Jamie Lewis, managing director at Jensten Underwriting, explains what brokers can expect from the MGA in the coming year and outlines key trends impacting the MGA market
How is Jensten continuing to develop service levels to match and exceed broker expectations?
For an MGA to thrive, it needs to find its gap or USP. This could be serving a niche sector or product where there is limited capacity, bridging a distribution gap between brokers and insurers, or provide a service that exceeds what a broker receives from the wider market.
For Jensten Underwriting, whilst all these examples hold true, providing an exceptional service to our broker partners is paramount. Our commitment is that, as well as our ongoing development of technology to make the distribution process more efficient, we will continue to invest in having expert underwriters on the end of the phone who will make common sense decisions relating to the risk at hand.
Going forward, we will put our money where our mouth is and publish our service standards so our brokers can hold us to account. All of this is, of course, predicated on the fundamentals of competitive, stable pricing and fit-for-purpose products, which continue to be our bedrock.
What is Jensten doing to take existing broker partnerships to that next level?
We are currently working on a distribution model that will see us segment our broker partners. The primary aim of this is to align the right level of service and support, from both a trading and a relationship perspective, to match the needs of the broker. We’ll use a mix of strong, focused relationships and data to build really clear views of our broker partners, their requirements, clients and future aspirations.
Building this knowledge, effectively aligning our trading and support to segments and by having absolute clarity of brokers’ requirements will enable us to support brokers in the short-term to mid-term through excellent service, whilst longer-term developing our wider proposition with our brokers at the forefront of our thinking. Through the wider capability of the Jensten Group, we have the capability to provide a mix of products and service through one key relationship, which not only helps brokers service their clients, but also operate effective brokerages.
Concern from brokers around the removal of or changes to capacity arrangements is still very apparent. Should brokers have any concerns about capacity arrangements at Jensten?
No! We pride ourselves on being a genuine underwriting business, working really hard to ensure we strike that balance between growth and underwriting profit. Our capacity partners see this and we’ve been able to move our major arrangements to long-term deals, giving us and our broker partners confidence that we are a stable market and in it for the long haul.
What can brokers expect in the next 12 months from Jensten?
More of the same in terms of our relentless focus on service. Our commitment is to continue to invest in our people so they are on hand and accessible to respond to our brokers’ underwriting needs.
Hot off the product press, we are imminent to launch our hugely successful property owners product onto the Acturis platform, increasing our distribution reach. August will also see us go live with our increased underwriting footprint within the construction sector. And we will be continuing our trend of new product launches in the coming months, including motor trade combined and a specialist household product. This is in addition to our recently launched range of new motor and truck products.
Outside of this, M&A continues to be an important part of our strategy, particularly in those specialist and niche areas where a ground up build is more difficult to achieve.
What is Jensten doing to attract, develop and retain talent? What do you think needs to be done to attract the next generation of talent?
How many times do you hear the phrase ”I just fell into insurance”? While the sentiment is true for most of us, it does give the impression our industry is a bit of a joke, a second choice for most when the reality is it’s a vibrant, social and diverse industry that plays a vital role in the UK economy and I’m really proud to be part of it. Most fellow practitioners I know love the industry and the opportunities an insurance career has given them, so let’s stop talking it down and start celebrating it. I’ve been fortunate to be involved with the CII, mentoring new talent entering and navigating the industry, as well as speaking at schools and other events educating our future colleagues on what a great career insurance can be.
At Jensten, we are investing in a whole range of talent development programmes, including an apprenticeship scheme to attract new entrants, as well as rising stars and future leaders’ programmes for those that aspire to accelerate their career and core skill sets.
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