The Sabka Bima Sabki Raksha (Amendment of Insurance Laws) Act, 2025 introduced something that has been enabling specific segments for insurers in the US and Europe: the Managing General Agent, or MGA.
If you are wondering what it has achieved — it is the structural pillar behind many cyber insurance products, it has enabled coastal homeowners in the US to get cover after a hurricane season wipes out traditional insurance capacity, and it is behind some of the most innovative insurance products of the last decade built outside large insurers.
MGA has delegated underwriting authority from an insurer. It can quote and issue policies — and sometimes handle claims — on the insurer's behalf. It carries no risk on its own balance sheet, but its place in the value chain is where risk expertise actually lives.
"The rise of the MGA originally came from filling the gaps left behind by traditional insurers — providing coverage for things people want protected but would otherwise be unable to protect."
Two examples from global markets show what becomes possible when that model is deployed well. Each solved a problem that a traditional insurer couldn't — and that a standard broker or agent didn't have the authority to fix.
Case 1: Coalition
Cyber Insurance That Actively Prevents Cyber Attacks
THE PROBLEM
In the early 2010s, cyber insurance was difficult to price for traditional insurers. Risk data was thin, claims history was limited, and every new threat vector changed the exposure profile. Most insurers avoided it or priced so conservatively that only large enterprises could afford meaningful coverage.
WHAT COALITION DID
Coalition entered as a cyber MGA. It didn't just underwrite cyber risk — it built an active defence platform for enterprises — Active Insurance — which includes cyber threat assessment, response along with an insurance element.
The model was fully automated at the underwriting layer with the MGA being able to rate, quote, and issue policies without a single human underwriter for standard SME risks.
The outcome was a win-win: Insurer gets clean, technology-selected risk. SME policyholder gets active risk management year-round. Coalition is now valued at over $5 billion.
WHY A TRADITIONAL BROKER OR INSURER COULD NOT DO THIS
A broker has no underwriting authority and is not a manufacturer of the product — it can only place what exists. A traditional insurer has the balance sheet but is limited by data and more importantly the ability to actively reduce the risk they're covering. The MGA structure created a unit that was motivated to cut losses and had the operational freedom to invest in doing so.
Case 2: AmRisc
Creating Market Access Where None Existed
THE PROBLEM
After the 2005–2006 US hurricane season (Katrina, Rita, Wilma), traditional insurers withdrew from coastal property risk. The losses had been catastrophic and the modelling assumptions were broken. Homeowners and businesses near the Gulf of Mexico and Southeast US faced a significant open risk.
This was a capacity problem driven by an expertise gap. Incumbents did not trust their ability to model and price wind, storm surge, and coastal property risk accurately enough to maintain risk appetite.
WHAT AMRISC DID
AmRisc stepped into the white space as a catastrophe property MGA. Rather than trying to avoid catastrophe risk, it built deep expertise in modelling it — wind engineering, surge dynamics, building vulnerability by construction type and vintage, geographic concentration. It developed proprietary pricing tools that gave it confidence to write risks that no standard insurer would touch.
By building credible, data-backed underwriting capability in a specific and difficult risk class, AmRisc served policyholders who would otherwise have been uninsured. Insurers who trusted AmRisc's expertise could dip into a potentially profitable niche without needing to build the capability themselves.
AmRisc has been ranked the largest non-affiliated MGA in the United States for four consecutive years.
THE STRUCTURAL LESSON
A broker in this situation could only place what exists. A new insurer entering this market would need capital, regulatory approvals, underwriting staff, pricing models, and years of loss data before any rational capacity provider would back them. An MGA could do it faster, leaner, and with the explicit support of insurers willing to delegate authority because the MGA had the expertise they lacked.
What This Means for India
The Sabka Bima Sabki Raksha Act has introduced the MGA framework to India. IRDAI still needs to release the implementing regulations — capital requirements, permitted functions, licensing conditions — before the market takes shape. But the structural opportunity exists as referenced above.
India has significant segments where insurer appetite is thin and distribution channels exist but lack product authority: SME commercial lines, agriculture and parametric risks, specific segments for health insurance, cyber insurance, and term insurance covers for traditionally uninsured groups. Each of these is a market where the right combination of underwriting expertise, data, and delegated authority could do what a broker cannot and what a traditional insurer will not.
For instance, a diagnostic chain could have an MGA arm which can help sell term and health insurance products with periodic underwriting and dynamic pricing and wellness discounts.
Combining the product authority of an insurer with the speed and focus of a specialist, MGAs could prove to be a bridge to realise India's insurance for all vision by 2047.
