New Hires and Regional Expansion at Avid Insurance

05 July 2024

Avid Insurance, the specialist MGA, has boosted its headcount by 20% with six new hires, including four underwriters in its construction division, during the last few months to meet its growth ambitions.

Avid, which specialises in social housing, travel and construction (through IIGL), as well as motorsport and equine liability, has targeted a 15% jump in GWP up to £80m this year and double digit increases in EBITDA, due to continued growth in all of its lines of business. Avid CEO Stephen Gibson said the MGA has hired four experienced construction underwriters, of which two (Zarrar Tariq and Adrian Sanderson) have joined IIGL as regional underwriters to write construction risks.

“We realised that we are strong in London and the South East, but needed to build our regional footprint. Zarrar is based in Birmingham and Adrian in Leeds. I have high expectations of accelerated growth in these and other regional areas.”

In addition, Paul Turner and Jake Rose, both with significant experience in the construction space and continue to support the South East operation as well as assist in the regional expansion. Steve explained that IIGL specialises in roofing and scaffolding liability. This sector has
traditionally been viewed as high risk, but the detailed and robust underwriting philosophy within IIGL supported by significant investment in data analytics had led IIGL to be one of the market leaders in this space producing the required returns for our capacity partners.

“Our underwriters live and breathe construction; they are seasoned experts, and, combining that knowledge with the support they receive from our data operation will give further impetus to our market presence in this class.”

In addition, James Clewes has joined as Group Head of Compliance, after six years at Money SuperMarket and seven years at Think Money. James has been appointed to continue to provide a significant focus on the regulatory activity that is associated with being a market
leading MGA.

The final hire is Scott Boyle, who joined Avid last year as Group Claims and Complaints Manager. Scott has previously been a claims specialist at Markerstudy, Davies Group and in the London Market, and will have oversight of all Avid’s claims operations. Scott brings significant experience and understanding of the insurance claims environment. Steve said: “We remain on the lookout for experienced underwriting talent, especially in niche classes which fit our business model.”

“Avid is first and foremost an underwriting-led MGA. We have purposefully married our deep underwriting experience with significant investment in analytics tools, and this model is delivering the profitable growth our long term partners are looking for.”

Steve said he remained focused on hitting £100m GWP within the next 18 months.