Joe Zuk is one of the most respected operators and investors in the MGA ecosystem.  As Operating Partner at Altamont Capital Partners, he sits at the intersection of capital, execution, talent, and platform building across insurance and insurance services.  In this conversation, he shares what actually separates durable MGAs from businesses that only looked good when the market was doing the work for them.

This episode is a serious conversation about what really matters when you are building, backing, or scaling MGAs:  claims discipline, underwriting feedback loops, founder quality, patient capital, and the reality of operating through a changing market cycle.  It is not theory.  It is a clear look at how good MGA businesses get built and how weak ones eventually get exposed.

What this episode covers:

✅ Why claims are the battlefield where an MGA’s underwriting thesis gets validated or exposed
✅ What Joe looks for in teams, conviction, and execution when evaluating opportunities
✅ Why the soft market will reward disciplined MGAs and expose weaker operators
✅ What founder-first capital actually looks like in insurance
✅ Why entrepreneurship in this industry is rewarding, but not for everyone
✅ How AI could improve claims handling, coverage analysis, and underwriting feedback loops
✅ Why insurance is still one of the best industries for curious, ambitious builders

For serious MGA founders, operators, investors, and ecosystem partners, this episode matters because it connects the pieces that actually drive outcomes.  Joe does not talk about growth in the abstract.  He talks about how underwriting, claims, capital, talent, and timing interact in the real world, and why discipline matters more when tailwinds start to fade.

About the Guest
Joe Zuk is an Operating Partner at Altamont Capital Partners, where he focuses on corporate and business development across the firm’s property and casualty insurance portfolio.  Before Altamont, he served as Managing Director of Corporate Development & Strategy at Orchid Underwriters and previously led corporate development and strategy work at Atlas General, where he also helped build out property and commercial divisions.

Connect with Joe on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joezuk/

🔗 Stay Connected & Follow the Movement:
🎧 Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube

📲 Follow Age of the MGA on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/age-of-the-mga/

🧠 Connect with the Hosts:
Doug Ver Mulm
https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglasvermulm/

Dylan Brand
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dylanbrand/

Peter Tilbrook
https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-tilbrook-50832336/

Thank you to our sponsor:  Register for the Scout Insurtech Conference at https://www.scoutinsurtech.com/conference
 and save 10% with coupon code Age of the MGA 2026

Andrew Bate joins Age of the MGA for a conversation about claims, specialization, and what it actually takes to build insurance around real business needs.

This is a practical discussion about customer pain, niche program design, distribution constraints, and why MGAs can often build solutions that generalist brokers cannot.

It is also a conversation shaped by Andrew’s experience at Safely and his current work with Velaris Insurance, where the focus is purpose-built coverage for professional property managers.

What This Episode Covers

✅ Why Andrew originally underestimated how hard insurance program building really is
✅ How slow claims can become a customer problem, not just an operations problem
✅ Why claims handling is often part of the actual product experience
✅ Why generalist brokers often hear the same pain repeatedly but cannot build around it
✅ How MGAs can create purpose-built programs for specialized industries
✅ Why embedded distribution still runs into an education and prioritization problem
✅ Why the best insurance products start with business needs, not stale policy logic

Why This Matters for MGAs
If you are building, operating, or investing in MGAs, this episode is powerful because it gets to the real work underneath product and distribution. It is a conversation about solving actual business problems, not just placing coverage, and it shows where MGA value creation really starts when the market has repeated unmet needs.

About the Guest
Andrew Bate is an insurance founder and operator whose work has focused on specialized coverage for the vacation rental and property management market. Formerly with Safely and now building Velaris Insurance, Andrew brings a practical perspective on claims, specialization, product design, and what it takes to create insurance programs that better match real customer needs. Velaris positions itself as a single coverage program built for professional property managers.

Website:  https://velarisinsurance.com/

Connect with Andrew on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aebate/

🔗 Stay Connected & Follow the Movement:
🎧 Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube

📲 Follow Age of the MGA on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/age-of-the-mga/

🧠 Connect with the Hosts:
Doug Ver Mulm
https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglasvermulm/

Dylan Brand
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dylanbrand/

Peter Tilbrook
https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-tilbrook-50832336/

Thank you to our sponsor: Register for the Scout Insurtech Conference at https://www.scoutinsurtech.com/conference
and Save 10% with our coupon code "Age of the MGA 2026"

Chapters:

00:00 Intro
11:30 Andrew on underestimating insurance complexity
21:05 Why claims speed changed the customer experience
24:55 Solving the customer problem before formalizing the system
33:30 Why MGAs can build what generalist brokers cannot
38:20 Embedded distribution and the education bottleneck
51:45 Building insurance around the business need

This podcast exists to help MGA builders think more clearly about what actually works, what breaks, and what it really takes to build durable businesses in this market.

William Pitt returns to Age of the MGA for a second conversation focused on the European MGA market and what it actually takes to build across it.

This is a practical discussion about fragmentation, distribution, capacity, and why scale in Europe does not work the same way it does in the U.S.

It is also a conversation about FAST, network effects, and the longer-term goal of a more integrated European insurance market.

What This Episode Covers

✅ Why Europe is still a much harder market to scale across than the U.S.
✅ What makes a pan-European MGA model harder in practice than it sounds in theory
✅ Why local MGA businesses and global capacity markets create a structural mismatch
✅ How FAST is being built as a network-effects platform, not just an association
✅ Why regulatory variation still shapes MGA growth and operating decisions in Europe
✅ Where AI may create underwriting efficiency gains for MGAs before large carriers
✅ Why the long-term opportunity is bigger than one event or one organization

Why This Matters for MGAs
If you are building, operating, or investing in MGAs, this episode is powerful because it gets past surface-level talk about market opportunity and into the real constraints underneath expansion.  It is a conversation about structure, not slogans, and it helps explain what serious growth across the European insurance market actually requires.

About the Guest
William Pitt is a leader focused on delegated authority and the European MGA ecosystem.  In this conversation, he shares his perspective on FAST, the realities of pan-European MGA growth, and the structural forces shaping how MGAs, capacity providers, and insurance innovation connect across the region.

Connect with William on LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/william-pitt-671a7413/

🔗 Stay Connected & Follow the Movement:
🎧 Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube

📲 Follow Age of the MGA on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/age-of-the-mga/

🧠 Connect with the Hosts:
Doug Ver Mulm
https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglasvermulm/

Dylan Brand
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dylanbrand/

Peter Tilbrook
https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-tilbrook-50832336/

* Thank you to our sponsor:  Register for the Scout Insurtech Conference at https://www.scoutinsurtech.com/conference and Save 10% with our coupon code "Age of the MGA 2026"

This podcast exists to help MGA builders think more clearly about what actually works, what breaks, and what it really takes to build durable businesses in this market.

* Thank you to our sponsor:  Register for the Scout Insurtech Conference at https://www.scoutinsurtech.com/conference and Save 10% with our coupon code "Age of the MGA 2026"

Chris Luiz is the CEO of Scout, an insurance ecosystem platform built to connect carriers, brokers, investors, and early-stage companies in a more intentional way. In this episode, the conversation centers on what makes Scout different, how the conference has evolved, and why the real value goes far beyond a two-day event.

This is also a timely episode because Scout is the sponsor for this conversation, and much of the discussion focuses on the Scout InsurTech conference, the kind of people it is built for, and why serious operators in the MGA and insurtech ecosystem should pay attention.

What This Episode Covers:

✅ why Chris says Scout is an ecosystem company, not just an event company
✅ how Scout curates rooms around people who can actually make decisions
✅ why early-stage companies need qualified access more than booths and noise
✅ how Scout helps make the right introductions before the conference even starts
✅ the tension between growth and preserving curation as Scout scales
✅ why insurance is still a relationship game, not a one-time event game
✅ how enterprise insurance sales really work, including budgets, sponsors, and timing
✅ what to expect from this year’s Scout InsurTech conference, workshops, MGA programming, and social events

For MGAs, ecosystem partners, and insurtech founders, this episode matters because it gets into a real question: what actually makes an industry event worth your time? Chris gives a clear answer. It is not size. It is not noise. It is quality of access, repeated engagement, and putting the right people in the room.

About the Guest
Chris Luiz is the CEO of Scout. He works across insurance, technology, and innovation, helping connect carriers, brokers, investors, and emerging companies through year-round programming and the Scout InsurTech conference.

🔗 Stay Connected & Follow the Movement:
🎧 Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube

📲 Follow Age of the MGA on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/age-of-the-mga/

🧠 Connect with the Hosts:
Doug Ver Mulm
https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglasvermulm/

Dylan Brand
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dylanbrand/

Peter Tilbrook
https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-tilbrook-50832336/

This podcast exists to help builders think more clearly about how modern MGAs and the broader insurance ecosystem are actually built.

Most MGA launches take longer than they should.

In this episode of The Age of the MGA Podcast, we sit down with Chris McKechnie and Dani Lefland from Vivere, a new E&S MGA building around an underwriting-first, tech-enabled model.  We kicked off the conversation with Vivere’s partnership announcement with Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance and quickly turns into a deeper operator discussion about launch timelines, carrier diligence, core systems, underwriting talent, and claims feedback loops. 

This is a practical episode for MGA founders, operators, investors, and ecosystem builders trying to understand what actually slows a launch down and what it takes to build a more durable platform from day one. 

What You’ll Learn

✔ Why Chris believed a good MGA program should not take 9 to 12 months to launch
✔ Why Vivere thinks InsurTech 1.0 got the order wrong
✔ What “underwriting-driven, tech-enabled” actually means in practice
✔ Why Vivere chose to build its core systems in-house
✔ How carrier due diligence can quietly add weeks to launch timelines
✔ What Dani is watching on the operations side as the platform scales
✔ Why claims visibility should inform underwriting, pricing, and future data inputs
✔ How Vivere is thinking about adding new lines of business without losing discipline 

This is the kind of episode that makes MGA builders think harder about sequencing, control, and what really creates operating leverage early.

👉 Watch the full conversation and subscribe for more real MGA operator insight.

Stay Connected & Follow the Movement

🎧 Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts & YouTube
📲 Follow Age of the MGA on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/company/age-of-the-mga/

Connect with the Hosts:

Doug Ver Mulm → https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglasvermulm/
Dylan Brand → https://www.linkedin.com/in/dylanbrand/
Peter Tilbrook → https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-tilbrook-50832336/

Connect with Our Guests:

Chris McKechnie → https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-mckechnie-21aa3a2/
Dani Lefland → https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-lefland/
Vivere website → https://www.viverepartners.com/ 
___

🌀 Sponsored by Typhon Risk — The MGA’s Strategic Growth Partner

Most MGAs don’t stall because of lack of ambition.
They stall because operations don’t scale with intent.

Typhon Risk helps MGAs build the operational backbone required to grow with discipline—from underwriting and claims to distribution and vendor strategy.

🔹 Learn more → https://www.typhonrisk.com
___

* Thank you to our sponsor:  Register for the Scout Insurtech Conference at https://www.scoutinsurtech.com/conference and Save 10% with our coupon code "Age of the MGA 2026"

In this episode of Age of the MGA, we sit down with Greg Hoffnagle, Partner at Holland & Knight LLP.

Greg has spent two decades inside insurance law — working across regulatory, corporate, private equity, and insurtech transactions. He has advised early-stage innovators, scaling MGAs, and capital partners navigating complex delegated authority structures.

This is a builder’s conversation about sequencing, structure, and regulatory reality.

What This Episode Covers

✅ Why calling yourself an MGA doesn’t make you one
✅ The real sequencing mistake early founders make
✅ How private equity can temporarily act as reinsurance
✅ Why insurance roll-ups are more complex than they look
✅ What “black box AI” means to regulators
✅ Why delegated authority invites direct regulatory scrutiny
✅ Where AI actually creates leverage — and where it doesn’t

Why This Matters for MGAs

Many founders overestimate speed and underestimate structure.

They rush to capacity before formation is credible.
They deploy AI without thinking through regulatory exposure.
They model roll-ups without understanding licensing friction.

This conversation reinforces a core truth:

In insurance, structure compounds — or it breaks.

If you are building, scaling, investing in, or partnering with an MGA, this episode clarifies the hidden constraints that determine durability.

🧠 About Our Guest:

Greg Hoffnagle is a Partner at Holland & Knight LLP specializing in insurance regulatory law and corporate transactions.

He advises MGAs, insurtechs, carriers, and private equity funds on formation, compliance, delegated authority, and M&A within the insurance ecosystem.

He brings a unique perspective from working across both innovators and capital providers.

Connect with Greg:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-hoffnagle-6824147/

🔗 Stay Connected & Follow the Movement:

🎧 Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube

📲 Follow Age of the MGA on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/age-of-the-mga/

🧠 Connect with the Hosts:

Doug Ver Mulm
https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglasvermulm/

Dylan Brand
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dylanbrand/

Peter Tilbrook
https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-tilbrook-50832336/

This podcast exists to help serious builders think more clearly and build better MGAs.

In this episode of Age of the MGA, we sit down with Tomer Kashi, Co-Founder and CEO of SkyWatch and VOOM.

Tomer shares how they built a specialty mobility MGA from scratch — starting in commercial drones and expanding into light aircraft and pay-per-mile motorcycle coverage.

This is a builder’s conversation about focus, sequencing, and execution.

What This Episode Covers

✅ Why they pivoted from selling tech to becoming the MGA themselves
✅ The structural difficulty of writing the first dollar in insurance
✅ Why they avoided home and auto despite the scale opportunity
✅ How high-volume, low-premium niches create underwriting advantage
✅ Where AI actually creates leverage inside an MGA
✅ Why the moat lives in the business model, not the tech stack

Why This Matters for MGAs

Many founders overestimate product and underestimate structure.

This conversation reinforces that specialty focus, disciplined sequencing, and operational leverage determine whether an MGA compounds — or stalls.

If you are building or scaling in specialty lines, this episode clarifies where to concentrate effort.

🔗 Stay Connected & Follow the Movement:
🎧 Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube

📲 Follow Age of the MGA on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/age-of-the-mga/

🧠 Connect with the Hosts:

Doug Ver Mulm
https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglasvermulm/

Dylan Brand
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dylanbrand/

Peter Tilbrook
https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-tilbrook-50832336/

🧠 About Our Guest:

Tomer Kashi, Co-Founder & CEO, VOOM Insurance and SkyWard
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomer-kashi/

SkyWatch is one of the leading providers of commercial drone insurance in North America. Voom extends the same model into specialty mobility lines including light aircraft and motorcycles.

Tomer previously served in an elite Israeli technology unit and brings a systems mindset to insurance execution.
____________

🔥 Sponsored by Loro — The No-Code Platform for Specialty Insurance

Want to take your MGA online instantly?

Loro helps MGAs, carriers, and brokers quote, bind, and distribute insurance products at scale—without ever writing code.

✅ Launch your product anywhere in the world
✅ Complete quote-bind-issue workflows
✅ Real-time reporting, oversight, and compliance tools

🔹 Learn more: https://www.loroinsurance.com
____________

This podcast exists to help serious builders think more clearly and build better MGAs.

In this episode of Age of the MGA, we sit down with Patrick Girouard, Founder and CEO of District Cover.

District Cover is focused exclusively on bringing stable insurance capacity back to America’s major cities — particularly neighborhoods that traditional markets have stepped away from.

This conversation explores what it actually takes to underwrite markets others consider uninsurable.

What You'll Discover:

✅ Why MGAs must either unlock unique distribution or bring non-commodity product
✅ The $500M insurance gap that shaped District Cover’s thesis
✅ How granular crime data changes underwriting decisions
✅ Managing volatility while testing a new MGA model
✅ Why mission-driven underwriting still requires hard discipline
✅ Building a cap table intentionally across tech, strategic, and impact investors
✅ How urban risk profiles are evolving faster than most carriers expect

Why This Matters for MGAs

Urban markets represent concentrated demand with limited supply.

For founders, this episode clarifies how to approach perceived “difficult” markets with discipline instead of avoidance. It also reinforces the importance of sequencing, volatility control, and investor alignment in early-stage MGA building.
___

About the Guest:

Patrick Girouard is the Founder and CEO of District Cover.

LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-girouard-84842934/

Prior to launching District Cover, he worked at Guy Carpenter and Hamilton Insurance Group (Attune), building deep experience across reinsurance brokerage and tech-enabled insurance platforms.

District Cover is backed by venture, strategic, and impact investors and is focused on restoring stable capacity to urban commercial markets.
___

🔗 Stay Connected & Follow the Movement:

🎧 Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts & YouTube

📲 Follow the Age of the MGA on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/company/age-of-the-mga/

🧠 Connect with the Hosts:
Doug Ver Mulm:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglasvermulm/
Dylan Brand:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/dylanbrand/
Peter Tilbrook:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-tilbrook-50832336/
___

Chapters

00:12:45 — What an MGA must do to justify its existence
00:14:50 — The Minneapolis insurance gap
00:23:45 — Crime concentration and underwriting insight
00:24:30 — Avoiding volatility while testing a thesis
00:40:20 — The loss ratio discipline conversation
00:51:40 — Intentional cap table design
___

Sponsored by Turris — The Compliance OS for MGAs and Carriers
Tired of chasing down agent licenses and onboarding paperwork?

Turris automates the entire compliance process for insurance partnership teams—so you can scale without the back-office bottlenecks.

✅ Onboard agents in minutes, not days
✅ Monitor licenses, documents, and appointments in real-time
✅ Save 1,000s of hours per year with automation that actually fits your insurance workflows

Built specifically for MGAs, carriers, and complex distribution models—Turris is the operating system your agency partnerships team has been waiting for.

🔹 Learn more: https://www.turrisfi.com
___

If You’re Building an MGA, This Episode Might Save You 12–24 Months of Pain

In this episode of The Age of the MGA Podcast, we sit down with Alex Bond, Founder of FinPro, one of the most trusted search partners in the global InsurTech and MGA ecosystem.

Most MGAs don’t fail because of product, capital, or ambition.

They fail because of early hiring mistakes.

Wrong sequencing.
Mispriced roles.
Big-brand resumes that collapse under startup reality.
And founders who underestimate how fast one bad hire can quietly block everything else.

This conversation is a blunt, operator-level breakdown of how talent decisions actually shape MGA outcomes—and why hiring is one of the highest-risk decisions an early-stage MGA makes.

If you’re a founder, operator, investor, or ecosystem partner trying to build something durable, this episode will change how you think about people, sequencing, and scale.

What You’ll Learn

✔ Why early hiring mistakes compound faster than product mistakes
✔ Why equity rarely replaces cash for experienced operators
✔ How big-carrier resumes break inside startup MGAs
✔ The hidden cost of hiring in the wrong order
✔ Why “cheap hires” quietly destroy future talent pipelines
✔ When retained search actually makes sense for MGAs
✔ Why firing fast is often the most responsible decision

This is the kind of episode founders rewind, underline, and send to their partners.

👉 Watch the full conversation and subscribe for more real MGA operator insight.

🔗 Stay Connected & Follow the Movement

🎧 Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts & YouTube
📲 Follow Age of the MGA on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/company/age-of-the-mga/

🧠 Connect with the Hosts

Doug Ver Mulm → https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglasvermulm/
Dylan Brand → https://www.linkedin.com/in/dylanbrand/
Peter Tilbrook → https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-tilbrook-50832336/

🧠 Connect with Our Guest

Alex Bond — Founder, FinPro
LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexbondfinpro/

Website → https://www.wearefinpro.com/

____________

🌀 Sponsored by Typhon Risk — The MGA’s Strategic Growth Partner

Most MGAs don’t stall because of lack of ambition.
They stall because operations don’t scale with intent.

Typhon Risk helps MGAs build the operational backbone required to grow with discipline—from underwriting and claims to distribution and vendor strategy.

🔹 Learn more → https://www.typhonrisk.com

In this episode of Age of the MGA, the hosts turn the tables and interview Rob Jacomen.

Rob has spent years advising MGAs, brokers, and founders on distribution and specialization.

This conversation documents why he finally decided to build an MGA himself and what most people misunderstand about why MGAs actually struggle.

This is not a product story.
It is a distribution and systems story.

What This Episode Covers:

✅ Why the broker channel was not prepared for the MGA explosion
✅ How generalist behavior breaks specialized products
✅ Distribution as a capital allocation system, not a sales function
✅ Why quoting first is the wrong starting point
✅ The difference between insuring risk and managing risk
✅ Why MGAs actually have three customers, not one
✅ When specialization creates leverage and when it creates fragility
✅ What first-time MGA founders consistently underestimate

Why This Matters:

Most MGAs do not fail because the product is wrong.

They fail when distribution cannot carry specialization.
When brokers are not enabled to diagnose risk.
When systems lag behind ambition.

This episode helps founders and operators think more clearly about where the real constraint lives and how to design around it before growth magnifies the problem.

🔗 Stay Connected & Follow the Movement:

🎧 Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube

📲 Follow Age of the MGA on LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/company/age-of-the-mga/

🧠 Connect with the Hosts:

Doug Ver Mulm
https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglasvermulm/

Dylan Brand
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dylanbrand/

Peter Tilbrook
https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-tilbrook-50832336/

🧠 Connect with Our Guest:

Rob Jacomen, Founder of Alchemy Content Lab and Coveritas
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-jacomen/

____________

🔥 Sponsored by Loro — The No-Code Platform for Specialty Insurance

Want to take your MGA online instantly?

Loro helps MGAs, carriers, and brokers quote, bind, and distribute insurance products at scale—without ever writing code.

✅ Launch your product anywhere in the world
✅ Complete quote-bind-issue workflows
✅ Real-time reporting, oversight, and compliance tools

🔹 Learn more: https://www.loroinsurance.com
____________