Arkel Accelerates Growth with CDL’s Proteus Insurer Hosted Platform Migration

Arkel, a specialist non-standard MGA within the Atec Group, is migrating its entire product portfolio to CDL’s Proteus Insurer Hosted Platform (IHP). This strategic shift aims to accelerate speed-to-market for brokers and enhance underwriting precision through advanced data enrichment, providing a more responsive infrastructure for complex personal and commercial lines.

What was announced

Arkel has committed to a phased rollout on the cloud-based Proteus IHP, beginning with its non-standard home and landlord insurance schemes. The transition is designed to consolidate Arkel’s diverse range of specialist personal lines, residential let, and SME commercial products into a single, unified environment. By moving to the Proteus platform, Arkel intends to provide brokers with faster access to its niche products while significantly upgrading its internal technical capabilities.

A core component of this migration is the integration of high-fidelity data sources. Through the Proteus environment, Arkel will leverage data from providers such as LexisNexis and Addresscloud. This integration is intended to facilitate more sophisticated risk assessment and the implementation of dynamic pricing models. The MGA expects this infrastructure to support ongoing product development by allowing for more rapid refinements to pricing and coverage terms.

Following the initial launch of the home and landlord schemes, the remaining specialist personal lines and SME commercial schemes will follow in subsequent phases. This will eventually house the MGA’s wider portfolio on the CDL platform, creating a scalable foundation for future growth. The move is specifically targeted at improving the responsiveness of Arkel’s products within the broker channel, ensuring that specialist risks can be quoted and bound with the same efficiency as standard lines.

"Our move to CDL’s IHP platform is an important step in supporting Arkel’s growth and our ambition to make our products as accessible and responsive as possible for brokers. Proteus gives us the flexibility to develop and refine our pricing and products at pace, while providing a scalable platform for bringing further schemes to market. We see this as an evolving partnership and an important foundation for the next stage of Arkel’s development."

Ant Sherlock, Group Head of Distribution at Atec.

The companies involved

Arkel is a specialist Managing General Agent (MGA) that focuses on non-standard risks, providing solutions for customers and brokers who fall outside the appetite of mainstream insurers. The firm operates as part of the Atec Group, a significant player in the UK insurance market known for its digital distribution capabilities and niche underwriting expertise. Arkel’s portfolio spans a variety of sectors, including residential let, specialist personal lines, and commercial SME insurance, often dealing with complex risks that require more nuanced data handling than standard automated systems provide.

CDL is a prominent technology provider in the insurance sector, specialising in high-volume retail insurance software. The company’s Proteus Insurer Hosted Platform (IHP) is a cloud-based solution designed to enable insurers and MGAs to distribute products across multiple channels while maintaining control over pricing and underwriting rules. CDL has established a significant footprint in the UK market, supporting many of the industry’s leading brokers and carriers with platforms that handle complex policy administration and real-time data integration.

What FF News has reported before

FF News has previously tracked Arkel’s expansion within the digital distribution landscape. In July 2026, the publication reported on a significant partnership in Open GI Expands SME Panel with Arkel’s Premier Let for Non-Standard Landlord Risks. That development saw Arkel’s specialist landlord products integrated into the Open GI SME panel, highlighting the MGA’s ongoing strategy to broaden its footprint through technology-led distribution. The current move to CDL’s Proteus platform represents a further evolution of this strategy, shifting from individual panel placements to a comprehensive, platform-wide migration of its core schemes.

What this means from an insurtech perspective

This move highlights the growing pressure on specialist MGAs to match the technical agility of mainstream carriers without losing their niche underwriting edge. By adopting an IHP like Proteus, Arkel is effectively decoupling its pricing logic from the constraints of traditional broker systems, placing the power of dynamic pricing directly in the hands of the underwriter. For the wider market, this signals a shift where non-standard risks are no longer an excuse for legacy processes. Incumbent vendors and rival MGAs must note that speed-to-market and real-time data enrichment from partners like Addresscloud are becoming the baseline for maintaining broker relevance and managing loss ratios in the complex property and SME sectors.