My first job in insurance was as a junior trade-credit underwriter. I worked in the London office of a large European firm. It had a big open-plan space we called the underwriting room. There, in one corner, a middle-aged man resided in a glass box. He never seemed to come in or go out.

I didn’t know for a long time what that man did all day. I was pretty sure it must be important, though, because of the quality and position of his office. Yet he wasn’t on the floor above, up the big staircase. That’s where the rest of the executives were located. Today we’d call them and their place the C-Suite.

The Head of Underwriting came into and out of his office all the time. He lived down on our floor, diagonally across the room from the inside man. These days we’d call him the Chief Underwriting Officer, but the mystery man in his prime real estate seemed to be the chief of nothing.

After a few months I asked a colleague what his role was. “He’s the Chief Facilities Officer,” I was told. “He’s in charge of… stuff. All the big insurance companies have one.”

Not many companies have one now, after almost everybody has realised that, unless your company owns a massive estate of commercial buildings, it makes far more sense to divide the CFaO’s responsibilities between the COO, the Head of Admin, the focussed folks in the IT department, and the landlord.

Executive jobs with the title ‘chief’ are a corporate fashion accessory. Outside the big three (CEO, CFO, and COO), the others come and go. I’d welcome a postcard from anyone who had a Chief Diversity Officer ten years ago, or ditto a Chief ESG Officer. And even this newish, trendy role isn’t the latest; today having a Chief Innovation Officer is the cutting-edge executive fashion accessory, worn by all major insurance corporations.

(That critical role is not to be confused with the Chief Information Officer – see below, or the Chief Investment Officer, or even the Chief Intelligence Officer, a job which many disappointed executives learned too late is much closer to running GCHQ than MI6.)

Before that spy-sounding plum came along, the CTO, or Chief Technology Officer, sometimes upscaled to the more-important-sounding Chief Information Officer. In some cases they’re simply the Head of IT moved into the vacant office that used to belong to the Chief Facilities Officer. Putting a systems specialist into the C-Suite makes good fashion sense, but not everyone wears those clothes effectively, especially in a smaller company.

I speak with many underwriters who are wrapped up in the process of launching their own MGA. They ask me about all kinds of things, but most often, as you would expect, they want my advice on technology. Recently one asked me if she should hire a CTO. Regular readers of this column will be able to guess my answer.

An MGA is valued based on its EBITDA, not on its tech stack. Computer platforms, along with the people who run them, are excluded from valuations. At worst they are seen as irrecoverable sunk costs attached to non-productive personnel.

So no, I said, don’t hire a CTO. I advised instead that the new MGA engages actuarial talent. Maybe they could have a Chief Actuarial Officer, I suggested, whether full time or fractional (the fashionable word for ‘part time’). Maybe they should just outsource the actuarial skill required, if they don’t need it every day.

Either way, having an actuary would help the start-up MGA deliver the best possible underwriting results, which should be its core activity. That in turn would help it to attract submissions, capacity, and ultimately venture capital. All that will help the eventual sale, which – so far at least – is the end goal of all MGA entrepreneurs I’ve met.

To make an MGA that someone wants to buy, the underwriters involved should invest in people who will improve their core performance, and outsource everything else. Consider the model of a major recent start-up carrier. They deploy inhouse talent on underwriting, exposure management, and claims, plus a handful of other functions where their experience and expertise add core value, but they outsource the rest. In other words, they do the things they’re really good at, and leave everything else to others.

I suggested to the entrepreneurial, enquiring underwriter that her MGA should be lean. I reminded her that it’s not technology which makes an MGA valuable. It’s how that tech is used that creates an underwriting shop worth buying.

Small and even middling MGAs don’t need a Chief Technology Officer. They should consider hiring someone into the trendy role of Chief Platform Officer only if they have a vacant corner office that overlooks the station.