Underwriting Complex Product Liability Risks in 2026

Hello, my name is Jonathan Swift.

Welcome to this the latest Insurance Age video, the third in a three-part series highlighting Arch’s expertise in the specialist lines and more specifically product liability.

After this final episode, I’m delighted to welcome to the studio Mark McGrady, the Liability Underwriting Manager at Arch UK.

Welcome Mark.

Thank you, Jonathan.

So, Mark, Arch has been underwriting liability risk for the past few years.

What type of risk do you cover within the emerging liability space?

It’s probably one of those questions that’s easier to answer in what we wouldn’t consider.

Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen, you know, a wide range of things coming through to us.

And where we pride ourselves is being able to take what was typically a London market kind of proposition and be able to roll that out across the branch network that we’ve got allowing brokers access to empowered underwriters in their local markets.

And can you outline some of the case studies that demonstrate the benefit of product liability for broker clients?

So some of the cases that we’ve seen recently like really interesting things along the lines of ballistic vests, which were, you know, manufactured in the UK, typically a very high hazard efficacy risk.

But we were able to offer risk management transfer there for that through to the maintenance and supply of hydraulic rescue equipment for the fire brigade, even through to things along the lines of inflatables used in water rescue.

But what that means is that we don’t, you know, just do the the weird and the wonderful, we can sort of pick up, you know, you your motors parts, your electrical parts, engineering parts, things along the lines of precision engineers where technically they would have been a little bit harder to place in the past if they went into sort of renewable or medical industries.

So, that’s the kind of thing that we’re picking up at the moment.

And Mark, what advice should you give to brokers watching this who might be considered exploring opportunities in the product liability space?

So what I’d say is just know your customer and their business as well as possible.

You know, we’re lucky to work in the UK where there is a great emerging risks market.

You know, we’re the head of innovation, we’re the head of manufacturer of bespoke specialist parts.

So the deeper that you can be into the insured, the broker can get into that kind of inside knowledge from where the products are sourced, where the ingredients are sourced, where they end up, etcetera.

What that will do is that will give the insured the confidence that not only the broker understands their risk, but the insurer does so that when risk transfer is triggered, then we know what we’re doing and we know what we’re paying.

And finally, Mark, I mean, what does the future hold for Arch in the product liability space and what can brokers expect from you going forward?

We’ve built a really solid foundation in what we’re doing at the moment.

And what we want is ultimately more of that and we’re looking to push into a larger turnover businesses and we’re looking to build into more complex products.

Once again, what we’re looking to do is try and take that out of the London market space and bring that into a local market for our broker partners to deal with.

We’re empowering local underwriters and our branches to do such, and that’s following with a lot of training in that world.

So we really want to be the best in that space.

Well, Mark, thank you very much for sharing your insights and for closing out the series.

Thank you.

If you’d like to check out the other videos, do so on Insurance Age.

These feature the MD, Mike Bottle and director of underwriting, Stuart Danskin.

Until the next video is Goodbye from Me Cheerio.