Tom Downey: Pen Underwriting aims to be £1.75bn GWP business by 2030

Gallagher-owned MGA Pen Underwriting has this year set a new strategic ambition to achieve £1.75bn in gross written premium (GWP) by 2030 after the business met its prior £1bn GWP target “a year early” in 2024, according to Tom Downey, the firm’s chief executive.

In 2020, the MGA announced its primary strategic objective was to reach £1bn GWP by the end of 2025. Downey confirms that this total was reached in 2024, leading the business to brainstorm its next ”collective ambition” at year-end.

Speaking exclusively to Insurance Times, Downey explains that Pen Underwriting plans to achieve its new £1.75bn GWP total over the next five years through a combination of both organic and acquisitional growth – however, in his opinion, acquisitional growth centred upon adding new business lines to Pen’s portfolio will be the primary focus, despite a number of new product launches planned for 2025 across the MGA’s existing books.

Downey says he is committed to being “open minded” and “thoughtful” around M&A opportunities.

He continues: “If we say we’ll focus on [a specific] product line, what we’ll miss is opening our mind. And our business has been really successful because we opened our minds. We didn’t close any avenue down or pursue a certain single route.

“The amount of product that we don’t do is phenomenal. So, the opportunity is phenomenal. We don’t do aviation, we don’t do space, we don’t do warranty and indemnity. We don’t do marine cargo today. We don’t do life sciences.”

Downey emphasises, however, that Pen Underwriting’s M&A strategy hinges on a people-centric approach, finding targets that have reached a certain point of “maturity” and subsequently “need help to get to the next level” in terms of their growth journey – while also offering “complementary” products for Pen’s product stable, of course.

Downey adds: “We could buy a lot of businesses if we really wanted to – but we don’t because we don’t want to. We want people to come join us, be part of the journey.

“[The focus is on acquiring] new product lines out of the UK, new product lines in Ireland, new product lines in Europe. How do we build those out and how do we keep adding new product lines in a niche and specialist way?”

This M&A tactic is one that has already borne fruit for Pen Underwriting, Downey notes.

He explains that at the start of 2023, the MGA did not have a marine portfolio. However, in April 2023, the firm bought Tay River Holdings, which owned five marine focused MGAs. This included Vessel Protect, Trafalgar Marine Trades, BMM Ports and Terminals, Freeboard Maritime and Fortify Marine. Pen then purchased Norwegian MGA Fender Marine in July 2023.

As at May 2025, Pen Underwriting’s marine portfolio makes up 13% of its business.

“It’s about complementary products. It’s not about just adding more of the same because that doesn’t really excite us,” Downey says.

“It’s about niche, specialist products because what do brokers want? Access to products that they can’t get in the mainstream market, service that delivers for them, backed up by a great claims service. And that’s what we’re trying to do – whether it’s UK, Republic of Ireland, or out into Europe. That’s what we want to try and achieve.”

Perfecting product portfolios

Pen Underwriting’s organic growth strategy closely mirrors its M&A approach of hunting down complementary product sets to add to its overarching portfolio.

This plan has already seen the MGA expand certain lines of business this year – for example, it created an international yacht proposition in January and developed its ports and terminals offering in February. Then, over the summer, Pen Underwriting soft launched a professional indemnity product for the university sector, to cover fields such as laboratory developments and innovations.

Downey tells Insurance Times that Pen Underwriting will imminently be launching ”a clean energy business, so waste to energy proposition” too. This process is formally known as anaerobic digestion.

However, the chief executive warns that he is cognisant of the “reality of management stretch” in achieving this ambition.

He explains: “The oldest lesson is don’t overstretch yourself because brokers will feel it. Brokers will feel the service deteriorating. Brokers will feel us not being as good as we once were.

“Service is really, really important to us. What do brokers want, they want service. They want good product, approximate price and good service. That’s what they’re after so that their customers are being looked after.”

A further arm within Pen Underwriting’s organic growth plan is building out Ireland-based Wrightway Underwriting, which the MGA bought in June 2024. Downey explains that the business currently writes around £40m GWP, however he would love the firm to boost its product set and achieve £100m in GWP.

Wrightway is going to be rebranded to Pen Ireland by year-end, Downey adds.

ETrading attention

Another focus area for Downey across Pen Underwriting’s current five-year strategic cycle is digitisation – in particular, digitised trading routes with brokers via the MGA’s extranet Pen Central, which the firm first launched back in 2016.

Downey cemented Pen’s attention to this area in June 2025, when he promoted Jamie Lawson to head of digital eTrade.

Downey says: “Some of our products will never be digitalised. It is too complex, too niche. But where we can help brokers trade easier with us because they choose to do that, having access to us through those [digital] routes that make it easier. We’ve got our portal, Pen Central. That’s been a real success for us, [so we are] keeping that relevant, modernised, up to date.”

Currently, Pen Central can be used to trade home policies, cyber and the smaller end of directors’ and officers’ cover, Downey explains. However, he believes that where eTrading can be really beneficial is for “products that you can take from one country to another”.

For him, Pen’s professional indemnity product set is most likely to be Pen Central’s next target area.

The overarching mantra for Downey over the next five years, however, is “just be a great business” and “create the talent for the future”.

He concludes: “Great people do great things and we’ve got great people. That just makes a difference.”