Nick Abraham on a softer market, $4bn of flow, and why wholesale still wins on added value

Mark Geoghegan’s opening point was familiar to anyone who watches pricing closely. You usually feel the market turn first at the wholesale edges. That is where competition shows up early, and where new ideas get a fair hearing sooner than they do in the middle of the pack.

Nick Abraham is well placed to see it. He is CEO of Amwins Global Risks (AGR), and last year the business put more than $4bn of wholesale premium into the market.

From lower Alabama to Lloyd’s

Abraham’s start in insurance was, in his words, accidental.

“Completely fell into it,” he says. He was studying accounting, decided two-thirds of the way through it was not for him, then ended up talking to the insurance professor next door.

That route led to an internship at Lloyd’s in 2002, which he describes as “very interesting, to say the least”, and then a career that began on the underwriting side at Markel before he moved into broking with Amwins in 2021.

What AGR actually is

One misconception Abraham is keen to correct is that AGR exists mainly to serve the wider Amwins network.

Only about a third of AGR’s business comes from the Amwins network in the US. The rest is sourced globally, and AGR is happy to work directly with US retail brokers that are coming into London, or via US wholesale if that is how the client prefers to route the deal.

He breaks the business into three parts.

Over $2bn goes into the open market, another $2bn sits in “capacity building”, and about $200m is in the underwriting division, which he says is the fastest-growing part of the group.

AGR is also large in headcount terms. Abraham puts the business at almost 900 people, with around 400 in London, 200 plus in Cheltenham, and another 200 working remotely or around the UK.

Specialism at scale

Mark’s question was blunt. When you are that big, what do you want to be known for?

Abraham’s answer is that you still have to be specialist. You cannot “be a specialist in everything”, he says, but that is the direction they push in. The goal is to put “the most specialized, knowledgeable person in front of the client”.

The point he returns to is added value.

“When you think about the industry as a whole, if you’re truly adding value, you’ll never get replaced,” he says.

That view sits behind how he thinks about hiring, too. New niches keep appearing, and sometimes the best way to grow is to bring in a team with a specialism you do not currently have.

Softer pricing, but submissions still flowing

Abraham is straightforward about what a more competitive market means for a wholesaler.

Rate has contributed around a third of AGR’s growth over the past five years. That tailwind is fading. Organic growth gets harder when the book is being attacked and renewals are fought deal by deal.

But he also makes the other point. Competition can open doors. Underwriters become more receptive to new structures and new approaches. If submissions keep coming, the market can still be a good place to do business.

On flow, he is clear: “Submission flow is good.”

Data, and the attempt to see the cycle earlier

Mark presses on whether data can stop brokers being surprised by the next turn in the cycle.

Abraham’s answer is cautious. “If I knew exactly where it was going, we would be way bigger,” he says.

But data matters, and has mattered at Amwins for a long time. “Data was such a cornerstone of our being,” he says, describing a 25-year focus on analytics.

AGR is also launching a proprietary system in London, called Amlink, based on the system used in the US. He expects it to improve how they analyse the book across a full renewal cycle and to help them share trends with market partners, not just use the data internally.

Facilities, but managed tightly

The discussion turns to facilities, including AGR’s Amplify facility, and the risk of brokers “burning” a facility in a softening market.

Abraham calls it a tool, not a cure-all. “We don’t think it’s some panacea that solves every problem,” he says, and stresses the need to manage it well through the cycle.

On how much of the overall flow should sit in facilities, he gives a number.

“For us, we think somewhere between 25% to a third makes sense,” he says, enough to facilitate coverage but still leave room for underwriting to happen in the open market.

The MGA build, and the “starts with the underwriter” view

Abraham says the MGA side is “critical” to AGR’s growth, describing it as a way to diversify and to support both AGR brokers and the market more broadly.

He namechecks platform investments such as Unicorn and Contour, and says new products are coming, including a cyber facility and a financial institutions facility.

On how you build an MGA, he lands on a very old-fashioned point.

It starts with the individual. The underwriter comes first, then you shape the product and the plan around that underwriting capability.

AI: less magic, more boring work removed

Mark asks the obvious question. If transactions become cheap and digital, what happens to wholesale brokers?

Abraham’s answer is that insurance is still a relationship. “Insurance intrinsically is a relationship,” he says, and brokers have to keep earning their place by adding value beyond the button-press.

He also offers one of the most human analogies in the episode.

“Cost is part of the equation, but there’s a reason why the Ritz-Carlton still exists,” he says.

On AI specifically, AGR’s best results so far are not futuristic. They are practical.

“The best results come from the desk traders,” he says, pointing to document creation, schedules of values, and the tedious consistency checks that soak up time. The aim is to redeploy that time into higher-value work.

“Never say never” on consolidation

Wholesale and retail consolidation comes up repeatedly, including the idea that alliances can shift as retail brokers consolidate and steer placements in-house.

Abraham expects more headlines. He avoids absolutes. “Never say never,” he says, more than once.

His broader point is that talent and specialism still pull business back, even when distribution changes. If you solve the problem better than anyone else, the account has a habit of finding you again.