MGA innovation, integrations moving fast

It’s been a year since our acquisition of MGA Systems—and things are moving at lightning speed. Vertafore’s MGA business has doubled in the past 9 months. We’ve 5X-ed our product development investment, and we’ve welcomed four new MGA-dedicated Orange Partners.

All of this is a reflection of what's happening with managing general agencies. From a direct written premium perspective, MGAs are growing faster than the broader P&C market. More new and innovative products and programs are being launched across more complex lines of business every day.

MGA trends in view

As our industry continues to modernize, MGAs have taken the lead in digital transformation and growth. Whatever is new and next on the horizon, MGAs have their hands in it.

This is driving the need for an agile and integrated tech foundation that can keep up. That’s why we’re obsessed with delivering and continually improving on a purpose-built, integrated tech suite that meets the specific and unique needs of our MGA customers.

The MGA segment is hyper-focused on solving the need for speed. How can you take a brand-new, innovative product to market quickly? And what is the foundational platform that helps you do that at a reasonable cost? These questions are top of mind considering MGAs are often launching a product before knowing if it’s going to be truly successful.

Our tools provide the foundation to innovate and launch new programs and products quickly—helping MGAs do what they do best. And the real power of these tools will be unlocked as we streamline the connection between the retail agent, the carrier, and the MGA.  

Expanding the MGA ecosystem 

To do this, we’re prioritizing a more connected and integrated landscape:

• The integration of MGA Systems and ImageRight has put the power of automated content management and workflows into your hands.
• Integration with Sircon has given you the ability to manage licensing and better track producer compliance.
• And if you’re an AIM customer, we’ve brought in the rating capabilities of NetRate for an integrated ISO rating platform that reduces duplicate, manual data entry.

Whether it’s in a rating platform, creating an underwriting desktop, or interacting with agents in a portal, MGAs are working across multiple solutions and platforms to launch a product. An expanding tech ecosystem makes it critical for core systems to integrate.

Holistically we believe in an open application program interface (API) strategy that meets customers where they are by allowing them to work across whatever systems they choose to use. And it’s no different—and even more critical—for our MGA customers due to the specific and custom needs of their business.

MGAs must be empowered to innovate to get products to market fast and find better ways to distribute those products. They need the tools to provide access to agent partners to easily create submissions and seamlessly work with underwriters. This is where open APIs make a big impact. By removing the roadblocks between systems, MGAs can reduce redundant and repetitive tasks. That’s nirvana for all insurance industry segments, but it can be the key difference in speed to market for MGAs.

That’s why we are expanding existing APIs for more functionality and updating the tech they are based on to continue to build point solution integrations with various partners.  

What this means for the independent insurance channel

Vertafore is privileged to work with 88% of the top MGAs in some form. Our significant market share with agencies and carriers puts us in the unique position to really support MGAs as the intermediary to better optimize the distribution channel for these products.

Carriers can be excited about a proven platform to help MGAs work with them to take new products to market, distribute them and provide agents with access to these specialized markets.

And Vertafore is also helping MGAs to work better with agencies—from getting submissions in, to making underwriting a more seamless process. All of the things we’re putting in place to support MGAs equal the ability to deliver more innovation faster, and ultimately deliver a better experience for the end-insured client.

This past year has been a tremendous success. The tech that MGA Systems brought to the table was a key component. But what’s most exciting is the human element. Not only is the team great to work with, but the deep industry experience they bring has fueled faster growth than we even anticipated. We are investing significantly in these products and there will be many exciting product updates to announce in the near future.

There’s familiar alignment between our MGA customers and Vertafore’s own product development mission of constantly solving for how to best create new products and make them accessible. That’s what makes our MGA customers so inspiring to work with. We’re moving quickly to meet our customers' needs in this fun, fast-paced environment.

Justin Regenwether
Vice President, Product Management

Justin leads product management for Vertafore’s MGA solutions. He has been with Vertafore for 5 years, guiding teams across professional services, customer success, and product management. Justin’s career has been focused on helping customers solve problems to maximize their tech investments.