Why should retail insurance brokers work with an MGA? The managing general agent (MGA) sector in Canada is thriving. Hard market conditions in commercial insurance are driving insurers away from challenging classes of business, and MGAs are in prime position to pick up the slack. Innovative and nimble by nature, Canada’s MGAs have managed to ride the wave of the hard market, bash away challenges caused by COVID-19, and continuously bring new products and capacity to the market.
For retail insurance brokers, there are multiple benefits to working with MGAs, according to Gary Hirst (pictured), president and CEO of CHES Special Risk Inc., business insurance companies in canada and president of the Canadian Association of Managing General Agents (CAMGA), a non-profit organization intent on advocating for the MGA industry in Canada and worldwide. “The MGA industry in Canada enables retail brokers to retain an element of independence,” said Hirst. “Whether the market cares to admit it or not, a lot of the large insurers are actually controlling retail brokers without them necessarily being aware of it. I say this because insurers are offering online quote and binds, and the square box solution, and where they can’t get the independent retailer to offer the square box solution, they’re buying up retail broker networks that will. For a lot of policyholders, that square box solution is perfectly adequate, but as industries and the economy evolves, there are a lot of insurance requests that come through that are not square box orientated, and that’s where the MGA comes in.”