For several years, the movement of senior underwriting talent from carriers into managing general agents was treated as a feature of the hard market. Capacity was plentiful, rates were rising, and new platforms could launch with relative ease. The assumption was that when conditions softened, the flow would slow.
It has not. Across our offices in North America and Asia Pacific, the same pattern is being reported independently: experienced, ambitious leaders continue to leave established carriers for MGA platforms, and the conversations we have with senior candidates increasingly include the MGA route as a serious option rather than an outside one.
The numbers explain why. Conning estimates the US MGA market reached approximately $128 billion in total premium in 2025. Statutory filings alone showed $102.6 billion in MGA direct premium written, up 12% on the prior year and more than double the broader property and casualty market’s growth rate of around 5%. AM Best identified nearly 800 unique MGAs meeting its reporting threshold in 2025, around 50 more than the year before, with twelve exclusive MGAs each writing more than $1 billion in direct premium.
This is no longer a niche channel. It is a structural part of how the industry underwrites risk, and it is reshaping where leadership talent wants to work.
This piece looks at why that talent is moving, what the softening market is changing about who succeeds, and what carriers and MGA platforms should be doing about it.
Why the Most Ambitious Leaders Are Moving
Across the market, the reasons leaders make this move are remarkably consistent, and very few of them are about salary alone.
Proximity to the risk. In a large carrier, a senior underwriter’s influence is often filtered through layers of governance, committees and group strategy. In an MGA, the distance between a decision and its commercial outcome is short. Leaders who have built their careers on technical judgement want to see that judgement reflected directly in results, and the MGA model offers that.
Ownership and equity. Many of the most capable leaders we speak to are not looking for a bigger role within someone else’s structure. They want to build something. MGA platforms, particularly those backed by private capital, offer a stake in the value created, and for executives at a certain stage of their career, that is a compelling proposition.
Authority and speed. The MGA model is built on delegated authority, and that authority is substantial. AM Best found that underwriting authority was granted in more than 75% of the MGA contracts it reviewed in 2025, with a slightly higher share of MGAs also empowered to handle claims. For leaders frustrated by slow decision-making, that autonomy is a significant draw.
Capital is following the talent. Investor appetite for the sector remains strong. Guy Carpenter reports that acquisition interest in MGAs has surged among both public and private market buyers. Where capital flows, opportunity follows, and ambitious leaders know it.
This Is Not Just a North American Story
The same shift is happening across Asia Pacific, at an earlier stage. Guy Carpenter describes Australia as a mature MGA hub, with Hong Kong and Singapore emerging as key players, and notes that the region still has significant room to grow. Regulatory progress in markets such as India is opening the door to further expansion.
From our Singapore and Sydney offices, we see the talent implications clearly. Senior leaders in Australia and Hong Kong are making the same move their North American peers made several years ago, and carriers in the region are beginning to feel the same pressure on retention and succession. Our Sydney team explored this shift in more depth in Eliot Insights: Inside ANZ’s Insurance Leadership and Talent Market with Tom Brooks. With DLA Piper now estimating the global MGA market at around USD 150 billion of premium, the talent question is truly cross-market.
The Softening Market Test
Here is where the story becomes more interesting, and where we believe the market’s thinking needs to catch up. As we explored in Hiring Insurance Leaders for a Softening Market, changing conditions reshape which leadership qualities matter most, and the MGA sector is no exception.
The conditions that allowed MGAs to grow rapidly are changing. Guy Carpenter describes the APAC MGA market as moving from growth-led expansion towards what it calls “smarter scale”, with a sharper focus on profitability, tighter underwriting and technology adoption, alongside increased carrier scrutiny and softening rates in some lines. AM Best has similarly cautioned that the maturing MGA market will need greater discipline in how portfolios are built.
Capacity providers are becoming more selective, and they are asking harder questions. As one MSI leader observed, some underwriters now running MGA books have never worked through a comparable market cycle. The consequences of mispricing can stay hidden for years until losses mature.
This changes what MGA leadership requires. The profile that founded many MGAs, an exceptional technical underwriter with a strong broker following, is not always the profile that can scale and sustain one through a softer market. The MGA CEO of 2026 is as much an operator as an underwriter. That shift is creating a new category of senior search, and it is also creating opportunities for carrier executives whose experience was built in more structured environments.
What This Means for Carriers
For carriers, the instinct is often to treat the movement of talent to MGAs as a retention problem to be solved with compensation. In our experience, that rarely works on its own. Three more useful responses follow.
Treat retention as a design question. The leaders most likely to leave are those who feel furthest from the outcomes of their work. Carriers that give senior underwriters genuine authority, visible accountability and a clear line of sight to commercial results are far better placed to keep them. The question to ask is not “what are MGAs paying?” but “what are MGAs offering that we are not?”
Build leadership for the partnership, not just the competition. The relationship between carriers and MGAs is not purely competitive. Conning estimates that around 20% of US MGA premium is now supported through fronting carrier relationships, and carriers across every market are expanding their delegated authority businesses. That creates demand for a distinct type of leader, someone who can select, oversee and grow MGA partnerships with discipline. In Asia Pacific, AIG’s creation of a dedicated Pacific delegated underwriting authority lead role is a clear signal of where this is heading.
Factor MGA movement into succession planning. Every senior underwriter who leaves takes part of a leadership pipeline with them. Carriers that plan succession on the assumption that today’s high performers will still be there in five years are taking a risk the market no longer supports. As we set out in Why Succession Planning Has Become the Most Pressing Issue in Life Insurance, the strongest organisations build depth before they need it. The same principle applies here: build depth below your most mobile leaders, and maintain relationships with those who leave, many of whom go on to become partners, clients or future hires.
What MGA Platforms Should Hire For
For MGAs hiring senior leaders, the lesson is direct. The candidate who looks strongest on a book of business is not always the one who will build the strongest business. In the briefs we are seeing from MGA boards and their investors, five capabilities now separate the leaders who can scale a platform from those who can only launch one.
1. Cycle-tested underwriting judgement
Strong results in a rising market prove less than they appear to. The leaders worth hiring can show how they performed when rates turned, what business they declined to write, and why. The willingness to walk away from premium is one of the clearest signs of underwriting maturity, and capacity providers are watching for it.
2. Credibility with capacity providers
An MGA’s future depends on the confidence of the carriers and reinsurers behind it. As capacity becomes more selective, leaders need to manage those relationships with transparency and consistency, bringing data, portfolio insight and a clear account of performance to every renewal conversation. A leader who loses the trust of a capacity partner can put the whole platform at risk.
3. Operational and expense discipline
In a growth market, inefficiency is hidden by premium growth. In a softer market, it is exposed. MGA leaders now need to run lean platforms, control acquisition and operating costs, and build infrastructure that supports profitable scale rather than volume for its own sake.
4. Data and technology fluency
Technology has become one of the main factors separating successful MGAs from the rest. Leaders do not need to be technologists, but they need to understand how data, analytics and automation improve risk selection and efficiency, and how to make sound decisions about where to invest. We set out what that looks like in practice in What Insurance Organisations Are Really Looking for in an AI-Ready Leader.
5. The ability to build a team, not just a book
Many MGAs are built around a single founder’s expertise and network. That can be a strength at launch and a constraint at scale. The leaders who build lasting platforms attract and develop talent, create a culture that retains it, and put succession in place before it is needed.
The questions worth asking in a senior MGA search have changed accordingly. How has this person managed capacity relationships under pressure? What have they declined to write? How did they control costs as the platform grew? Who have they developed, and where are those people now?
Leaders who can answer those questions convincingly are in short supply, and demand for them is rising in every market we operate in. MGA platforms that define the profile clearly, and look beyond the obvious underwriting names, will have a significant advantage.
Talent Moves Towards Authority
The MGA model has proved it is not a hard-market phenomenon. It has grown through changing conditions, it is expanding across regions, and it continues to attract some of the industry’s most ambitious leaders.
What draws them is not complicated. Talent moves towards authority, ownership and proximity to outcomes. Carriers that understand this can compete for it, partner with it, or plan around it. MGA platforms that understand what the next phase demands can hire for it before the softer market exposes the gaps.
Either way, the organisations that treat this shift as a leadership question, rather than a distribution trend, will be the ones best placed for what comes next.
Eliot Partnership is the only global executive search firm dedicated exclusively to the insurance and reinsurance industry. We work with the world’s leading insurers, reinsurers, brokers, MGAs and specialty platforms to build leadership teams equipped for what’s next. To speak with our team about MGA leadership hiring, succession planning, or executive search, visit eliotpartnership.com.
