Welcome to a very special episode because today’s guests are MGA royalty.
Luis Muñoz-Rojas (pictured left) is the founder and Richard Clapham (right) is the CEO of the global MGA DUAL Group, which is part of the Howden Group.
DUAL is now a business that writes more than $3bn in premium and employs 1,300 people in 19 countries.
And the firm is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.
Luis and I have a bit of history – in the 1990s we both worked for the biggest broker in Spain, Gil y Carvajal.
Aon took over Gil y Carvajal in 1998.
For me that was the cue to change career and go off and become a journalist, but for Luis it fired the starting pistol on an incredible entrepreneurial journey with a friendly London wholesale broker called David Howden.
I’ll let Luis tell the full story later on.
But I don’t want you to think that this is a backward-looking podcast, celebrating the achievements of the past quarter century.
There’s a bit of the origin story, because it’s a remarkable one. But this is just as much about the here and now of the reality of today’s market and the direction that DUAL and the MGA sector will head in in the next 25 years.
Nothing is off the agenda.
25 years ago MGAs were absolutely not in fashion. But today we seem to be on the third or fourth wave of a revolution in how commercial insurance is underwritten and distributed where MGAs always seem to be at the cutting edge.
Who better to be our guides than today’s guests?
They have built a global insurance underwriting and distribution machine that can bring geographical and product diversification to even some of the largest carriers, and from the tone of this talk, it feels like they have only just got started.
You be the judge, but because I’ve known one of the subjects so long I also think it allows us to have a much more open, candid and fun conversation that we might otherwise have had.
NOTES:
Luis mentions the DGS. The DGS is the Dirección General de Seguros, the Spanish insurance regulator.
LINKS
We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo:
https://www.advantagego.com/
Special Ep: Navigating the DDM switch-off with Paul Templar CEO of VIPR
Ep193 Julie Wood CEO QBE North America: Acting on the best available information
Ep192 James Burns CFC: Classifying Cyber
Ep191 Simon Bird, Brit: Bumping along the top
Ep190 Paul Brand, Convex: Execution is everything
Ep189 Tom Hoad Howden Ventures: Professionalising Innovation
Ep188 Nick Cook BMS: Pedal Flat to the Floor
Ep187 Alistair Wood CEO Hampden Capital: Selling an improved Lloyd’s product
Ep186 Todd Davison & Keir Cox of Purbeck Insurance: Introducing Personal Guarantee Insurance
Ep185 Paul Bantick, Global Head of Cyber Risk, Beazley: Providing for Cyber growth
Ep184 Ekhosuehi Iyahen Secretary General of the IDF: Putting valuable insurance knowledge to good use
Special Ep: The State of (Re)insurance 2023
Ep183 Richard Brindle: If you’re good enough, you’re old enough
Ep182 Tim Gardner & Bob Bisset Lockton Re: Let revenue take care of itself
Ep181 Jean-Jacques Henchoz CEO Hannover Re: True partnership has a price
Special Ep Arun Balakrishnan CEO Xceedence: AI and Insurance - everything you need to know
Ep180 Craig Kingaby CEO Meridian & Mark Heath CEO Acies: Playing our own game
Special Ep Amrit Santhirasenan CEO hyperexponential: How to win at the team sport of underwriting
Ep179 Antony Erotocritou CEO Ardonagh Specialty: We’re not slowing down
Ep178 Tony Ursano of Insurance Advisory Partners: A ton of fun!
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Commercial Edge: Unleash the Power of People
The emPOWERed Half Hour
Aligned Money Show
Gorse Culture PODcast : The H.R. Detective Agency!
HCI Leadership Revolution
The Ramsey Show
Planet Money