Building a global value chain for Acrisure’s next phase

Jason Howard, President of Acrisure International, is leading the re/insurance broker’s international ambitions. He spoke to the Voice of Insurance podcast about M&A, talent, technology – and why the market should expect more to come.

Jason Howard’s remit at Acrisure is vast. As president of Acrisure International, he is responsible for everything in the broking group outside the US, including reinsurance and wholesale operations. It’s a broad canvas – and one that has grown fast.

Since Acrisure’s acquisition of reinsurance broker Beach & Associates in 2018, rebranded in 2020, Howard has helped to build out a global presence through a targeted M&A strategy.

“We’ve been very successful,” he said. “We’ve bought over 65 companies in that time and grown the business well to represent the UK and European landscape. We’ve also started to invest in Latin America – Brazil, Puerto Rico – and we’ll keep on turning our attention to other areas.”

Howard stressed that Acrisure isn’t merely interested in “planting flags”, but in finding strong local partners. “It’s a very simple model that we have,” he said. “We only buy businesses that have got successful track records of growth and profitability. No fixer-uppers, no turnarounds, no retirement plays.”

As Acrisure’s international operations mature, the focus is gradually shifting from acquisition to brand alignment and deeper integration. “We don’t really have an integration issue,” Howard explained. “For us, it’s more about branding them as Acrisure over the course of this year.”

Despite being part of a sprawling global group, Howard insisted that connectivity across the value chain is a key differentiator. “What most impresses me about Acrisure… there’s just tremendous communication between everyone that works in those businesses.”

That connectedness is key to a core aspect of Acrisure’s strategy: aligning retail distribution with reinsurance and underwriting to create proprietary products and services. As Howard put it: “We’ve used our retail brokers, we’ve used our wholesale brokers, we’ve used Acrisure Re, we’ve used the capital markets guys.”

He pointed to the creation of the Flux Syndicate 1985 at Lloyd’s – a managing general agent (MGA) designed to bring profitable US SME business into the London market – as one success story of that integrated model.

“If you look at the two syndicates, Flux and Volante [MGA and Syndicate 1699 at Lloyd’s], they’re trying to achieve the same thing: to bring business into the London market that’s not been there before,” said Howard. “We thought we could do it much more cheaply than had been done before… because we had the whole chain under our control.”

Despite increasing automation and the rise of “smart follow” syndicates in London, Howard warned the market not to lose sight of the importance of leadership and underwriting discipline.

“You’ve got to support all different parts of the marketplace,” he said. “Leaders need to be paid to be leaders… not just a blind follow that isn’t really delivering anything.”

Howard acknowledged that automation and AI are helping to drive productivity, particularly in areas such as client prospecting and back-end processing. But he cautioned against relying too heavily on machines.

“How do you get people to really understand what’s going on in a particular class of business if they haven’t got time to go and broker business or to underwrite business because it’s been done by a machine?” he asked. “You’ve got to get that balance right.”

When asked about competition and market cycles, Howard was unfazed. “I don’t remember a time when it wasn’t competitive,” he said. “You’re competing for capacity, you’re competing for differentiation, you’re competing with somebody for clients; that’s always going to be the way.”

With an eye on the long term, Howard concluded with an open invitation: “If you’re an entrepreneur sitting out there somewhere around the world, and you’re looking for a partner… pick up the phone, give me a call.”