MGAA 2022

What a difference a year makes. MGAA 2021 was mired by covid, masks, and low attendance. 2022 was buzzing, with a notable step up in attendance especially from more direct channel players and providers. The agenda was geared around optimism and harnessing the current cyclical peak in interest in MGAs.

BIBA vs MGAA

Ignite has always felt BIBA was it’s home-ground conference, given we licence a policy administration platform. This year the MGAA felt a lot like home given how many MGAs are going direct and harnessing self-service PAS solutions to go to market B2C with low cost overheads rather than via brokers.

Verisk

Verisk – our parent company – were also exhibiting. As usual the event was an opportunity to learn more about the breadth of products within group and the surprising number of MGAs and carriers already using Verisk products and data sets.

Insurtech

There was the usual proliferation of ‘insurtech’ offerings. It again made me think that Ignite is no longer an insurtech, and reinforced in my mind that being specialist in certain product types is critical for insurtechs. Of course it’s possible to move sideways sometimes, but the effort is high and the timescales long. It has taken Ignite a good 5 years to become a market leader in providing a policy admin system for motor products for UK brokers; building out pet and home have taken almost as long again. The idea of breaking into something totally new like SME is chilling!

MGA optimism

Another recurring theme of the conference was optimism. MGAs are cyclically popular. Right now they’re on the rise again. There are two reasons for this:

1. brokers want more agile partners as insurers have become bogged down with recent regulation and pricing reforms

2. there are really good B2C self-service technology solutions out there these days which means MGAs can go direct without needing a massive headcount or brokers.

These two points are in addition to the perennial benefits of MGAs in terms of better ratios and specialism that insurers lack.

All in all the conference was a great success – credit to the organisers. Ignite will certainly now becoming a member and exhibiting in 2023…