Executive Insights

Insurance Business TV recently attended in Scottsdale the 25th annual TMPAA Annual Summit. Whilst there we caught up with leading insurance professionals to address some of the top challenges the industry is facing today. Hello, I'm here with N. Lee McGinn, GM of MGA Products and Vertifor. The specialty programme market has evolved recently, with carriers and MGA's gravitating towards pipe-unleashed mock verticals. What are the underlying forces that are pushing this trend towards such specialty progress? Well, I think the most important thing is that the risks are evolving, and they're evolving in two ways as I see it. I think the first concept is that what used to be one risk has now split into 20 risks. It is becoming just more and more specialised and more and more niche. A great example is cyber. So for 15, 10, even 5 years ago, the risks in the cyberspace were really out of liabilities and financial losses from data breaches. Today, a new AI and deep fakes and what happens when a CEO gets deep banked and impacts the stock price. What used to be one cyber risk is now 20. The second part of the risks that are evolving is just getting better data analytics and knowledge and more traditional risks. I like to use the auto industry as a great example of that. We've been getting a lot smarter into the specialty car market and what is a specialty car today is different than it was 30 years ago and how to identify those risks and how to ensure that, how to get better analytics on driver data, driver demographics, usage models. So what was a just a traditional risk is becoming more niche as we've been getting smarter in this space. Thank you. So what capabilities are critical to success as speed to market, claims, distribution relationships? Hands down, we are seeing speed to market as being the most important for success. How fast you can get in, how quickly you can capture the market is critical to all MGAs. Now I will say once you capture that in order to keep it, it then goes into the technology stack. The solutions and the technology you have to support it and that can be customized, that can grow as the MGAs get in and learn more and want to update and create deeper specialization is really important to support once you get in with the speed. And then I think another aspect of that, which isn't speed to market, but it's also the agent experience. You look at the technology stack and you go into agent experience. People want to use technology the same way in their work life as they do in their personal life. And if you're digital first and you're using AI and it's a really user-friendly experience is really critical these days. Emily, thank you. Thank you for joining me. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you.