THE CORRIDOR

The Week Markerstudy Split in Two

Insurance Edition 2 • 20 May 2026 • Midweek UK Insurance Intelligence

Happy 25th birthday, Markerstudy. Here is your present.

Three things happened this week that nobody in the trade press quite connected together. We will.

THE HEADLINES

You sold half of yourselves. The MGA arm is going to Saturn Holdings (Tradex's parent). Gary Humphreys - co-founder, CUO, one of two people who started this thing - is expected to leave with it. Both sit under Pollen Street's umbrella, so the money stays in the family. But the person doesn't.

You launched a brand new division. Markerstudy Business went live on 11 May. Commercial lines, separated for the first time. Ross Barrington running it. GBP 200m GWP target. Five PAS systems under one roof. On day one, they don't talk to each other.

You forgot your own birthday. 4 May. Silver anniversary. No press release. No social post. A company with 8m policyholders does not forget a silver anniversary. It ignores one. The FCA growth cap is the obvious reason nobody felt like celebrating.

THE GOSSIP - WHO IS UP, WHO IS DOWN

Aviva GBP 3.7B for Direct Line	Q1 GI premiums up 19% to GBP 3.4bn. Now holds roughly a fifth of UK personal motor. Growing by acquisition. Classic Aviva.
Admiral Profit +16%	Acquired Flock. Sold US motor. Detected fraud up 71% to GBP 86.8m. They can measure it because they can see across their book. One system. One view. One number.
Ageas UK Ouch	Cutting from 3,800 to 2,000 staff by 2029. When you can't see across your book and costs are rising, headcount is the only lever left.
Hastings #1 Best Big Company	3.9m policies (+12%). CEO moved to Motor Insurers' Bureau. Probably a promotion. Probably peaked. Both.

Kevin told Insurance Post he wants to overtake Admiral "within 18 months" - Power List #21. But the FCA cap locks volume growth. The only lane open is the Admiral lane: intelligence-led efficiency.

THE NUMBERS EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT

~$140	Physical Brent delivered. Paper says $105 but nobody buys paper barrels - the actual cost of buying forward is $37-40 higher. Steep backwardation since Hormuz closed 28 Feb
+32%	Motor repair costs YoY. Average claim now GBP 3,699. Paint +16%. ADAS triples windscreen costs
86,120	New EVs registered in March - record. 25% more expensive to repair. Premium gap under 10%
111%	EY motor NCR forecast. Loss-making. Premiums fell 13% while claims rose 23.8%
10 wks	Until EU AI Act high-risk rules hit insurance pricing AI. 2 August 2026. Tick tock

WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON

The diplomatic track: Trump cancelled strikes on Iran (19th), citing "serious negotiations." Iran sent a 14-point proposal. Then CNN reported Israel preparing independent strikes. One step forward, one lurch sideways. Oil stays volatile.

Consumer Duty: FCA updated focus areas on 7 May - data-evidenced fair value. If your data lives in five disconnected systems, that evidence costs a fortune to assemble. If it lives in one, it's a query.

Fraud: Industry-wide detected fraud ~GBP 1.16bn. Admiral's GBP 86.8m is the number because it proves what connected visibility does. AI-manipulated images now a major vector. Synthetic identity repeat offending up 40%.

Tech: May is "architecture month" - models got cheaper, not just smarter. Claims STP from 10-15% to 70-90%. Underwriting from 3 days to 3 minutes. InsurTech money concentrating: fewer deals, bigger bets. Embedded insurance $18B and growing 30% CAGR.

MGA: Quoting just went agentic. hyperexponential deployed its full AI underwriting suite for Banyan Risk in March - the first MGA running agentic pricing, submissions, governance and peer review across four markets from day one. Their platform already sits behind carriers writing over GBP 48 billion in premiums. Parameterised models that quote in minutes, every decision auditable. That is the pricing layer solved.

But pricing is one parameter. The real question for a new MGA is: how many products can you spin up, how fast, and for how many distribution partners? Gadget cover at the Amazon checkout. Motor bundled with a dealer group. Pet embedded in a vet chain. Each product is the same underlying risk model projected through different parameters - brand, channel, risk appetite, claims rules, customer journey. Hyperparameter tuning for insurance products.

The MGA that can generate a white-label product in days - not months - wins the embedded distribution game before the comparison sites even know it exists. Same knowledge, different projection. Each product is a room. The corridors between them are the intelligence that connects fraud patterns, cross-sell opportunities and compliance evidence across the whole portfolio.

If someone in this edition's headlines is about to build an MGA from scratch, this is what the engine room looks like. And if they want to see it working: agilemesh.net

Property: Record GBP 6.1bn payouts. Flood claims +38%, average up 60% to GBP 30,000.

THE CORRIDOR INDEX

Three public numbers. One triangle. You cannot game one without the others catching you.

EBITDA / Employee

Are your people productive?

Net Promoter Score

Do your customers feel it?

Glassdoor / Social

Do your people feel it?

Fire people? EBITDA rises but Glassdoor tanks. Underprice? NPS rises but EBITDA collapses. Squeeze staff? Social catches it.

Who	EBITDA / Head	NPS	Glassdoor
Lemonade	N/A (US)	+79	4.1/5
The Lemonade Standard - our Mars Bar. No legacy. No excuses. This is what +79 looks like.
NFU Mutual	-	+31	-
Admiral	GBP 60-80k	~+25	3.8/5
Aviva	GBP 40-55k	~+28	3.9/5
Hastings	GBP 35-45k	~+20	3.6/5
Markerstudy	GBP ~11k	~+5	2.5/5
Ageas UK	GBP ~15k*	~+12	3.5/5
UK insurance average NPS: +14. NFU Mutual leads UK at +31. NPS estimates (~) inferred from Trustpilot, Which?, Glassdoor and employee recommendation rates where companies don't publish. Lemonade's +79 is the Mars Bar - built without legacy. The gap is the opportunity.

Sources: Companies House, annual reports, Insurance DataLab, Glassdoor, Consumer Intelligence, Clearsurance. NPS where published; dash where not. *Ageas pre-restructure.

Want your number changed? Produce better public figures. We don't negotiate. Transparency is the product.

Aviva leads on NPS (~+28, Which? #1) and Glassdoor (3.9). Admiral leads on EBITDA/head by a country mile. Markerstudy trails all three columns - GBP 11k EBITDA/head, an estimated NPS of +5, Glassdoor 2.5 where only 23% of staff would recommend working there. That is what five disconnected PAS systems feel like from every angle. The Lemonade Standard sits at +79 - built from scratch, no legacy. That gap between +5 and +79 is not a complaint. It is a business case.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Nobody needs to buy anything new. The data is already there. The systems are already there. The people are already there. The only thing missing is the connection between them.

Eight brands, 8m policyholders, 30m daily quotes - and each employee can only see one drawer. Not because the filing cabinet is broken. Because nobody thought to put a corridor between the rooms.

Not bitter. Just disappointed.

Full connectivity	Admiral Lane ➔
Partial or none	Ageas Lane ➔

Happy 25th. Here is what your next 25 years look like through the Corridor.

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The Corridor • Insurance Edition 2 • 20 May 2026

Next edition: 28 May 2026 - projected through Assurant / Protect Your Bubble

31 sources including Insurance Edge, Insurance Post, ABI, ONS, BoE, EIA, Reuters, FCA, Grant Thornton, EY, Admiral Group, Insurance DataLab, IBISWorld, Reagan Consulting, MarshBerry. All facts independently verified.