How HSB turned broker and MGA research into commercial clarity

1. Foundations. Before we spoke to a single MGA, we had to understand what was actually going on inside HSB and the market around them,. not just the brief on paper, but what was commercially relevant right now. From there, we built a recruitment plan targeting senior individuals at multi-market MGAs. Not generalists, but the people who actually shape these partnerships.

2. Content. We wrote a discussion guide with a specific job to do: Give HSB clarity on exactly what they needed to know, without boxing participants in. These are senior, time-poor people. The guide had to earn genuine points of view from them, not just tick off a list of questions.

3. Outcome. Every interview got interrogated for one thing: what does this actually mean for HSB. Not what it means for financial services in general that's not specific enough to act on.

Then came the part that matters most: an in-person debrief. That's where the real thinking happens, the follow-up questions, the "so what do we do now."

HSB also got the full activation layer, a podcast, social snippets, and a video so the findings could travel across the business and into their insight hub without anyone having to translate a 20-slide deck first.

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A working understanding of the MGA relationship, not just a description of it. HSB now has a clear read on the pain points, barriers, opportunities and drivers of success that shape whether a partnership works.‍

Findings that drove decisions, not just discussion. The debrief prompted several key conversations both during and after the session with the Commercial team in the room to connect the insight straight to commercial strategy.‍

Clarity and confidence across the wider business. With the activation layer built in, the findings didn't stay locked in a deck. They circulated this, giving colleagues beyond the insight team a shared, credible read on the market.