Brokers reveal wish lists for insurer relationships

More than 50% of commercial insurance brokers rated financial stability, product expertise and competitive pricing as “extremely important” considerations when looking to place business with an insurer, according to a poll run by Insurance Times between October and December 2024.

The findings – available within the Five Star Rating Report: Commercial Lines and Personal Lines 2024/25, published exclusively by Insurance Times in March 2025 and now available for subscribers via online microsites and a print publication – highlighted that despite advances in technology and innovation, solid fundamentals remain key to broker-insurer relationships.

The data behind the report was collected from a survey of over 850 UKGI brokers, from SMEs to those with gross written premiums (GWP) of more than £100m a year.

Brokers and insurers have a symbiotic relationship, with trust often built on years of collaboration and reliable delivery. As such, brokers have a laundry list of factors to consider when deciding to place business with an insurer.

Brokers identified fundamental pillars such as financial stability, product expertise and policy pricing as the most important factors in decision making.

Some 57% of respondents categorised the financial stability of an insurer as “extremely important” for deciding to place business with them and a further 36% as “very important”. Less than 6% of brokers rated it as “moderately important”, “slightly important” or “not important at all”.

The product expertise of an insurer was held in similarly high regard, with 55% of brokers rating it as extremely important and 38% as very important. Likewise, pricing competitiveness scored highly, 51% rating it as extremely important and 42% as very important.

Other factors proved less important to brokers, with regional expertise, regional presence, technological innovation and physical branches all being rated as extremely important in less than 25% of responses.

The existence of physical branches was the lowest scoring factor in the survey, with 17% of brokers rating it as not important at all.

Standout insurers

Insurance Times also asked brokers to rate insurers based on the quality of service or delivery of a given aspect of their business.

Insurers were scored on appetite, ease of access to decision making underwriters, responsiveness and timeliness, pricing, overall reputation, technological innovation and quality of their regional presence.

Markel – which topped the overall five star rankings for the second year in a row with a score of 4.23 – was rated highest by brokers, who described it as ‘excellent’ in more than 40% of responses for each category, averaging a 56% excellent rating across all categories.

Hiscox and NIG were the lowest scoring insurers, being rated excellent in no more than 31% and 25% of responses for any one category respectively, and both averaging 13% excellent rating across all categories.

Hiscox was the lowest ranked insurer in the five star report for the third year running, despite having improved its score from 3.29 in 2023 to 3.48 in 2025.

NIG was the second lowest ranked insurer in the five star report, achieving an overall score of 3.68. This marked the culmination of a three-year trend of falling scores, down from a personal best rank of fifth, with a score of 3.89, in 2023.