MGA Q&A: ‘When underwriting criteria tightens, MGAs come into their own’ - FloodFlash

As UK brokers respond to this year’s MGA Survey, Insurance Times speaks to the head of marketing at FloodFlash, Chris Hall, about the challenges MGAs are currently facing and what considerations MGAs need to keep an eye on moving forward.

Brokers can participate in 2022’s MGA Survey until 14 August 2022.

The 2022 MGA Survey aims to investigate the service levels of MGAs over the last year. How has FloodFlash adapted to the challenges it has faced over the last 12 months?

FloodFlash has doubled down on broker service over the last 12 months. We have hired more staff for our broker success team and developed a game-changing support service called Smart Quote.

When market conditions are driving prices up, it is important to maintain the same level of service - particularly as an insurance technology company. That way, we can help brokers and their clients create insurance programmes that suit their businesses and budgets.

There has been a huge drive across the industry to ensure digital capabilities are in line with customer expectations. What changes have taken place at your MGA surrounding digital innovation?

The biggest change has been the introduction of Smart Quote in June 2022. This new service uses client property characteristics to develop detailed and personalised recommendations for their parametric cover.

Each quote comes with detailed insights on the ways in which modelling flood risks will impact a client’s business. This is a huge development in the proliferation of mass market parametric insurance that we are hugely proud of.

Why should brokers stick with MGAs in an ongoing hard market?

When underwriting criteria tightens, MGAs come into their own.

Their speciality expertise and agility mean that MGAs can react to changing broker needs much faster.

There continues to be concerns around the potential reduction or removal of capacity from an MGA. What is your view?

We work very hard to ensure that capacity concerns don’t prove an issue for our broker partners.

The reward for those efforts is a brilliant relationship with our capacity provider, Munich Re. Improvements to our insurance product and broker service have had Munich Re’s full support.

We’re now expanding our FloodFlash+ service, as well as building towards a US launch for our SME product.

We couldn’t do this without the backing we have from Munich - both from Munich Re and Munich Ventures, which invested in FloodFlash earlier this year (February 2022).

Based on the insights from last year’s MGA Survey, what has been the direct or indirect impact on FloodFlash’s service or product development?

Last year’s survey made it very clear that brokers are hungry for more options and to access those options via digital channels.

We have expanded our product and development teams to accommodate that appetite.

FloodFlash provides a fantastic alternative for brokers looking to place property flood risks. It’s only right that our cloud-based underwriting platform is as technologically strong as the smart sensor that goes with every policy. The survey is a great piece of evidence in favour of that approach.