Lloyd’s third party managing agent Asta has agreed to provide its MGA platform and operational services to newly-formed underwriting agency BPBUW Management.
BPBUW said that it hopes to build out a number of specialist niche MGA subsidiaries, with the key underwriters in each holding an equity stake in their own MGA business.
David Ashby Underwriting Ltd, a buy-out of an equine book from MS Amlin, marks the first MGA that BPBUW has brought to the market, having started underwriting on 1 January 2020.
Led by bloodstock and equestrian underwriter David Ashby, the business is a Lloyd’s coverholder with capacity provided by MS Amlin and Hiscox.
Asta has an equity interest in BPBUW and will provide the new businesses with a range of services including the oversight of underwriting and delegated authority as well as compliance and risk management.
With Asta’s support, BPBUW hopes to provide DAU with comprehensive services and solutions which would be otherwise uneconomical against its projected £25 million premium income for 2020.
“Asta is integral to our operating model. With its services, knowledge, and market connections behind us, we can provide entrepreneurial MGAs with the complete spectrum of services and systems necessary to establish and grow a successful, profitable underwriting business,” BPBUW chairman, Jonathan Palmer-Brown.
Keith Nevett, Asta’s head of business development, and who will sit on the board of BPBUW, added, “We’re delighted to support BPBUW and its existing and future MGAs. We deliver the high-quality services the market demands, from compliance to back-office administration, at a fraction of the cost of establishing in-house infrastructure.
“These services will help smaller underwriting units, whether syndicates-in-a-box, MGAs, SPAs or full syndicates, to operate more cost-efficiently in the market.”
