Fusion Specialty, a leading specialist M&A managing general agent (MGA), and io.insure, the M&A tech pioneer, today announced the global launch of Mio, the first M&A insurance online for small- to mid-sized businesses, to address the significant risk protection gap in the SME market.
Backed by A and A+-rated capacity, Mio is a new specialty insurance product now available in Australia, U.K., Europe and the U.S. via the world’s first M&A insurance online marketplace, io.insure. Mio meets the otherwise neglected risk cover needs of SME buyers, sellers, advisors, and brokers with its proprietary technology and design developed specifically for the SME M&A segment.
SMEs are the lifeblood of the global economy, and Fusion estimates the SME M&A insurance market to be worth almost $US14 billion in insurance premiums. Yet despite high levels of demand, 60% of submissions for warranty and indemnity (W&I) insurance were declined by insurers in 2021.[1] Underwriters often don’t cover smaller M&A deals due to problematic legacy systems, labour intensive processes and insufficient staff.
Mio redefines M&A insurance for SMEs, providing transactional risk cover for M&A deals valued between $1 million and $100 million. Enabled by data & technology, expert Fusion underwriters can deliver a standalone policy online within two to three days, versus two to three weeks for traditional policies. This streamlined process is made possible on io.insure by leveraging FinTech – InsurTech and LegalTech capabilities, pioneering the development of M&A tech, and using Fusion’s deep knowledge of M&A underwriting, which significantly improves the experience for clients, brokers and advisors.
Fusion and io.insure co-founder David Rogers said Mio is the first-to-market example of how the fast-growing MGA market is being evolving with MGA 2.0.
“Fusion is spearheading a much-needed paradigm shift to MGA 2.0 in this under-modernized market segment with breakthrough innovations,” Rogers said. “Traditional insurers and MGAs could not be first to market with a product like Mio as the industry has yet to widely embrace technology. We are going much further and have built an MGA 2.0 – specialist underwriting expertise enabled by data and technology and with highly efficient tech-driven partnership distribution.”
Fusion and io.insure co-founder Killian McDermott said io.insure’s strategy is to transform the specialty insurance market through the power of partnerships.
“We are building a global ecosystem of clients, advisors, distributors, insurers and MGAs as commercial partners on the io.insure platform,” McDermott said. “With Fusion as the first global partner insurer on io.insure, we’ll not only provide a full suite of M&A and specialty and sustainable insurance products, starting with Mio, we’ll be laying the foundation for a world-class insurance marketplace which can grow exponentially and benefit all of our customers and partners.”
[1] AON Mergers and Acquisitions Insurance Market Insights 2021