of US MGA premium is supported through fronting carrier relationships, Conning estimates
Conning, 2026higher win rates when decision makers are involved in the first 2 sales stages
Ebsta x Pavilion, 2025The MGA’s founder liked the demo and wanted to launch fast. Then the fronting carrier’s due diligence asked about data access, audit trails and bordereaux, and the deal went quiet. That stall is predictable. The MGA’s capacity provider has a seat on every platform deal, and the fix is to qualify that seat in the first call.
Why does the fronting carrier ask about data controls after the MGA says yes?
The carrier asks because it answers for every policy the MGA writes on its paper, and your platform will hold the records it has to check. An MGA prices and binds under delegated authority. The carrier issues the policy and carries the risk, and a fronting carrier passes most of that risk on to reinsurers.
Fronting is a growing share of the MGA market. Conning estimates that fronting carriers generated $22.6bn of gross premium in 2025, and that about 20% of US MGA premium is supported through fronting carrier relationships.↗ Fronting premium grew 17% in 2025, against 5% for the commercial insurance industry, and fronting companies ceded nearly $19bn to non-affiliated reinsurers.↗
Fronting premium grew faster in 2025 than MGA premium and the commercial insurance market.
Data behind this chart
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Fronting gross premium | 17% |
| US MGA direct premium written | 12% |
| Commercial insurance industry | 5% |
Those reinsurers rely on the carrier’s oversight of each MGA. Conning lists underwriting oversight, data and technology among the things that may set fronting carriers apart as the market softens.↗ Expect the questions about your platform to get sharper.
US state law can make the oversight a duty. Minnesota’s MGA law requires the insurer to review the MGA’s underwriting and claims operation on site at least twice a year.↗ It also gives the insurer access to, and the right to copy, all records of its business in a usable form.↗ And the MGA must send accounts of all transactions at least monthly.↗
Read that as a vendor and the due-diligence list stops being a surprise. Records in a usable form are your data model and exports. The accounts are your bordereaux. The on-site review covers an operation that runs on your platform.
The questions come from the person who oversees the MGA for the carrier. Titles vary: head of delegated authority, programme manager, MGA oversight lead. Third-party risk and security sit behind them. At Lloyd’s, the managing agent plays the same part for its coverholders.
An MGA deal with only the MGA engaged is single-threaded
We think an MGA deal is single-threaded until someone at the capacity provider is engaged, however many people at the MGA you talk to. The founder, the head of underwriting and the operations lead sit on one side of a decision that a second company can stop.
We think the stall has 3 causes, and a difficult carrier isn’t one of them.
- The champion delays the carrier conversation. The capacity relationship is the MGA’s most valuable asset. A founder who has just chosen you doesn’t want to open a new question with the carrier before the paper is signed.
- The CRM has no place for the carrier. It lives in an email thread, so no stage on the deal asks for it.
- Your people never meet theirs. Your security lead answers the carrier’s questionnaire through the MGA, weeks after the yes.
So we would not call an MGA opportunity qualified until a named person in the carrier’s oversight seat has had a two-way interaction with you. That means a call, a meeting or a written reply to a question you asked; a forwarded email doesn’t count. We count that person as engaged for 90 days, the example window in our buying-group coverage measure.↗
The carrier thread belongs in the deal map from the start, with names and dates. We think multi-threading happens reliably only when the plan says who talks to whom and by when. Left to the champion, it happens late or not at all. We don’t say every contact at the carrier needs your attention, only the seat that can stop the MGA from writing on your platform.
The evidence on multi-threading points the same way. Gong found that multi-threading lifts win rates by an average of 130% in deals over $50k.↗ Across 655,000 opportunities, Ebsta and Pavilion found win rates rose 55% when decision makers were actively involved in the first 2 stages of the sales process.↗ Forrester counts 9 external influencers in a typical buying decision, on top of 13 internal stakeholders.↗ In an MGA deal, one outside party holds a veto, and it belongs on the buying-group map with the rest. Utility deals stall the same way when finance and regulatory join late.
How do you qualify the capacity provider in the first MGA call?
Ask about the carrier in the first call, before the demo goes deep, and record the answers on the deal. These 6 questions cover it:
- Which carrier, reinsurer or Lloyd’s managing agent backs this programme?
- Who oversees your delegated authority there, by name and title?
- When was its last on-site review or audit, and when is the next one?
- Does it have to accept a new system before its policies or data move onto it?
- What did it ask the last time you changed a system or a data supplier?
- Who will introduce us to that person, and by when?
Record the capacity provider as an account, the oversight lead as a contact with a capacity-provider role and the next review date on the deal. An MGA that can’t name its carrier yet is still raising capacity: keep the deal in an early stage and watch for its capacity announcement. An MGA that names the carrier but not the person stays out of the qualified stage until it does.
| Seat | What they check | When to engage |
|---|---|---|
| MGA founder or CEO | Launch date, capacity renewal and total cost | First call |
| MGA head of underwriting | Rating and authority limits under the binding authority agreement | Discovery |
| MGA operations and bordereaux lead | Bordereaux output and data conversion | Discovery |
| Carrier delegated-authority oversight lead | Records access, bordereaux, audit trail and controls across the MGA | Named in the first call; a two-way interaction before the deal counts as qualified |
| Carrier third-party risk and security | Security evidence, subcontractors and incident terms | Before the evidence review |
| Carrier AI governance, for AI products | Model testing, audit rights and cooperation with regulators | Before a pilot on live policies or claims |
Who talks to whom, and by when?
Your AE talks to the MGA’s champion and operations lead. Your security lead talks to the carrier’s third-party risk team, and your founder or product lead talks to the oversight lead. Each thread gets a date when you map the deal. The introduction should serve the MGA. Frame it around the launch or the carrier’s next review. The carrier then hears about the new system from its MGA first, before any questionnaire arrives.
The weeks below are our starting plan; move them to fit the MGA’s launch date.↗
- 01Week 0
Name the carrier and the seat
In the first MGA call, record the capacity provider as an account, its oversight lead as a contact with that role and the carrier’s next review date.
- 02Week 1
Plan the threads
Write down who talks to whom: your AE with the MGA’s champion and operations lead, your security lead with the carrier’s third-party risk team, your founder or product lead with the oversight lead. Agree the dates with the champion.
- 03Week 2
Get a written introduction
The champion introduces you to the oversight lead by email, framed around the MGA’s launch or the carrier’s next review.
- 04Weeks 3–4
Hold the first carrier conversation
Ask what the carrier will review, who signs off, how long it takes and what would make it say no. After this two-way interaction, the opportunity counts as qualified.
- 05Weeks 4–8
Run the review alongside the terms
Map each carrier requirement to evidence you hold, a dated fix or an open gap, while commercial terms with the MGA move in parallel.
- 06Before contract
Record the carrier’s answer
The carrier’s written review result is a required exit criterion for the contract stage, so no deal reaches commit without it.
The plan holds on 2 rules. The carrier review runs alongside commercial terms with the MGA, so it never starts after signature. And the carrier’s written answer is a required exit criterion for the contract stage, so no deal reaches commit without it.↗
How does a stall at the carrier show up in your pipeline?
A carrier stall shows up as open MGA deals with no carrier-side activity and close dates that keep moving. Measure it with carrier-side coverage: open MGA deals with a two-way interaction with the carrier’s oversight lead in the last 90 days, divided by all open MGA deals.↗
A worked example, Illustrative, with a fictional vendor: a bordereaux and payments platform has 12 open MGA deals past discovery.↗ The capacity provider is recorded on 8, a named oversight lead on 5 and a two-way interaction with that person in the last 90 days on 2.↗ Carrier-side coverage is 2 of 12, about 17%, and only those 2 deals pass the gate.↗
Then read the close dates. Our audit counts open deals whose close date moved 2 or more times; the best score needs under 10%, with a reason required for every move.↗ Split that count by carrier-side coverage. If the pushed deals sit among those without a carrier interaction, the carrier is where your pipeline stalls.
Forecast the same way. A deal without the carrier’s answer stays out of commit, for the same reason we count only what can close in pipeline coverage.
Should you sell to MGAs first or go straight to carriers?
If MGAs close in weeks and carriers take a year or more, the choice comes down to runway. Sell to MGAs first when you need revenue and references before your cash runs out. Go to carriers first when you can fund the longer cycle for the larger contract. Either way, the carrier is in the deal.
For a claims AI vendor, the MGA route brings the carrier’s review forward, on a smaller book. Wisconsin’s insurance regulator, for example, expects an insurer’s AI programme to cover AI systems used in regulated insurance practices “whether developed by the Insurer or a third-party vendor”.↗ Its list of considerations for third-party AI includes audit rights in vendor contracts, where appropriate and available.↗ A claims model an MGA runs on the carrier’s policies is likely to fall inside that programme, so plan for the carrier’s AI governance seat as well.
Run with the gate, each MGA deal also gives you a planned conversation with a carrier’s oversight lead and security team. That is how an MGA-first plan turns into carrier relationships: by the time you pitch that carrier directly, it has already reviewed you once.
We would run MGA and carrier deals as separate motions. They differ in buying panel, cycle and price, so one stage model can’t forecast both. Give MGA deals their own stages with the carrier gate built in, and give carrier deals theirs. Our page on selling MGA and delegated-authority platforms maps the full panel and the triggers that open these deals.
In practice
How we do it at Panelhop
In a Panel Check (GTM audit · 2–3 weeks), we read your MGA deals from your CRM: how many record the capacity provider, a named oversight lead and a two-way interaction with that person, and how often their close dates moved. That is your baseline for carrier-side coverage before anything changes.
In a Leak Fix (we build the fixes), we add the capacity-provider seat to the role map of every MGA deal, a task when it’s missing and a required carrier answer before the contract stage, in your own HubSpot or Salesforce. Your reps own every conversation with the MGA and the carrier; we build and document the fields, tasks and reports so your team can run them.
Questions buyers ask about this
Who should we reach at the fronting carrier?
Start with the person who oversees the MGA’s delegated authority for the carrier; titles include head of delegated authority, programme manager and MGA oversight lead. Third-party risk and security review your evidence, but the oversight lead answers for the MGA as a whole. Ask the MGA for that name in the first call.
What if the MGA won’t introduce us to its carrier?
Ask again with a reason that serves the MGA: a carrier that hears about the new system early is less likely to hold up the launch or raise it at the next review. If the answer is still no, keep the opportunity out of the qualified stage and record why. A deal whose approver you can’t reach is a forecast risk, however keen the champion is.
What will the fronting carrier ask about our platform?
Expect questions on data access and exports, bordereaux formats, audit trails, security evidence, subcontractors and incident terms, plus model testing and audit rights if you sell AI. Most of them follow from the carrier’s duty to oversee the MGA and its records. Ask the oversight lead for their list in the first carrier conversation, before the questionnaire arrives.
Does the carrier gate slow the MGA deal down?
The carrier’s review happens either way. The gate decides whether it runs alongside the MGA’s evaluation or starts after signature, when any delay moves your close date.
Does the same approach work with Lloyd’s coverholders?
Yes. A coverholder writes business for Lloyd’s syndicates under the oversight of a managing agent, which plays the capacity provider’s part. Map the managing agent’s delegated authority team as the seat and apply the same gate.
