FIVE-STAR MGAs
As always, underwriting responsiveness and turnaround time remains the most important aspect for brokers when assessing an MGA partner; however, MGAs have yet to keep up in terms of their performance. Consistent with last year, underwriting responsiveness and turnaround time was MGAs’ fourth best-performing category, though the average score slid to 8.04, down from 8.31 in 2017.
Despite the dip in rating, several MGAs were able to outperform others, leaving their broker partners pretty satisfied with the status quo, commenting that things are “pretty good as it stands” and “hard to improve, as sometimes [turnaround] is [the] same day.” For brokers, it’s not just about receiving quotes quickly, but also getting prompt answers to their calls and emails; a couple of others also mentioned that having an online quoting option can make quite a difference.
Understandably, “no one is 100% all the time,” and some brokers noted that delays might be due to volume/peak season demands or “the London connection.” While brokers understand that these instances are often out of MGAs’ control, they would like to see better communication in these cases. Some brokers stressed the importance of receiving a response within a day or two, because “more than two days is unacceptable to our customers.” They added that if the MGA cannot respond on time because the underwriters have yet to find the answer, they should “advise instead of just letting an email sit in the inbox unanswered.”
