Broker Expo 2026 Countdown Q&A: Pen Underwriting’s Nick Milton

Can you give us a short preview of the insights you will be looking to share as part of your participation at Broker Expo 2026?

Our main focus at Broker Expo this year will be our mid-market professional indemnity and cyber propositions.

We launched into mid-market PI earlier this year to help brokers place larger and more complex PI risks more easily and it’s trading really well. We’ll be sharing more about the opportunity we see in this market and introducing some of the underwriting expertise behind it.

Our cyber specialists will also be on hand to discuss recent product enhancements, our broad risk appetite and the speed at which our risk management platform Pen Protect can deliver real-time vulnerability scans and instant remediation insights – by running one of their own.

More broadly, it’s a chance to talk to our distribution team about all things Pen. For me, Broker Expo is as much about listening as talking. We want to understand where brokers see opportunities, what they need from us and how we can make it even easier for them to trade and grow with Pen.

The strapline for Broker Expo 2026 is “one day out of the office could create real opportunities”. From past experience, what advice would you give attendees to maximise the value of their time?

Have a plan, but don’t overplan it. Pick a handful of people or businesses you definitely want to meet, then leave enough space for the conversations you didn’t expect to have.

Some of the best opportunities I’ve had in this industry have started with an informal conversation, rather than a scheduled meeting. Get around the room, ask questions and meet people you don’t already know.

And follow up afterwards – otherwise, a great conversation on the day is just a great conversation.

Given the current state of the insurance broking market, which buzzword or phrase are you expecting to hear most repeated at Broker Expo in 2026?

AI. Without question.

The interesting conversation now isn’t whether AI will change insurance – it’s how and where it can genuinely improve things for brokers and customers.

Pinpointing how we can use technology to remove time-sapping admin, speed up decisions and give our people more time to have valuable conversations with brokers and customers, that’s where it becomes really powerful.

What broking/insurance innovation has most impressed you in the past 12–18 months and why?

For me, it’s the way technology is beginning to remove friction from relatively simple parts of the insurance journey.

There has understandably been a lot of excitement around AI, but the innovations that impress me most are often the practical ones: better use of data, quicker onboarding, smarter digital trading and technology that allows underwriters and brokers to spend less time on admin and more time actually trading.

Innovation doesn’t always need to be revolutionary. Sometimes making something dramatically easier is just as valuable.

The Broker Expo sees the formal launch of The Insurance Academy. If you were to offer up a lesson for the next generation of broking professionals, what would the subject be?

I’d probably call it ‘get out and meet people’.

We’re becoming a more digital industry, which is a good thing, but insurance is still fundamentally a relationship business. Build your network early, be curious about other people’s businesses, and don’t underestimate the value of sitting across the table from someone.

There’s another challenge coming, too. AI isn’t just making our industry better informed – it’s making our customers better informed. Brokers will increasingly encounter clients who have researched their risks, their insurance options and even potential solutions before the conversation starts. They’ll ask more informed questions and expect more informed answers.

That makes genuine expertise, curiosity and the ability to build trust even more important for the next generation of brokers.

Seven-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback Tom Brady owns a small stake in Birmingham City Football Club. If you could enlist a famous superstar to invest in your business, who would it be and why?

I’d go for Jürgen Klopp.

He built high-performing teams, created a culture people genuinely wanted to be part of, and managed to combine huge ambition with a very human leadership style.

There are probably quite a few lessons for businesses in that – although I’m not sure how he’d cope with an insurance distribution meeting!

Birmingham is the setting of Peaky Blinders. Who in the insurance industry would you describe as having played a blinder over the last 12 months?

I’d actually give this one to the independent broker community more broadly.

They’ve had to navigate changing market conditions, continued consolidation, evolving customer expectations, and an enormous amount of noise around technology and AI. Yet the best brokers have continued to grow by staying close to their customers, specialising and demonstrating the value of advice.

There are some fantastic individual businesses and people I could name, but I think the resilience and entrepreneurialism across the broker market deserves recognition.

As we look forward to 2027, what gives you the greatest grounds for optimism that next year is going to be a good time to be an insurance broker?

Opportunity.

The market is changing quickly – technology, consolidation, new capacity and changing customer expectations are all reshaping it. But I think that creates opportunity for good brokers, rather than diminishing their role.

Customers still need expertise and advice, particularly as risks become more complex. In fact, as customers become better informed and technology takes care of more of the transactional work, the value of really good advice and expertise should become even clearer.

If we can combine that human expertise with better technology and insurers and MGAs that are genuinely easier to trade with, there is a huge amount for brokers to go after in 2027.

Sign up to attend the Broker Expo on 8 October at the Birmingham NEC