MGAs in Europe: can regulation keep pace with a fast-evolving business model?
By Eva-Maria Barbosa and Sophie-Dorothee Hartmann | May 4, 2026
Managing General Agents (MGAs) are becoming an increasingly important part of the European insurance distribution landscape, but the range of business models that operate under the MGA umbrella is very broad. They have in common a degree of flexibility and agility that insurance companies operating with a heavily regulated balance sheet find hard to match.
While the MGA model is well established and supervised in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, its presence and regulation across much of continental Europe is fragmented. The way in which MGAs are accommodated within national intermediary frameworks – whether explicitly acknowledged or folded into existing agency or brokerage categories – differs from country to country. Licensing routes and supervisory expectations also vary, and the maturity of the market ranges from an early growth phase to increasingly sophisticated, scaled operations.
