{"id":5717,"date":"2023-04-17T07:43:45","date_gmt":"2023-04-17T06:43:45","guid":{"rendered":"httpss:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/?p=5717"},"modified":"2025-04-01T04:37:57","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T04:37:57","slug":"new-podcast-with-k2-insurance-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/content\/new-podcast-with-k2-insurance-services\/","title":{"rendered":"MGA market still maturing; this is the best prop cat market in 30 years &#8211; K2 Insurance Services"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Ep165 Bob KImmel &amp; David Carson of K2: Now hunting all kinds of game\" allowtransparency=\"true\" style=\"border: none; min-width: min(100%, 430px);\" scrolling=\"no\" data-name=\"pb-iframe-player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podbean.com\/player-v2\/?i=h6cwn-13dc2bb-pb&amp;from=pb6admin&amp;share=0&amp;download=1&amp;rtl=0&amp;fonts=Tahoma&amp;skin=3267a3&amp;font-color=&amp;logo_link=episode_page&amp;btn-skin=1b1b1b\" width=\"100%\" height=\"150\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The latest Voice of Insurance podcast, produced in association with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">AdvantageGo<\/a>, saw Mark Geoghegan interview Bob Kimmel, CEO of K2 Insurance Services, and David Carson, K2\u2019s head underwriter for catastrophe risk business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The world of managing general agents (MGAs) has been equal parts exciting, rocky, ambitious and perilous in recent years. Trends are still emerging in the fast-developing \u201chybrid insurance\u201d space, as MGAs swap <a href=\"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/products\/underwriting\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">underwriting<\/a> backers and acquire each other in a rambunctious market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One such acquisitional MGA, with a chief executive brimming with energy, is K2. The San Diego firm was formed by two insurance industry veterans with the purpose of acquiring managing general agents and developing multi-line programmes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As Mark Geoghegan points out in episode 165 of his Voice of Insurance podcast, enthusiasm can be infectious. He found Bob Kimmel, CEO of K2 Insurance Services, \u201cbuzzing with energy\u201d about the hunt for new business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhen we started K2 there were about 1,000 MGAs. At least 600 have been sold. Today there are 1,000 MGAs,\u201d Bob said. \u201cSo, there will always be new opportunities and new MGAs developing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What is also clear from the conversation is that MGAs are very different animals to carriers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s still hard for carriers to bifurcate and to be a really good MGA. Some will try, some will fail, and there will be fallout,\u201d Bob observed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since 2011 K2 has been acquiring, developing and growing profitable insurance businesses. Having established a core group of specialty insurers and MGAs in the US, the firm is now also building its business in the UK through K2 International.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Responding to Mark\u2019s question about whether the boom of MGA incubation had peaked two years ago, Bob suggested K2 has taken a different trajectory, and like many in the market: \u201cwe were somewhat stymied by Covid; it was difficult to grow initially.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That has changed since then, he emphasised, with acquisitions combined with organic growth \u201criding the wave of higher rates\u201d available in the market. And like all successful startups, scale brings its own challenges, as the business has changed its focus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>K2 has also swapped private equity providers, going from regional to global backers. This has led to more appetite for acquisitions than just a year or two ago, Bob suggested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cToday we\u2019re in hunting mode, and we\u2019ll do a lot more of that next year. We\u2019ve got people out there looking,\u201d he said. \u201cNow we\u2019re hunting all kinds of game.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The best prop cat market in 30 years<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Bob\u2019s enthusiasm is partially explained by the opportunities now in the property catastrophe market \u2013 for those capacity providers brave enough to take advantage of huge rises in rates after &#8220;constant bad news&#8221; of recent loss years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>David Carson, K2&#8217;s head underwriter for catastrophe risk business, spoke on the podcast about the best property cat market since 1993 \u2013 when the effects of the disastrous Hurricane Andrew revolutionised the US property catastrophe underwriting market for generations to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Recent losses have been a similarly traumatic experience for many capacity providers. However, this has driven big pricing shifts and big market opportunities as players have exited the stage pursued by a bear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The US is the largest property cat market in the world. You\u2019ve had something like 35% all losses in the past thirty years have been in the last five. Results have not been good and capital has walked as a result.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this environment, K2 has been replacing lost capacity and talking to new providers. David sees new resolve in the market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;There is a collective backbone in the market. Market conditions [for prop cat business] are the best they\u2019ve been since 1993,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>K2&#8217;s US cat book has experienced risk-adjusted rate increases of 60-70%, which, once inflation and structural changes are factored in, means premium dollar figure has doubled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cDeploying capacity is not an issue, it\u2019s just finding the capacity \u2013 and that\u2019s my job,\u201d David added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>One final and separate note from us. At AdvantageGo we would like to congratulate Mark on recently hitting the milestone of 300,000 downloads for his podcasts. Onwards and upwards!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The latest Voice of Insurance podcast, produced in association with AdvantageGo, saw Mark Geoghegan interview Bob Kimmel, CEO of K2 Insurance Services, and David Carson, K2\u2019s head underwriter for catastrophe risk business. The world of managing general agents (MGAs) has been equal parts exciting, rocky, ambitious and perilous in recent years. Trends are still emerging [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5718,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,26],"tags":[10,14],"line-of-business":[20],"class_list":["post-5717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-podcasts","category-latest-insights","tag-exposure","tag-underwriting-workbench","line-of-business-property"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5717"},{"taxonomy":"line-of-business","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/line-of-business?post=5717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}