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Can someone explain to me what MGAs are? What is their role? Where do they fit it? Exactly what do they do?

Thank you

MGA "˜Managing General Agent' for a specialized and non specialized markets and carriers.
There are several ways to become and MGA. One is develop a captured [/b]program. (Have $1,000,000's in written premium on the books. Go to the carrier tell them you want to close the program and control that market) Here are two basic examples one for homeowner, and one for commercial. McGraw Insurance Services, is the MGA for Pacific Speciality Insurance.(HO-3,4,5 & DP1,2,3). Zurich Ins., No longer writes any auto service like auto body shop in California. There MGA is Universal Underwriters, you can not submit any brokered business to them unless your and employee. And the business is written on Zurich paper.
Zurich has a ton of closed program all develope by MGA's.
Hartford as well.

MGA's act as an intermederiary between the agent/broker and the company. They have the contract with the company (Hartford, Safeco,etc), do the underwriting, processing and claims adjusting. Usually they have companies that are not available to the average retail agency such as LLoyds or Nautalus and are able to offer companies and programs with no committment requirements. They offer admitted and non admitted carriers. MGA's are essential to a commercial agency's survival in a hard market (unless you write only beauty shops) no matter what state you're in.