035: Specialty Insurance’s Tipping Point: Brokers, MGAs and AI Leading the Charge with Joel Markham, Gavin Peters & Graham Clark

The specialty insurance market stands at a crossroads: soft conditions, shifting client risks, and the relentless advance of AI. In this candid conference podcast, leaders from AXA, GEO, and Genesis debate where the real value lies—portfolio agility, meaningful partnerships, or competitive tech? Whether it’s monoline niche or diversified portfolios, everyone’s rethinking scale, distribution, and trust. Plus: why speed (not just size) is rapidly becoming the only advantage, and how the industry’s digital arms race is moving from talk to tangible action. Essential insights for MGAs, brokers, carriers and anyone shaping the next chapter of UK specialty insurance.   Key Quotes: - "Speed, not size, is rapidly becoming the only sustainable advantage in specialty insurance." - "The industry's digital arms race has moved beyond discussion and into tangible action." - "As client risks evolve, insurers are rethinking scale, distribution, and trust from the ground up." - "The real competitive edge may no longer be technology alone, but the combination of portfolio agility and meaningful partnerships." - "From niche monoline specialists to diversified portfolios, every player is reassessing where value is created."   Resources: https://www.geounderwriting.com/  https://www.linkedin.com/company/geo-underwriting/   https://www.genasystech.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/genasystech/   https://www.axa.co.uk/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/axa-uk/ About the Guests: Graham Clarke (Geo) *Graham Clark is Commercial Director at Geo*, where he is responsible for driving the strategic growth of the MGA, alongside leading acquisition and integration activity. He previously led Navigators & General, the specialist marine insurer acquired by Geo in 2024. Graham brings extensive experience from his time at Zurich, across both the UK retail insurance market and global specialty lines.   https://www.linkedin.com/in/graham-clark-4960345a/    Gavin Peters Gavin Peters is Chief Growth Officer at Genasys, responsible the company's sales and marketing function. He joined in 2022 as VP of Marketing, became Chief Marketing Officer in 2023 and stepped into his current role in early 2025. Before moving into B2B SaaS he spent more than a decade in marketing agencies, including senior strategy roles at Havas Sports & Entertainment and Pitch Marketing Group, and was Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer at the hospitality fintech Onvi. His agency work covered global campaigns and commercial consultancy for brands including Barclays, Coca-Cola, LVMH and O2. He has a research background and specialises in customer-centric, insight-based strategy across product marketing, digital and social, advertising, PR, events and inbound lead generation. Genasys is a cloud-based insurance software platform used by insurers, MGAs and brokers. Its policy administration system gives carriers and intermediaries a single core to run the policy lifecycle, and the company operates across the UK, South Africa and Australia. For MGAs in particular, the platform handles policy, billing and claims in one place, which is the kind of operational backbone the MGAA audience will recognise. Gavin's focus at Genasys is connecting that product capability to the growth strategy, bringing an agency-trained marketing approach into the insurance technology market.   https://www.linkedin.com/in/gavin-peters-marketing/    Joel Markham (AXA) Joel Markham is the Director of Schemes and Delegated Authorities at AXA UK. A passionate insurance advocate, Joel leads efforts to create long-term, trusted partnerships in the MGA space. With a background in underwriting and leadership, he champions innovation, talent development, and diversity, all while ensuring AXA continues to be a reliable and future-ready capacity provider.   https://www.linkedin.com/in/joel-markham-67083711/