Insurance Post’s Top 90 MGAs revealed

The five businesses achieved revenues of between £80m and £100m for UK-based non-life risks in 2023, according to Insurance Post’s Top 90 MGAs 2023 list, produced using data from Insuramore.

This year’s list showed despite the economic challenges of 2023, managing general agents are continuing to show their mettle.

Last year, only two businesses – Markerstudy and Policy Expert – managed to cut the muster to achieve revenues of between £80m and £100m for UK-based non-life risks in 2022.

Reflecting on his business topping Post’s Top 90 MGAs list for the second year in a row, Steve Hardy, CEO of Policy Expert, said the provider’s smart use of data meant in the organisation has grown to having 1,000 employees working across London, Milton Keynes, Tonbridge and Motherwell offices in the space of a decade.

On what steps his business took in 2023 to continue to be top of the MGA tree, he said: “Our straightforward, fair, and good value offering, combined with a consumer-centric approach, has continued to attract and retain customers across our home and motor products.

“We expanded our customer base by over 100,000 in the last year alone and have consistently ranked first for new policy sales on price comparison websites.

“We have also significantly outperformed the market for renewals, coming second as the fastest-growing home insurance brand in 2023, demonstrating our commitment to putting consumers at the heart of everything we do.”

Top of the tree

This year, Policy Expert and Markerstudy are joined by Ardonagh Group - thanks to Geo Underwriting, Marmalade, Midas Underwriting, Thames Underwriting and URIS Group’s efforts – at the top of our Top MGAs list.

It was a busy year for Ardonagh with a merger of the retail arm with Markerstudy agreed in September 2023, valuing that part of the business at $1.5bn (£1.18bn).

The UK Competitions and Market Authority eventually cleared the deal in March this year, so it will be interesting to see the knock on impact on both business’ MGA activity going forward. Ardonagh for one has recently highlighted its commitment to the space by acquiring Zurich’s Navigators and General business through its Geo arm.

Brown & Brown’s coffers were boosted by Camberford Underwriting, Decus, Mithras Underwriting, Nexus Underwriting and Plum Underwriting.

The business has become a major force in the UK since the acquisition of Global Risk Partners in 2022, and if Brown & Brown president and CEO Powell Brown achieves his ambitious revenue target of $8bn (£6.2bn) over the next few years, which he announced at the Managing General Agents’ Association conference in London in July, expect the business to feature even higher in future Top MGAs lists.

Nexus managed to break into the top 10 of our Top 75 MGAs 2023 list as the 2022 revenues were earned prior to the business being bought by Brown & Brown, which managed to make it among the top third of companies.

As predicted, the completion of Brown & Brown’s deal with Nexus saw the group climb the list to appear in this year’s top five.

Gallagher’s appearance in the top five of this year’s list was due to Manchester Underwriting, Pen Underwriting, RMP and Vasek Insurance raking in revenue in 2023.

This saw us working closely with our capacity providers to create new solutions that packed a real punch in terms of breadth of cover and value-adding services, while addressing emerging and evolving risks.

Nick Wright, chief development officer of Gallagher’s Pen Underwriting

Nick Wright, chief development officer of Gallagher’s Pen Underwriting, shared plenty of activity took place in 2023 to secure the business’ place towards the pinnacle of the Top 90 MGAs 2024 list.

Looking back, he said: “June 2023 was also a hugely exciting time of new opportunity for the Pen family.

“Two months earlier we had completed our acquisition of five niche MGAs, taking us into the specialty marine market – a core area of capability we were keen to add to our existing range of specialisms.

“Those businesses (Vessel Protect, Trafalgar Marine Trades, BMM Ports & Terminals, Fortify Marine and Freeboard Maritime) have since gone from strength to strength, and were at the vanguard of taking us onto the trading floor of Lloyd’s where we have invested in two adjacent boxes, creating another easy access point for even more brokers.”

Product development and enhancement was another active area of challenge and opportunity last year, he added, with the broadening of Pen’s proposition for tech companies.

Wright said: “This saw us working closely with our capacity providers to create new solutions that packed a real punch in terms of breadth of cover and value-adding services, while addressing emerging and evolving risks.”

Few and far

The list once again shows how tough it is to make it big in the current economic climate with more than a third of the Top 90 MGAs – 32 firms – managing to muster revenues of between £3.5m and £7m for UK-based non-life risks in 2023.

While most MGAs saw their revenue hold steady, both Many Group and ICW Insurance Services slipped from the £40m to £60m revenue group to £30m to £40m, EGV fell from £30m to £40m to the £20m to £30m bracket, plus Legal & Contingency plus Jensten shifted from £10m to £15m group to £7m to £10m.

Azur and Superscript were also among the MGAs that saw revenue shrink in 2023 compared with in 2022.

Jamie Lewis, managing director of Jensten, shared the business is currently at the end stage of a total migration from a legacy IT system, which he hopes will “future proof the business and ensure we are now well placed to serve our broker partners even better with improved service, better use of data and an ability to create more bespoke schemes and products”.

In terms of how his company will fare on next year’s rankings, Lewis said Jensten launched several new products in the last year, including motor fleet, commercial vehicle and business complete, a market unique modular product aimed at small business owners and contractors.

However, the Top 90 MGAs list features a far greater number of MGAs that saw revenue increase in 2023 compared with 2022.

While six companies went down a revenue bracket, 22 business bosses saw their company’s fortunes improve in 2023.

Pat Brice, distribution director of CFC, which moved up the list from the £30m to £40m revenue bracket in 2023 to £40m to £50m this year, said as his business operates in niche sectors of specialty insurance, one of the main challenges (but also opportunity) was helping brokers to become more comfortable operating in the sectors we specialise in.

It is clearly a challenge CFC is coping well with, as the cyber specialist trades with more than 500 brokers and offers 50 products across 20 different classes of insurance.

Future rankings

Turning to which MGAs could move up next year’s list, Gary Humphreys, group chief underwriting officer at Markerstudy, stated his business plans to further grow its customer base while Policy Expert’s Hardy said the home and motor insurance specialist will invest in people and technology.

He said: “We are focused on adopting the right technology to meet evolving needs and simplify processes with recruitment currently underway to expand our 100-strong data and tech team, with an emphasis on data engineering and counter-fraud data analysis, to enhance our smart use of data and ensure customers receive the best price and value on our products.”

Both Humphreys and Hardy observed being an MGA helped Markerstudy and Policy Expert respectively face the challenges and make the most of opportunities in the current economic environment.

Hardy said: “Being an MGA gives us the flexibility to best serve our customers, enabling us to act quickly and innovatively to tailor insurance products and services to meet specific needs, all the more significant in light of the new Consumer Duty regulations.

"These regulations place a renewed emphasis on ensuring that customers receive fair value and exceptional service, making our agility and responsiveness even more valuable.”

PIB, which raised up the rankings from the £30m to £40m revenue bracket in 2023 to £40m to £50m this year, could climb even higher in 2024’s list if the investment it has made in technology to shorten the development cycle for new and existing products pays off.

Mike Hudson, managing director at Q Underwriting, part of the PIB Group, said: “This investment in technology will be supported by ongoing development of better data – important both as an MGA from a pricing perspective, but also for our insurer partners, and to demonstrate the value provided for Consumer Duty.

“We also want to enable our teams to drive the development of their propositions. There is no-one better suited to develop a Construction product than an underwriter who spends all day, every day reviewing Construction risks with their partner brokers and their clients.

“We’re investing in the support necessary to facilitate this, such as market and customer insight, and product feedback processes. With our improved technological options and capability, we can act quickly and decisively to ensure we’re providing the most suitable proposition to our brokers and their clients.”

CFC is another business with potential to climb even higher up the list in 2025 as Brice said the MGA plans to deepen penetration in existing lines of business such as cyber and continue innovating in new lines.

For example, Brice said CFC recently announced two unique carbon insurance products, with a few more in the pipeline.

He said: “In the UK, we’re doubling down on our cyber development capability with strategic new hires and adding regional expertise to get even closer to brokers across the country.

“And as their cyber scheme partner, we plan to work even more closely with the British Insurance Brokers’ Association to deliver for UK brokers.”

With CFC moving into new headquarters in 2025 at 8 Bishopsgate “to accommodate our rapidly growing team” expect even bigger and better things to come for this business.

Mike Keating, CEO of the Managing General Agents’ Association, observes there is much to suggest there will continue to be more risers than fallers on next year’s Top MGAs list.

He said: “2023 was certainly a challenging market, with a struggling economy and ongoing global conflict forcing many businesses to adapt their plans and operations because of the external environment being in constant flux.

“These challenges, however, enabled managing general agents to once again demonstrate why they have become such a key partner for brokers and capacity providers alike, as they continued to deliver a first-class level of customer service along with profitability for investors.

“As MGAs continue to perform strongly against the backdrop of uncertainty across wider society, there is much for the sector to be optimistic about.”

Click here to find out how Insurance Post’s Top 90 MGAs list was produced.