What MGA acquisitions bring to the table for Intact

By acquiring managing general agents, Intact Financial Corp. gets a new stream of revenue and an opportunity to grow its commercial specialty business, says the leader of Intact’s MGA operations.

When Intact acquired The Guarantee Company of North America from Princeton Holdings in 2019, Princeton also sold MGA Frank Cowan Company to Intact. This past Tuesday, Intact announced it is re-naming MGA Frank Cowan Company to Intact Public Entities.

“We look to expand the depth and diversity of our distribution channels which is why we acquired Intact Public Entities,” Pete Weightman, Intact’s senior vice president and chief underwriting officer, specialty solutions, North America, told Canadian Underwriter Friday.

Both Intact Public Entities and Hoboken, N.J.-based International Bond & Marine Brokerage Ltd. provide Intact “with a new stream of revenue and an opportunity to grow our existing specialty lines,” Weightman said, responding to a question from Canadian Underwriter as to whether Intact is investing more resources into the MGA channel.

The acquisition of International Bond & Marine was announced this past September. It was then merged with OneBeacon, a Minnesota-based commercial insurer that Intact acquired in 2017.

For its part, Cambridge, Ont.-based Intact Public Entities provides risk and claims management services to municipal, public administration and community service organizations across Canada.

“Changing our name to Intact Public Entities provides a required sense of clarity in the marketplace,” Intact Public Entities president Larry Ryan told Canadian Underwriter Friday.

Although Princeton Holdings sold MGA Frank Cowan Company — along with The Guarantee — to Intact in 2019, Princeton did not sell Cowan Insurance Group, which is Princeton’s retail brokerage.

Canadian Underwriter asked Intact whether Intact Public Entities plans to offer any coverages that were previously not available from Frank Cowan Company.

“We see that public entities are zeroed in on their pandemic efforts. Our job right now is to ensure we provide all the assistance we can through our products and full suite of value-added services including contract reviews, education, virtual loss prevention inspections and real-time risk advice,” Ryan replied.

“We work closely with our broker partners and clients across Canada and actively listen to feedback while at the same time conducting our own survey of the current landscape to see if there are gaps in coverage that we can help fill. In addition, we monitor legislation and trends to ensure municipal, public administration and community service organizations have coverage specific to their needs.”

Feature image by iStock.com/Zhanna Hapanovich