2025 Insurance Brokerage M&A Overview
Insurance Brokerage M&A's Resilience in a Shifting Market
Mergers & Acquisitions
2025 Insurance Brokerage M&A Activity Highlights
TOTAL DEAL COUNT
OF TRANSACTIONS FROM TOP 10 BUYERS
OF TRANSACTIONS FROM PRIVATE CAPITAL-BACKED FIRMS
Third
MOST ACTIVE M&A YEAR ON RECORD
NUMBER OF ACTIVE CAPITAL INVESTMENTS IN INSURANCE BROKERS
SPECIALTY DISTRIBUTION TRANSACTIONS IN 2025
The momentum of insurance brokerage mergers and acquisitions (M&A) which re-gained steam in 2024 – fueled by favorable market conditions and big deals – carried over into 2025.
2025 ended as the third most active M&A year on record, eclipsing the prior year by a handful of deals, with positive momentum going into 2026.
While 2025 will be looked upon as a strong economic year – it never felt easy. In fact, the U.S. economy resembled a rollercoaster ride, filled with more ups and downs than steady stretches – enduring dramatic trade policy changes, fiscal policy changes, and the longest government shutdown in history. However, mixed within the political headlines were indicators of an economy that was shifting and perhaps improving. Once past the rocky first quarter, the U.S. economy began demonstrating notable strength with higher-than-expected real GDP growth, cooling inflation, interest rate cuts and strong equity markets.
A year of challenges
For the insurance brokerage industry, 2025 presented other rising challenges. With economic stability comes the potential for a shift in the insurance rate cycle and a softer market environment. Premium rate increases in 2025 started to slow (or even decrease) across multiple lines, resulting in a slowdown in organic growth for many brokers. The public brokers were the first to see the ripple effect of this shift. Since collectively peaking at the end of March 2025, public brokers watched their values go from historic highs to a sudden fall, dropping collectively by 21.0% since March (through 12/31/25) and down 10.2% overall in 2025 as calculated by the MarshBerry Broker Composite Index. This decline is mostly glaring in light of the positive performance of the broader equity benchmarks, where the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 2025 up 16.4% and 13.0% respectively.
Most Active Buyers — 2025:
PRIVATE CAPITAL-BACKED
INDEPENDENT FIRMS
PUBLIC BROKERAGES, CARRIERS, BANKS & OTHERS
The resilience of M&A and valuations
The only steady elements amidst the recent turbulence have been insurance brokerage M&A activity and valuation multiples – both maintaining their pace and elevated levels in 2025.
While public broker values have come down, many private brokers have seen their valuations increase to all time high levels and are expected to maintain course, with top performing platform firms continuing to fetch record high multiples.
It is MarshBerry’s belief that valuations will continue to be influenced by limited supply vs. high demand. Now, as interest rates drop, the expectation is that with more affordable capital, compounded by the pressure to generate revenue to replace slowing organic growth – demand will increase even further.
Keep in mind, not all valuations are created equal. Quality firms are being highly rewarded today, even more than in the past. How firms are growing, the quality of that growth and their leadership capabilities (not just top tier, but the next generation of leaders) is going to become even more important, now that the insurance rate cycle is shifting.
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