QuestGates has acquired Howell Wild, the Manchester-based liability loss adjusting firm, in a deal that strengthens the group's position as the UK's largest owner-managed loss adjusting and claims solutions business. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Founded in 2001, Howell Wild has built a strong reputation for handling complex liability claims, with particular expertise across product liability, public liability, employers' liability, construction, professional indemnity and other specialist classes.
The acquisition is QuestGates' second of 2026, following QGLaw's purchase of City law firm Miles Fanning Legal in February. That transaction expanded QGLaw's headcount to 72 staff and formed part of a broader strategy to build a one-stop-shop model spanning loss adjusting, claims management, engineering, surveying and legal services.
QuestGates, headquartered in Birmingham and operating from around a dozen locations across the UK and Ireland with roughly 650 staff, took on a minority investment from private equity firm Equistone Partners Europe in 2024 to support further acquisitions and technology development, building on a run of deals completed since the group's formation.
Chris Hall, group executive chairman of QuestGates, said Howell Wild was a perfect fit for the group. He added that the firm's expertise and reputation complemented QuestGates' existing liability offering and further strengthened its capabilities in the specialist area, and said the deal supported the group's broader strategy of investing in high-quality businesses that combine strong cultural fit with niche expertise.
"After more than two decades building Howell Wild into a respected name in liability adjusting, the time is right to join QuestGates and be part of a larger business," John Wild, founder of Howell Wild, said. "Their reputation and niche alignment makes them the ideal home for our business and ensures our clients benefit from the wider resources that QuestGates can offer, whilst retaining our commitment to delivery and service."
The deal lands against a backdrop of acute recruitment pressure across UK claims and adjusting. Talent attraction and retention has become the top business challenge for UK insurers in 2026, according to Gallagher Bassett's Carrier Perspective report, with 72% of UK respondents reporting greater difficulty finding qualified candidates and 48% citing acute shortages specifically in claims management and adjusting.
QuestGates has acknowledged the pressure itself, recently expanding an internal training pathway aimed at developing the next generation of adjusters. Against that backdrop, acquiring an established specialist liability team offers a faster route to capability than recruitment alone - a large part of why this deal is best read as a talent acquisition as much as a book-of-business one.
The Howell Wild deal follows a period of restructuring at QuestGates, including the appointment of Greg Laker as chief executive earlier this year to lead the group's evolution into a broader claims solutions provider. The group has continued to pursue acquisitions across legal, forensic accounting and adjusting disciplines as part of that strategy, aiming to offer insurers and brokers a wider range of specialist services under one roof.
For a market in which liability claims are becoming more technically demanding and costly to resolve, and specialist adjusting talent is increasingly hard to find, QuestGates' continued investment in liability capability points to a broader industry shift towards consolidation around technical depth, rather than scale alone.
