Acrisure has launched Asero Insurance Services, a specialty managing general agency (MGA) that brings together several Acrisure-owned program administrators under a single brand in the US.
The company owns 13 US-based MGAs that collectively underwrite more than $1 billion of premium, of which six will initially be branded as Asero, with more expected to follow.
"Asero combines specialized underwriting expertise with deep data, analytics, and claims insight across a select group of businesses and categories," said Chris Bressette (pictured), chief underwriting officer at Acrisure. "This framework allows us to draw on our shared expertise while preserving the specialization and trusted relationships that have always defined our teams."
Each program administrator within Asero retains its own specialized underwriting expertise, backed by the platform's shared data and analytics, actuarial and technology capabilities, with the ability to write difficult-to-place risks. The platform is further supported by Acrisure's centralized legal, regulatory, finance, accounting, HR and other enterprise functions.
Asero's underwriters operate under delegated authority agreements with unaffiliated insurance carriers, underwriting and issuing policies on those carriers' behalf. Products are distributed through independent retail agents, independent wholesalers and alternative distribution channels.
Asero serves small and medium-sized businesses across classes including commercial auto, logistics, commercial property, security and alarm contractors, artisan contractors, and snow and ice removal, with products spanning property, casualty, workers' compensation and specialty coverages.
The launch follows Acrisure's introduction of Ascendri Insurance Services, an MGA offering excess and surplus homeowners coverage for high-value properties starting in California, and the completed acquisition of Vave, a technology-driven property MGA, from Canopius Group earlier this year. Vave, which delivers more than 10,000 quotes a day for catastrophe-exposed E&S property risk, joined Acrisure Underwriting, a platform the company says comprises a dozen MGAs operating in US insurance markets.
Several of the classes Asero targets sit among the toughest segments of the US commercial market to underwrite profitably. Commercial auto has posted an industry-wide underwriting loss for 14 consecutive years, driven in large part by so-called nuclear verdicts, jury awards exceeding $10 million, which have grown at an average annual rate of roughly 21%, according to industry data cited by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC).
The NAIC has identified commercial auto, alongside product liability and medical liability, as among the lines most exposed to this litigation-driven cost pressure, often called social inflation. Net written premiums for commercial auto rose more than 10% industry-wide in 2024, with further increases expected as carriers work to restore underwriting profitability.
Contractor classes such as artisan contractors and snow and ice removal operators carry their own underwriting challenges, given exposure to slip-and-fall and third-party property damage claims that can also attract outsized jury verdicts.
These are the kinds of risks that traditional admitted carriers have increasingly pulled back from, creating demand for MGAs with specialized underwriting talent, proprietary data and the flexibility to price and structure coverage outside standard market appetite.
The consolidation reflects a broader trend across the US MGA sector, which has expanded rapidly in recent years. According to AM Best, premium generated through MGAs and other delegated underwriting authority enterprises grew 15% to $89.9 billion in 2024, the fourth consecutive year of double-digit growth.
Separate analysis from S&P Global Ratings found that the US MGA market has more than doubled in size over the past five years, tracking closely with growth in the excess and surplus market, as sustained hard-market conditions, reduced capacity from traditional insurers in certain casualty segments, and demand for specialized underwriting expertise have driven greater reliance on delegated authority structures.
That growth has drawn heavy private equity and strategic investment, with large distribution groups increasingly consolidating smaller MGAs under unified platforms to capture underwriting talent and streamline back-office functions. Acrisure itself has grown from $38 million to nearly $5 billion in revenue over the past decade, according to its own figures, expanding aggressively into MGA ownership alongside its brokerage business.
Regulators and rating agencies have flagged the need for strong governance as delegated authority expands, with S&P noting that fronting carriers and reinsurers must maintain independent oversight of MGA underwriting, data and claims handling to avoid misaligned incentives.
