UK MGAs: How the Market Is Growing and the Trends Shaping It

The UK MGA insurance market

Managing general agents are one of the most active parts of the UK insurance market. An MGA underwrites on behalf of insurers, using their capacity, and is usually built around specialist underwriting in classes that larger carriers find hard to serve. That focus lets MGAs design and change products quickly, which is why brokers bring them niche risks and capacity providers use them to reach markets they could not reach alone.

The UK general insurance market is worth £47 billion in premium on the basis the MGA sector uses, and MGAs place more than a tenth of it (Milliman, September 2025). Wider measures of UK non-life business that include more lines come out far higher (Bank of England), so the share depends on how the market is counted. Three things have driven that growth: brokers asking for products built for specialist trades and risks, private capital investing in MGA businesses, and technology that lets a small team run a book that once needed a large one.

This article sets out how big the market is, why capacity providers and brokers work with MGAs, the technology MGAs are adopting, how regulation applies to them and where the market is heading.

On this page

• How the UK MGA market is growing
• What capacity means for MGAs now
• Technology and UK MGAs
• Embedded insurance
• Distribution models led by MGAs
• Partnerships with capacity providers
• Regulation of UK MGAs
• Future trends for MGAs
• Frequently asked questions

Growth and specialisation

Milliman counts more than 300 MGAs underwriting in the UK, together placing more than 10% of the £47 billion UK general insurance market (Milliman, September 2025). Counts vary with the definition used: MarshBerry and Insurance Edge both put the number trading in the UK at more than 350.

Membership of the Managing General Agents' Association (MGAA) tells the same story. It rose from 187 MGA members in 2022 to 206 in 2023 and 233 in 2024 (Milliman, citing the MGAA 2024 Annual Report), reached 249 in the year to July 2025 and stood at 270 in the year to July 2026 (MGAA Annual Report 2026, reported by Reinsurance News). The association's supplier and market practitioner membership grew over the same year, to 162 and 76. Gallagher Re describes a market moving from early expansion into a more established phase, and the wider ecosystem of capacity providers, brokers and technology suppliers around MGAs has grown with it.

Brokers turn to MGAs for specialist appetite, above all in high-hazard trades. In a survey by Corin Underwriting, 62% of brokers said it was "very significant" for MGAs to offer products for sectors such as roofing, scaffolding, haulage, waste and steel (Insurance Times). These are classes where many general insurers have cut back, and MGAs have moved in to write them.

The same survey found that 80% of brokers prefer MGAs that concentrate on bespoke products for specialist industries over those offering broad market cover (Insurance Times). The security behind the product matters too: 98% said capacity from an A-rated or similarly rated provider makes an MGA a more attractive partner (Insurance Times).

Moonrock Underwriting shows how narrow that specialism can be. It insures drones for hobbyist, commercial and bespoke use, with public liability limits from £1m to £50m and hull cover for drones valued between £500 and £5,000,000 (Moonrock Underwriting).

Why MGAs keep growing when the wider market softens

Prices have softened in several lines of the wider UK market (Marsh), yet the MGA market has continued to grow. Part of the reason is where MGAs write. When general insurers reduce their exposure to high-risk or niche classes, MGAs with the right expertise and capacity take that business on (Insurance Edge).

That makes the MGA more than a distribution channel. For complex or emerging risks that larger carriers avoid, the MGA is often the party that designs the product, prices it and decides which risks to accept, with the carrier providing the balance sheet.

What capacity means for MGAs now

Securing long-term underwriting capacity is still one of the main concerns for MGAs (Insurance Edge). Brokers want that capacity to come from A-rated or similarly rated providers (Insurance Times), but the rating is only part of what makes a capacity relationship work.

Commentators have pointed to "six-month lags" in reviews between MGAs and their capacity partners (Insurance Business Canada). Capacity that is consistent, quick to respond and clear about what it needs is worth more to an MGA than capacity that is cheap but slow. MGAs that can share data in real time and show a clear route to profit for their partners find it easier to agree durable capacity deals.

Table 1: UK MGA Market Snapshot (2019-2026)

Metric	Value (2024 unless specified)	Source
Total UK General Insurance Premiums	£47 billion (2024)	Insurance Edge
% of UK General Insurance Premiums managed by MGAs	>10% (2024)	Insurance Edge
Number of UK MGAs	>300 (2025); >350 on a wider count (2024)	Milliman; Insurance Edge
MGAA MGA members (2022)	187	Milliman
MGAA MGA members (2023)	206	Milliman
MGAA MGA members (2024)	233	Milliman
MGAA MGA members (year to July 2025)	249	Reinsurance News
MGAA MGA members (year to July 2026)	270	Reinsurance News
MGAA Membership Growth (2019-2024)	58.5%	Insurance Edge
Individual MGA GWP Growth Example	36% (2024)	Insurance Times
Individual MGA GWP Target	£50m (by end of 2025)	Insurance Times
Overall UK Insurance Market Growth	3.2% (2024)	Allianz Economic Research
P&C Sector Growth	14.8% (2023)	Allianz Economic Research
P&C Sector Growth	5.4% (2024)	Allianz Economic Research

The table puts the MGA figures beside those for the market as a whole. One MGA reported growth in gross written premium of 36% in 2024 (Insurance Times), against growth of 3.2% for the UK insurance market overall (Allianz Economic Research). A single example does not make a trend, but it fits the wider pattern of MGAs growing faster than the market they sit in.

Technology and UK MGAs

Digital transformation now decides which MGAs can grow efficiently, attract capital and reach new markets (Deloitte's 2025 Global Insurance Outlook). Deloitte sees a widening gap between MGAs that have invested in technology and those still running on older systems.

Across the UK market, firms are adopting AI in insurance and modern data platforms, and Lloyd's of London is delivering its Blueprint Two programme. MGAs are among the earliest adopters, using technology to understand their markets better, profile risks more accurately and take manual steps out of their workflows (Insurance Insider).

AI in MGA underwriting and claims

MGAs were using analytics and machine learning well before generative AI arrived (Deloitte's 2025 Global Insurance Outlook). Motor and fleet MGAs price usage-based policies from telematics data, and cyber MGAs assess a firm's IT security before deciding the cover and price to offer.

Deloitte expects agentic AI, which can carry out multi-step tasks and act on its own within set limits, to take on more routine work in risk assessment and policy administration. That leaves underwriters to spend their time on the complex cases that need their judgement (Deloitte's 2025 Global Insurance Outlook).

AI is also used to triage claims and flag possible fraud, in line with the market's move towards straight-through processing (IBM Think). Some MGAs now give customers apps or online dashboards to manage policies and make claims. The time saved on routine work is what lets an MGA take on new niches: a team that is not keying data can assess more complex risks and launch products for markets that are currently underserved.

Connectivity and open architecture

The monthly bordereau has long been a pain point for MGAs: batches of policies and claims reported by spreadsheet, weeks after the business was written (InsurTech360). Connectivity through APIs replaces that with a continuous flow of data from the MGA's platform to its carriers and reinsurers, so new policy and exposure data arrives as it is created (InsurTech360).

Insurers encourage the change because it shows them how a portfolio is performing and where risks are accumulating while there is still time to act (InsurTech360). For the MGA, it answers the complaint about data lags (Insurance Business Canada) and makes capacity easier to keep. An MGA with better connectivity than its rivals has a real advantage when capacity is tight.

Speed to market

Flexible technology lets MGAs launch niche products faster than large insurers, often within a few months (Deloitte's 2025 Global Insurance Outlook). "MGA-in-a-box" services go further for new ventures, bundling regulatory permissions, a technology stack and access to distribution so that a new MGA can start trading sooner (Insurance Edge). By lowering the cost and time of setting up, these services bring more specialist MGAs into the market.

Just as useful is the ability to change cover or pricing quickly once a product is live, something insurers on older systems often struggle with (Deloitte's 2025 Global Insurance Outlook). Automation helps on the operational side. Robotic process automation handles repetitive tasks such as policy issue and regulatory reporting (Insurance Insider), while submission portals and automated quote and bind cut processing times and costs. Read more about speed to market with Genasys.

Table 2: Key Technology Adoption Areas and Their Impact on UK MGAs

Technology Area	Key Applications/Capabilities	Impact on MGAs	Source
Agentic AI & Generative AI	Autonomous risk assessment, policy administration, complex task management, content generation	Increased accuracy, efficiency, human specialists focus on complex cases, enterprise-wide transformation	Deloitte's 2025 Global Insurance Outlook
Enhanced Underwriting	Digital tools, data analytics, algorithmic approaches for specialty risks (cyber, climate)	Improved risk selection, market entry, precision at scale, better loss ratios	Insurance Insider
Data-Driven Analytics & ML	Risk assessment, fraud detection, customer profiling, telematics for usage-based policies, algorithmic underwriting	Optimised underwriting, reduced fraud, personalised products, improved customer experience	Deloitte's 2025 Global Insurance Outlook, IBM Think, InsurTech360
Cloud Computing & API Integration	Configurable core systems, real-time data exchange, integration with external tools	Scalability, operational flexibility, reduced latency, improved transparency with capacity providers	InsurTech360, KPMG
Automation & Digital Workflows	Automated submissions, quotes, policy issuance, claims processing, chatbots	Reduced processing times, lower operational costs, increased efficiency, scalability without headcount increase	Deloitte's 2025 Global Insurance Outlook, Insurance Insider
Low-code Platforms	Rapid product development, quick integration with third-party systems for embedded insurance	Agile response to consumer demands, faster market entry for niche products	Deloitte's 2025 Global Insurance Outlook

Most of these technologies work best together. Cloud hosting gives an MGA room to scale, APIs connect it to carriers and data sources, and AI and automation reduce the manual work in each transaction. An MGA that adopts one without the others gains far less than one that builds them into a single operating model.

Embedded insurance

Embedded insurance is cover offered inside a non-insurance purchase or platform, such as an online shop, a travel booking site or a banking app (Deloitte's 2025 Global Insurance Outlook). Deloitte projected the embedded insurance market would reach $70 billion of gross written premium by 2025.

In a Q1 2025 industry poll, 31.6% of respondents named embedded insurance as the distribution model most likely to drive growth in personal lines, ahead of direct-to-consumer sales and broking (Insurance Times).

Demand is coming from customers as well as from providers. Many consumers say they would welcome insurance offers in their banking apps based on what they are buying, and digital companies that embed insurance have reported attach rates up to 290% higher than before the pandemic (Everest Group). Buying cover at the point of sale removes the separate step of finding and buying a policy, and that puts pressure on insurers whose distribution still depends on that second step.

Distribution models led by MGAs

Deloitte identifies three distribution models through which MGAs are growing (Deloitte's 2025 Global Insurance Outlook):

1. Broker-led distribution: the traditional model, made faster with digital trading between MGAs and their broker partners.
2. Direct-to-consumer: fully digital MGAs selling policies online without an intermediary.
3. Embedded insurance: MGAs placing cover inside non-insurance platforms at the point of sale.

A newer group of tech-first MGAs bundles risk prevention technology with the insurance itself, moving from paying for losses after the event to preventing them in the first place (Deloitte's 2025 Global Insurance Outlook). Policyholders get a simpler decision and often a better price. Insurers get fewer losses and better loss ratios, which is particularly valuable in emerging and hard-to-place classes such as cyber.

Examples, and the role of low-code platforms

Embedded insurance is already familiar from large platforms. Uber provides cover for drivers through insurtech partners, and Amazon works with specialists to offer damage protection. In the UK, the money app Monese has offered its cardholders embedded bill and purchase protection (Monese Blog).

Low-code platforms help MGAs build these products and connect them to a partner's systems quickly, so they can respond when a new distribution partner or customer need appears (Deloitte's 2025 Global Insurance Outlook).

Table 3: Benefits of Embedded Insurance for MGAs

Benefit	Explanation	Source
Enhanced Customer Acquisition	Reaches customers at the point of need/purchase, aligns with digital buying habits, accesses individuals not typically seeking insurance.	Deloitte's 2025 Global Insurance Outlook
Improved Customer Experience	A simple, frictionless experience, relevant offers at the right time and place, increased convenience.	Deloitte's 2025 Global Insurance Outlook
Diversified Revenue Streams	Opens doors for non-insurance entities to distribute, allows MGAs to expand beyond underwriting into distribution.	Deloitte's 2025 Global Insurance Outlook
Better Pricing Models & Loss Ratios	Enables "predict and prevent" model by bundling risk mitigation tech, incentivises risk reduction.	Deloitte's 2025 Global Insurance Outlook
Agility & Speed to Market	Low-code platforms enable rapid product development and integration with third-party systems.	Deloitte's 2025 Global Insurance Outlook

For an MGA, embedded insurance brings in customers who would not have gone looking for cover, opens distribution beyond the broker channel and, where prevention technology is bundled in, improves loss ratios. Each of those depends on being able to build and change products quickly.

Partnerships with brokers and capacity providers

UK MGAs depend on two sets of relationships: with the brokers who bring them business and the capacity providers who back it. Brokers expect good service from underwriting through to claims management, because consistent service from an MGA protects the broker's own reputation (Insurance Times). An MGA's ability to write niche and complex risks is why brokers keep coming back.

On the capacity side, providers are more willing to back insurtech MGAs than they were. In one survey 81% of respondents already provided capacity to them, and respondents expected the premium placed through insurtechs to rise over the following year (Insurance Times). What wins capacity, according to the same survey, is access to the insurtech's data, the insurance experience of its team and a distinct product proposition. Building trust and mutual respect with capacity partners was seen as essential to closing deals.

Private capital has paid for much of the technology and expansion behind recent MGA growth (Gallagher Re), and closer working with insurers has added to it. Some firms now offer exchanges that connect MGAs, underwriters, distribution and capital providers on a shared data platform, Accelerant's "Risk Exchange" being one example. The aim in each case is a shared, current view of how the risk is performing.

Trust, data and long-term partnerships

Trust (Insurance Times) and data (Deloitte's 2025 Global Insurance Outlook) come up again and again in discussions of capacity, and the two are linked. Real-time data sharing, usually through APIs, gives a capacity provider immediate visibility of portfolio performance and removes the data lags that have unsettled these relationships in the past (Insurance Business Canada).

With that trust comes the longevity that capacity providers and brokers both want. Capacity stays in place for longer, products stay available to brokers and the relationship moves from one renewal negotiation to the next towards a lasting partnership built on shared data.

Regulation of UK MGAs

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) regulates the UK's financial services firms, MGAs among them. It is independent of government and its objectives are to protect consumers, protect the integrity of the financial system and promote competition (GOV.UK).

MGAs and brokers are both regulated by the FCA and face similar requirements, including the Consumer Duty, fair treatment of customers and sound governance (Insurance Times). Because both sit in the same chain to the customer, they need to agree how each will meet those requirements and keep each other informed.

The FCA describes regulation as "a bridge, not a barrier" between innovation and public trust (FCA & ICO Blog). It works with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) to help firms understand how data protection and financial regulation apply to new technology. In their joint survey on AI, 33% of firms named data protection and 20% named FCA rules as constraints on adopting AI, and the two regulators followed up with roundtables on those concerns.

For delegated authority, the FCA expects insurers to have strong systems and controls, to oversee the functions they outsource and to understand their responsibilities to customers (SX3 Claims Insight). Its scrutiny of delegated authority is aimed at governance and oversight rather than at the model itself. MGAs and insurers that can show clear oversight of their third-party administrators are well placed to grow within it.

BIBA has published a guide for brokers using MGAs, covering terms of business agreements, broker responsibilities, the ending of delegated authority and claims (Insurance Business UK). Its chief executive, Graeme Trudgill, has said BIBA works closely with the MGAA and that MGAs provide valuable additional capacity, particularly in difficult markets. BIBA's 2025 manifesto also calls for lighter reporting requirements and faster authorisations (BIBA Press Release).

How regulation shapes good practice

Clear expectations on consumer protection and on governance in delegated authority give MGAs a standard to build to. Meeting them means good data management, sound internal controls and fair treatment of customers, which are also the things capacity providers and brokers look for. An MGA that can evidence all three is easier to back, easier to place business with and better placed to grow.

Future trends for MGAs

Product innovation is the top priority for many MGAs, as they develop new offerings for new and changing risks (Gallagher Re). Expansion is the second theme: within the UK and into less mature European markets, where an MGA's specialism can travel and technology helps it adapt to local rules (Insurance Edge, Gallagher Re).

The line between traditional and insurtech MGAs is fading as established MGAs modernise their operations and move into classes such as cyber (Deloitte's 2025 Global Insurance Outlook). MGAs are paying more attention to the experience they give brokers and policyholders, and some are testing omnichannel distribution alongside their underwriting.

Gallagher Re also expects more mergers and consolidation as the market matures and firms look for scale. For individual MGAs, that means continuing to refine their operating model and the technology underneath it.

MGAs as a testing ground for the wider market

MGAs often test new technology before the rest of the market, and what works for them tends to spread to larger insurers (InsurTech360). Their size and willingness to change let them try new approaches to underwriting, distribution and claims management, from AI in insurance to no-code product building, and refine them quickly. When those approaches prove themselves, carriers adopt them too, which speeds up digital transformation across UK insurance.

Table 4: Factors Driving MGA Growth & Evolution

Category	Factor	Explanation	Source
Growth Drivers	Hard Market Conditions	The MGA market fills gaps where traditional insurers reduce exposure, providing specialist capacity.	Insurance Edge, Gallagher Re
	Influx of Private Capital	Provides funding for technology investment, market expansion and strategic initiatives.	Gallagher Re
	Demand for Specialisation	Brokers prefer bespoke offerings for niche and complex risks, which MGAs excel at.	Insurance Times, Gallagher Re
	Increased Collaboration with Insurers	Carriers use MGAs to access new markets and draw on their expertise without full operational overhead.	Deloitte's 2025 Global Insurance Outlook, Gallagher Re
	Technology Acceleration	Enables efficiency, data-driven underwriting, rapid product launches and new distribution models.	Deloitte's 2025 Global Insurance Outlook, Gallagher Re
Emerging Trends	Product Innovation	Focus on developing new, tailored offerings for changing risks and market needs.	Gallagher Re
	Market Expansion	Growth potential in less mature and emerging markets beyond the UK.	Insurance Edge, Gallagher Re
	Insurtech Partnership	Blurring lines between traditional and Insurtech MGAs, leading to advanced tech adoption.	Deloitte's 2025 Global Insurance Outlook, Gallagher Re
	Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) Distribution Models	Expanding distribution channels and improving client experience through digital platforms.	Deloitte's 2025 Global Insurance Outlook, Gallagher Re
	Regulatory Evolution	An adaptive regulatory environment that supports responsible innovation and consumer protection.	Gallagher Re, FCA & ICO Blog
	Continued M&A and Consolidation	Reflects market maturity and the pursuit of scale and efficiency.	Gallagher Re

The growth drivers explain how MGAs reached their current size: filling gaps left by insurers, attracting capital and meeting broker demand for specialist products. The emerging trends point to where the next growth will come from, led by product innovation, expansion into new markets and closer partnerships with insurtechs.

What comes next for UK MGAs

UK MGAs have grown by specialising and by adopting digital transformation faster than much of the market, and they are setting many of the future trends of UK insurance in the process. The tools that matter most are now clear: AI in insurance, API connectivity to capacity providers, embedded distribution and the ability to bring products to market quickly.

With a regulator that wants delegated authority to work well, and brokers and capacity providers who need what MGAs offer, the sector is in a strong position. The MGAs that grow fastest will be those whose data, controls and technology let them prove to every partner, at any time, how their business is performing.