A new specialist managing general agent (MGA), Elitium, has launched in the UK offering commercial combined cover for manufacturing businesses and property insurance for well-maintained unoccupied residential and commercial premises.
Based by Mission, Elitium marks the 10th UK MGA in the Mission stable and is based in London. The launch is effective Feb. 25.
The MGA is co-founded and jointly led by co-CEOs Linda Bichener (pictured, left), former commercial underwriting manager at DUAL, and Leah Miller (pictured, right), former senior commercial trading underwriter at DUAL. Between them, Bichener and Miller have 45 years of underwriting experience in manufacturing and property risks.
Elitium is targeting select manufacturing trades alongside an unoccupied property portfolio focused on risks that are actively managed and maintained. Its launch comes as MGAs continue to play a growing role in UK distribution, with more than 300 MGAs now underwriting over 10% of the UK's £47 billion general insurance market premium.
Elitium’s proposition is built around traditional, underwriter‑led decision‑making, with an emphasis on direct engagement with brokers rather than automated triage. This sits against a UK and European trend of carriers and Lloyd's syndicates seeking specialist delegated authority partners.
Bichener said the business has been set up to offer individually underwritten solutions in parts of the market where complex risks may not sit neatly within standardised e‑trading platforms.
"We founded Elitium to bring care, attention and expert judgement back into the underwriting process. We believe that every risk deserves to be properly understood, and every broker deserves direct access to the people making the decisions," Bichener said, "That’s why each submission is reviewed by an experienced underwriter, ensuring tailored, contract-certain terms that brokers can present to their clients. We act as a genuine extension of our brokers’ teams, providing specialist underwriting expertise and responsive support.”
Miller underlined the MGA’s intention to retain a narrow risk appetite to support consistency in decision‑making.
"For us, underwriting is a real craft," added Miller. “Brokers come to us because their clients don’t fit neatly into automated systems, and our role is to listen, advise and build cover that genuinely works in practice, not just in theory. We deliberately limit our appetite to areas we are passionate about and understand deeply, allowing us to underwrite with confidence, consistency, and sound judgement."
Elitium’s manufacturing focus comes against a backdrop of persistent cost pressures for UK factories, including higher energy and labour costs and ongoing investment needs in automation and resilience. Output in energy‑intensive industries such as basic metals and chemicals has fallen by about a third since 2021, reaching its lowest level in 35 years, largely due to high UK electricity prices relative to other advanced economies.
Even so, manufacturing remains a core part of the UK economy. The sector accounted for around 8 to 9% of UK economic output and employment in 2023 to 2024 and directly contributed about £217 billion in output, supporting roughly 2.6 million jobs. Manufacturers also drive almost half of total UK business R&D investment, underlining the sector’s concentration of complex, capital‑intensive risks.
For insurers and MGAs, this combination of elevated input costs, specialised machinery, and dense supply chains continues to create demand for underwriters who can assess individual plants, business interruption exposures and contingent risks rather than rely solely on automated rating tools.
On the property side, Elitium is entering a segment that has seen both regulatory scrutiny and claims pressure.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has introduced reforms to the multi‑occupancy buildings insurance market, requiring firms to act in leaseholders’ best interests, ensure products provide “fair value”, and ban policy recommendations driven by commission levels; brokers have also been pressed to curb and disclose commissions after investigations uncovered arrangements where commissions on some residential blocks reached up to 60% of the premium.
From a risk perspective, UK data continue to show that escape of water is one of the most frequent home and landlord claim types, accounting for around one‑third of home insurance claims and costing hundreds of millions of pounds each year.
For unoccupied premises, the absence of day‑to‑day occupancy can mean leaks, vandalism or break‑ins go unnoticed for longer, increasing severity and prompting many standard home policies to restrict cover after a property has been empty for 30 to 60 days, often reducing protection to “FLEEA” (fire, lightning, explosion, earthquake and aircraft) only after longer periods.
By targeting well‑maintained unoccupied properties with clear inspection, security and maintenance regimes, Elitium is positioning its book around risks where controls and oversight are demonstrably in place. The MGA is aiming to provide an additional option for scenarios such as probate properties, temporarily vacant commercial units, or buildings in transition between tenants, where securing comprehensive cover under standard wordings can be challenging.
The launch continues Mission’s programme of building out a portfolio of niche MGAs in the UK market, each led by experienced underwriting teams and supported with capacity and operational infrastructure across the UK and Europe. Mission has previously backed specialist real estate and SME property MGAs with Accelerant capacity, targeting “unloved gaps” in the mid‑market.
Commenting on the new venture, Ross Dingwall, CEO of Mission, said Elitium aligns with the group’s strategy of backing specialist teams with clearly defined market segments.
"Elitium embodies exactly what Mission was built to support: experienced underwriters creating specialist MGAs with a clear, long‑term vision, expertise, and a drive to deliver for their partners and clients. I am confident that Leah and Linda’s thoughtful underwriting and deep experience in this specialist area will set them apart," Dingwall said.
With Elitium now live, Mission adds another specialist MGA to its UK line‑up at a time when delegated authority remains a key growth channel for carriers and the London market, and when brokers are seeking more bespoke solutions for both complex manufacturing risks and unoccupied property exposures.
