I was strolling along Bishopsgate with a colleague on a sunny April day quite a few years back. We stopped at a bench because his feet hurt. “They usually do these days,” he said, and took one of his shoes off.

I immediately thought his bestockinged foot looked rather large, relatively speaking, to the doffed shoe, and inquired. “What size are your feet?” 

“Nine,” he said, but that didn’t look right.

“Are you sure?”  I asked. “That’s a 43. Barefoot, you look more like a 45. Have you had them measured lately?

“No,” he said, “don’t have to. Everyone in my family is a nine.”

It’s easy to believe that one size will fit everyone in the family, but it ain’t necessarily so.

It’s an important fact to remember now that acquisitive broker, carrier, and investor MGA platforms are fuelling a wave of consolidation. When you add new underwriting teams to the family, you shouldn’t automatically force them to use a centrally procured underwriting workbench. If they don’t fit, it’s counterproductive.

Too many businesses believe they already possess the “perfect” platform. They expect that what works fantastically for, say, D&O will be just fine for Marine or Cyber. People at the coalface rarely agree, but often they aren’t consulted.

It’s well worth spending time with them to find the perfect-fit solution. The payoff is a more efficient, more competitive team of happier people. Everything’s better in practical, comfortable shoes.

Every company needs a data warehouse which all systems throughout the firm can interrogate as necessary. The people who need to must be able to view, add to, and amend this single source of truth. The functional platforms hooked up to that resource should support the teams that use them – including acquired underwriting teams – by doing exactly what they need and want.

The platform that comes with your new team might let them automate mundane processes, amend ratings, build products, set authorities, etc. etc. If it connects to your data lake, don’t change it. If the team thinks it could be better, let them try something new. But don’t force your new underwriting stars to use tools sized to fit someone else.

Sometimes it goes the other way. An underwriting team may be struggling with the wrong technology. Inadequate platforms have even been the driver of MGA sales, because bad tech makes everyone seriously disgruntled.

You have the advantage. You can change, and find the right solution for the team’s specific needs. But don’t force them into your favourite size nines!