What’s happening at Joshu?

How can your MGA own insurance product development & distribution?

Welcome back. If you’re reading this, you’re likely in one of three buckets:

• You operate a Managing General Agency (MGA) or equivalent
• You work within an insurtech that is well versed in leveraging technology
• You just flat out love spending all your free time learning about insurance!

I hope, for your sake, that it falls somewhere in the midst of 1 & 2…

Jokes aside, the good news is this: Joshu provides serious intrigue for all three readers. More than that, Joshu provides an advantage for MGAs that are seeking to leverage their knowledge of niche risks and outperform in markets where traditional carriers have lost steam. With their low-cost base and nimble business structure, it is no secret that MGAs are ideally situated to develop novel solutions for emerging risks. Across the industry, new MGAs are springing up to cover such exposures in realms with less loss history. Industries like automation, cannabis, and renewables — just to name a diverse few — all require modern insurance products.

MGAs are inherently lean with smaller operations teams, but they are able to compete on the merits of their technical savvy. They have a deep and continually growing understanding of their specialty. Because of this, MGAs more accurately underwrite risk and avoid substantial losses. Their risk portfolio remains healthy, the combined ratio stays in check, and they find financial success while offering valuable protection to their clients.

However, while they grow — and as is true with most undertakings that begin to scale — they risk losing some of their creative freedom and independence. The same elements that made them successful in the first place start to slip through the cracks. Perhaps due to the sheer volume of submissions or a desire to branch out into new lines of business, they can become reliant on outsourcing to third-party systems to manage workload. Most MGAs typically have a rating model in excel to assess various risk factors and calculate premiums. When they want to make changes to the rating model, they have to go back to that third party and face added costs and ridiculous timelines. So, we’ve established that MGAs have the technical chops and know-how on insurance — shouldn’t they leverage that and stay in control with a tool they themselves can own?

And what about digital distribution? Most MGAs have a generic lead gen form: “contact us for a quote today”. At times, effective, but certainly slow and increasingly outpaced by modern solutions built for a digital world. What if you could replace that intake form with a ready-made apply-quote-bind portal? How many more policies would you sell?

The bottom line is this: in an effort to stay nimble and truly own the full process, MGAs must utilize the technology available today.

Meet Joshu.

Joshu is an insurance product development and distribution platform touching all the front-end elements of the insurance value chain. As an off-the-shelf solution, the insurance professionals that know insurance best manage the entire process. They focus on the specialty underwriting within their MGA and have their hands on the system. Everything starts with Joshu’s Builder. Product owners build their offerings on the Joshu Platform intuitively, without the need for help in coding or development from IT. They can create various white-labeled Stores as distribution channels and invite underwriters to the Underwriter Desk to review policies that need an extra set of eyes before binding. Companies can also automate binding if the applicant’s submission is within their desired appetite. In short, Joshu is one solution for product development, underwriting, and digital distribution.

Today, several MGAs use Joshu to create, distribute, and continuously iterate their specialty insurance coverage. The platform is agnostic to coverage type and provides a seamless workflow. Joshu is the solution for those MGAs that want to be lean, adapt to market conditions, and find continued success.

The problem seems insurmountable at the onset… and yet, the answer is simple: leverage the game-changing technology available to you today. Leverage Joshu.