Regional engagement and empowerment are key to MGA and broker success – Pen Underwriting

For brokers, MGAs and insurers alike, relevance has never been more important – whether that applies to product, service or relationships.

For us all to succeed in today’s competitive market conditions, we need to listen harder to each other, engage in honest dialogue and zero in on the elements that really drive effective collaboration for our customers and each other.

As an MGA, we’ve seen various brokers intensify their focus on placement plans and strategy, forensically reviewing where they place business and why.

That’s only fair and right and we welcome the positive challenge and spur to action it provides – to further sharpen our own focus on innovation, communication and prioritising the areas where we can add the most value.

Specialism and execution have always been two key areas where MGAs seek to differentiate themselves – both from each other and the wider field of larger insurers – and brokers are rightly expecting us to bring these qualities to our every interaction.

For MGAs, demonstrating the value of proven expertise in your chosen markets, combined with the ability to deliver quickly and consistently, are what really matter right now.

That extends to making sure you can give brokers something that is genuinely useful to their clients, while strengthening the overall proposition. Tools like the Pen Protect cyber risk management platform are an example of that – and underline a wider switch to digital enablement from digital replacement.

Regional engagement

We’ve also seen broker expectations push regional engagement, relevance and empowerment up the priority list.

Across the UK and Ireland  the call from brokers is similar. They want stability, speed of response, access to decision-makers and their own regional relationships with us enabling local empowerment – not just a central relationship.

In effect, all the attributes that will enable them to move quickly and compete to win new business and retain existing business, wherever they or their clients are based.

One of the most interesting shifts we have seen over the last few years, as broker M&A has continued apace, is the many regional consolidator offices that now house senior executives who were former business owners or board-level leaders. These are highly experienced, commercially minded decision-makers who value personal connection and empowerment.

What this reinforces is that insurance generally remains a people business. In this highly competitive market, brokers need to feel supported. They need partners who are creative, flexible and decisive. That’s the role we aim to play and what will enhance MGAs’ own resilience in navigating market headwinds.

Proposition partnership

Data and technology will be critical enablers of any successful MGA and broker partnership, but the relationship success itself will be determined, in my view, by three crucial factors – empowerment, adaptability and breadth.

That means giving brokers direct access to decision-makers and underwriters who can say yes or even no quickly. It means adjusting product distribution and appetite as the market moves. And it means breadth, or product diversity, is what will enable MGAs to support brokers wherever new opportunities arise, while staying resilient through changing market cycles.

As MGAs, we need to really listen to what brokers tell us they are seeing on the ground, what matters most right now to their clients, share insight and act on it. We need to be prepared to give brokers, who know those customers best, the voice to help shape our propositions.

That’s why being visible in and engaged with the regions, invested in building and maintaining strong relationships and ensuring local or regionally dedicated underwriters are empowered with decision-making authority are all critical success factors for the MGA sector of tomorrow.