The growth of managing general agents in Canada is reshaping how carriers access specialized segments of the market – but the partnerships that work best share a common trait: the carrier and the MGA are not chasing the same business, according to Laura Doddington (pictured), executive vice president of retail at Zurich Canada.
"We're not necessarily competing for the same customers," Doddington said. "And so we can partner with really good alignment, as opposed to competing for some of the same risks where you maybe get some of those conflicts at times."
She said the MGA channel has evolved significantly in Canada and globally, and carriers that have traditionally focused on larger commercial accounts are increasingly using MGA partnerships to reach parts of the market they have not accessed before. For Zurich Canada, which has historically operated in the larger commercial space, the MGA and program business represents a way to extend into specialized niches without building that expertise from scratch.
The logic applies beyond any single carrier. Program administrators and MGAs typically operate with a depth of knowledge in their niche that a generalist insurer cannot replicate – and that asymmetry is the point, not the problem.
"Program administrators typically know their business inside out to a level of depth that’s hard for an insurer to match on its own," Doddington said.
She said the value of programs lies in their ability to build coverage that fits a specific segment rather than forcing a standard product onto a risk it was not designed for.
"The whole point of programs is it's not cookie-cutter," she said. "It is about making sure that we have those custom products that work for our customers."
The challenge for carriers is evaluating an MGA partner's underwriting capability in a space where the carrier itself may not have deep expertise. Doddington said the first thing she looks for is whether the MGA can demonstrate strong underwriting discipline – not just volume or market access, but a credible process for how they assess and select risk.
"Can they speak to us credibly about how they go through underwriting, how they think about risk?" she said. "And often these are not brand-new MGAs. There's a track record too, that we can look at."
She said Zurich's approach to growth in this space is deliberate and not unconditional. Expanding through MGA and program partnerships is a priority, but not at the cost of underwriting standards.
"It's not growth at all costs," Doddington said. "It's growth with underwriting discipline."
Multi-line programs are a particular focus. Doddington said solving a client's needs across property and liability together, rather than placing individual lines separately, creates a better outcome for the client and a stronger alignment between the carrier and the program administrator.
"If we can solve that customer's needs across all of what they require, rather than just a piece of it, that's better for the customer and it's better for us," she said.
She said the segments where MGA and program business is growing fastest tend to be the ones where specialized expertise matters most – where a generic product would leave gaps and where the program administrator's knowledge of the client base is what makes the coverage work.
The broader trend across the Canadian market points in the same direction. As risks become more complex and more segmented, the carriers that can access niche expertise through disciplined partnerships are better positioned than those trying to build every capability in-house. The MGA model gives carriers reach without requiring them to develop specialist knowledge from the ground up – provided the underwriting standards on both sides hold.
Doddington said the alignment works because neither party is undermining the other.
"Partnering with program administrators helps us to have a really good collaboration so that we can make sure that between us we really understand the risk and we're definitely meeting the needs of those customers," she said.
