Sonia Habib: Kovrilo launch followed a decade of refusing to accept ‘a limit in the sky’

As the UK general insurance (UKGI) industry continues to confront talent shortages, it has become more important than ever that it creates clear routes for career progression and development. 

Indeed, Insurance Times’ 2026 Talent Development Report, published in association with Intact Insurance on 9 June, revealed that 45% of respondents felt that insurance professionals often leave the industry due to a lack of career development and advancement.

This issue is not lost on Sonia Habib, co-founder and commercial director at Kovrilo, who spoke to Insurance Times to reflect on the mentors and managers who supported her progression in the industry and “saw the light” in her.

Starting as a commercial lines underwriter at Jensten Group in 2013, Habib swiftly moved up the ranks at the broker, learning from each role until she landed in her most recent role as head of product development and insurer relations.

She believes that it was the combination of support, sponsorship and opportunities, including being trusted with career-defining projects, which allowed her to broaden her experience from underwriting into product development and technology-led projects.

And, after over a decade of learning the tricks of the trade at Jensten, Habib leveraged this multifaceted skill suite to launch a digital-first MGA.

Alongside former Jensten Group colleague Tim Smith, who is now chief executive at the newly created business, Habib set up Mission-backed Kovrilo.

Building a business

Launched in February 2026, Kovrilo centres on a tech-driven underwriting platform offering a range of commercial insurance products that allow brokers to tailor products to the specific insurance needs of individual small businesses.

Speaking to Insurance Times, Habib admits that she would have called the prospect “impossible” if someone told her she would become the co-founder of a UK MGA at 31-years-old 10 years ago, because she had “never seen anyone do it” at that age.

She continues: “That, for me, is a huge statement, because I want to lead by example – and for people to see that it can be done with the right toolkit.

“I absolutely know that if I wasn’t as brazen and if I thought there was a limit in the sky, I probably would have been overlooked and not necessarily had the opportunities that I have had. The opportunities come from being hungry, determined and not necessarily taking no for an answer.”

Entering a volatile and saturated insurance market, Habib and Smith’s hope has been for Kovrilo to fill a gap they identified between traditional and digital MGAs.

In an era defined by the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and firms chasing quick turnarounds, Habib notes that the MGA’s business partners “saw the opportunity to maximise” how it could use AI effectively without “jeopardising that human touch”.

The result of this approach was the decision to build a fully eTraded quote and buy system, so that brokers could access it at any time of day, she explains.

nearly nine months on from the MGA’s launch, Habib says that it boasts 4,500 trades on its platform, from which it quotes “roughly 75%” with plans to “increase that percentage” to “give more choice to the broker”.

One demand that Habib did not anticipate, however, was the level of broker interest in schemes within the first year of trading, despite no specific marketing from the firm on this area.

“There’s people in the market that reached out to us just to sound out ideas,” she explains.

“They know that we have the full arsenal to really dissect a proposition and look at it from a cost-benefit perspective and see how both parties get their end of the bargain.

“But one thing that I’ve learned in my career is not all of those ideas are going to be a fit for you as an MGA. You have to draw the line between sanity and vanity because if we said yes to everything, well, it would be impossible.”

Protecting ‘integrity’

Looking ahead, Habib’s immediate focus for Kovrilo is on deepening the current product set to create a “fully commercialised proposition”.

Part of this involves enhancing its product offering through AI, she explains, to “create operational efficiencies and tools for the brokers” that allow them to use Kovrilo “outside of the bigger software houses”.

Addressing the potential concerns from brokers around the need to manually rekey the same risks, she says that Kovrilo is looking to launch an AI drag and drop functionality next month that would give brokers the ability to “drop a presentation into its portal” and allow Kovrilo to “map all the information for them”.

She explains that this should give brokers access to an “alternative quote” and “market of least resistance”.

“We are looking at other ways of connecting with other broker systems,” she adds.

“That’ll include assessing selected adjacent propositions where there is a clear broker and customer need. Understanding the broker has true distribution themselves is a huge area of focus when I’m looking at opportunities.”

Combining technology and a “straightforward service” for brokers reflects what Habib sees as a changing SME market in which risks have become “more varied”.

She continues: “When you’re a startup MGA, there are a lot of things outside of your control, including broker behaviours, economic conditions and, obviously, the underwriting cycle and current soft market.

“Where we have been quite firm in our decision making and sticking to our guns is in terms of underwriting decisions and the premium that we’re charging to the brokers. It could be very easy to lose sight of protecting your integrity just for the sake of securing business, but that is something that we’ve been firm on not compromising, not just within business, but as individuals.”

‘Visibility itself isn’t enough’

Despite being in its infancy, the MGA has also garnered attention from graduates and school leavers, who have been contacting the firm to inquire about work experience.

While the firm is not yet at the scale where it can provide these opportunities, Habib says that being able to reach the younger generation within a year has been “worth its weight in gold”.

As a signatory of the Destination Insurance charter, she explains that facilitating work experience opportunities is on her agenda for the future as the business scales.

For Habib, creating opportunities for “mentoring, sponsorship and inclusive recruitment” is the next vital goal the industry must address.

She believes that this is especially the case since Lloyd’s talent-focused festival Dive In comes to an end this year and “has created a lot of momentum” for “leadership, accountability and stronger roots into the market” which needs to continue.

Reflecting on her own career, Habib explains that “visibility changes what people believe is possible, but visibility alone isn’t enough”.

Figuring out how to create “access to influential networks, sponsorship, meaningful development qualifications and career defining opportunities” is pivotal to improving representation in the industry, she says.

“The core of it is you have to surround yourself with positive, forward-thinking people that want to make a difference in the industry and can see talent before they see it themselves,” she finishes.

“If I didn’t have mentors and people that saw the light in me, I probably would have struggled to see that there was huge progression available in the industry, which led me to the opportunities.”