’ve identified something that we think is unique – a business that wasn’t of scale itself, but something that we could bring into Bspoke’s environment that we could then infuse across our business to bring real scale and transformation.

“That was a very targeted acquisition for this reason and that will kick in [this year], which is exciting for us and [we expect to see] a big uplift in customer acquisition and customer positive feedback.”

A delicate approach

Going into the New Year, Gill says that he expects the firm to deliver its strongest performance yet with premium growth, revenue and profitability all set to reach new highs.

Approaching the transformation “delicately” is integral to the strategy, Gill explains, as it allows the business to balance growth with operational efficiency.

He adds that combining increased income with cost efficiencies would allow for more time to be devoted to customers and brokers “which is where we want to be driving much better service and solutions”.

“We want to be at the forefront of the mind and all these things we’ve been building over quite a period have really come to fruition in 2026,” he continues.

“2025 was a good year, 2026 is going to be a fantastic year.”