Earlier this month, Gerard Van Loon, Founder and CEO of Alta Signa joined Alex Bond, Host of The Leadership in Insurance Podcast, on the latest episode to discuss his journey launching and scaling a specialty insurer, the challenges of underwriting unique risks and the highly competitive MGA landscape in Europe. Here we share some insights from their conversation.
Alta Signa is a European MGA, set up in 2019 and dedicated to the continental specialty insurance market. Headquartered in Brussels, it has a local branch network in eight countries across Europe – with more to come.
Gerard said: “What we tend to look at is opportunity, when we started in 2019 we identified a dislocation in the financial and professional lines market. We saw an enormous capacity reduction in that market and took that as an opportunity for quick entry.
“What we promised our capital providers – both in investment and insurance – was to give them access to local distribution in Europe. We strongly believe that you need to be in the domestic markets locally to successfully underwrite in Europe.”
Technology and Human Expertise Combined
To achieve this, technology is essential, but Gerard emphasised that it is not everything. Success for MGAs relies on a combination of cutting-edge technology and human expertise—leveraging local presence, agility, and responsiveness -- to deliver superior loss performance, a low cost base, and consistently high-quality service.
Gerard continued: “If we don’t hit all three, some insurance firms or brokers will say ‘they can do it better themselves’. I do think technology is critical and certainly an enabler to become successful in Europe, but it should not be a goal in itself. We are still in the insurance industry, therefore it is still a transfer of risks, so it is important that we also look at building a sustainable insurance portfolio. In order to do that – priority number one is distribution – ensure that you see the opportunities across Europe so that you can have a fair share of the market and a sustainable risk portfolio.”
But technology is also expensive and requires upfront investment, with returns on investment taking longer than 12 to 24 months.
Gerard added: “Today, when you look at the European market and certain insurtechs, some are downscaling or making people redundant. We come back to a more traditional insurance model where underwriting itself, risk selection and access to distribution is critical to success. I prefer to go in there with established relationships in the local markets, build a quick premium volume and use that margin to invest in technology.”
Now Alta Signa is focusing on new growth in the European market – cyber, having just hired a cyber underwriter in France.
Matching underwriting, talent and capacity
For Gerard, in terms of the growing MGA landscape in Europe, technical underwriting insights and skills, and local market knowledge, are the key drivers. He concluded: “Europeans tend to be more risk averse. The MGA growth has more to do with scale, the safety of numbers, than insurtechs driving it, that would be my personal opinion. When you are an independent MGA startup, it is really challenging to attract top talent. Covid was a real challenge for us. That is also why, in my experience, if you have a global anchor partner, who is quite keen to diversify in Europe, it is extremely helpful.
“In this highly competitive market, I still think we need to broaden our product offering to become more meaningful to brokers. For an independent MGA, I would say that matching the market opportunities with the risk appetite of insurers is not always straightforward.”
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