Small brokers should not 'succumb' to soft market pressures – Gauntlet Group

If the current insurance market is a game of cricket, small and medium-sized directly authorised brokers should not “succumb to a soft dismissal”.

This is according to Roger Gaunt, managing director at commercial broker and national broker network Gauntlet Group, who was speaking at October’s Gauntlet AR Network Conference in Headingley, Yorkshire.

In a warning to brokers, Gaunt suggested that “aggressive tactics and cut-throat pricing” in the current climate had left many firms struggling to generate the income they needed to survive, with small firms in particular lacking “agencies and access to market, making their business vulnerable in a soft market”.

Gauntlet Group – whose appointed representative network gives small brokers access to a shared regulatory, compliance and insurer framework – said that its combined buying power offered brokers protection from external price pressures.

New business

Gaunt said: “Our soft market approach has to be new business, new business, new business. Gauntlet appointed representatives can offer clients excellent premiums and coverage, but can also go after the really attractive pieces of business that are out there themselves.

“We do not put any restraints on the size of business our appointed representatives can place and are also expertly geared up to handle technical and complex risks.”

He continued: “We welcome approaches from struggling directly authorised brokers and are ready to step in, from day one, to give them a new way forward.

“Our enthusiastic appointed representatives can also provide any interested broker with first-hand testimony on how we support our appointed representatives. In some cases, they can also highlight the huge difference they have found between our network and their previous network.”