Sponsored Content: Mike Keating, chief executive of the Managing General Agents’ Association, sits down with Insurance Times to discuss the developments it is supporting in the MGA market
What developments have there been at the MGAA over the last year and what has been the focus of your work?
Our focus has been centred around ensuring we continue to provide maximum value to our members through an evolving but relevant membership proposition. We have invested in our Insights programme – which provides valuable educational support for our members and covers both technical underwriting, claims and regulatory topics –and expanded our programme of market briefings, in which our members, especially suppliers, showcase their expertise for the benefit of other members.
I am particularly proud of the introduction, as an embedded membership benefit, of our diversity, equity and inclusion training programme for all members. This training programme allows all members, irrespective of size, to either validate their current position or begin and improve their current journey in ensuring diversity, equity and inclusion becomes part of the fabric of their business.
In addition, we have continued to host our very popular events, represented our membership on an increasing number of regulatory topics with the FCA and increased the digitalisation of our present collateral.
What were the major trends across MGAs last year and how are these developing in 2023?
The MGA sector remains extremely buoyant, demonstrated by how many MGAs individually exhibited at the recent Biba conference.
MGAs’ continued ability to innovate and identify new product lines or sectors that require underwriting expertise provides them and their capacity partners with a competitive advantage – not least in their speed to market capabilities.
This entrepreneurial approach is underpinned by unrivalled service standards with access to decision makers and timely documentation.
The current hard market can potentially lead to capacity challenges for MGAs, however, in my opinion if the MGA is meeting its partnership obligations to its capacity partners – notably in provision of excellent data, consistent underwriting returns and good overall governance – then MGAs will continue to thrive and attract capital.
How are MGAs continuing to innovate underwriting in the insurance industry and how does the MGAA work to support this?
Our members are continually seeking to innovate and their strong distribution relationships allow them to quickly identify new customer requirements and whether this is a new product or a relevant change to an existing one.
The MGAA provides the opportunity, either through our events, Insight programme or a market briefing, for members to showcase and promote these innovative developments that has proved very successful. We have an annual Meet the Market event that brings together MGAs and the broker community and provides a fantastic environment to discuss underwriting and product trends.
What are your members increasingly demanding from you as an organisation and how are you rising to this challenge?
Interestingly, we are in the midst of our second full membership survey – our last one was completed in 2021 – where our members will share their priorities for the MGAA to support them going forward.
This allows us to ensure we devote both the time and investment into the areas our members are particularly focused on, which is exactly how a trade association should operate.
Our priorities need to match our members and regular feedback supplemented by comprehensive research allows us to continually validate. Whilst not wanting to second guess the results, I’m confident that additional events and increased technical support will be high on the list.
What is coming in the future from the MGAA and how will this benefit members?
This will be derived from our members survey and will form part of our 2024 strategy and beyond. We will remain relentless in ensuring we provide value to our growing membership through a continuous programme of improving membership benefits.
What I can share is that we will be relaunching our website towards the end of this year, which will significantly increase the user experience when engaging with the MGAA as well as provide much easier access to our wealth of supportive tools.
Register now to book your place at the MGAA conference at Old Billingsgate on 6th July.
Alongside the insightful presentations will be an exhibition showcasing a wide range of member experts.
At the end of the day, the MGAA awards presentations will take place, followed by a drinks reception to close the event.
