The value of the worldwide market for insurance broking in terms of fees and commissions earned was around USD 151.4 billion in 2022, up from around USD 137 billion in 2021, equivalent to a growth rate of almost 10.5% without adjusting for inflation, but closer to 2% as an inflation-adjusted measure.

According to the rankings and analyses updated by Insuramore, the market is estimated to have broken down between around USD 68.8 billion due to commercial P&C insurance (non-life) retail broking, USD 14.6 billion to private P&C (non-life) retail broking, USD 50 billion to employee benefits plus life and health insurance retail broking, USD 6.4 billion to reinsurance broking and USD 11.6 billion to wholesale broking.

Noting that these data points omit tied agency and MGA / MGU activity among other elements.

Global Insurance Broking. Top 15 Broker Groups by Revenue, Fees & Commissions

Each of the segments registered a double-digit growth rate during the year apart from employee benefits plus life and health insurance retail broking; indeed, without adjusting for inflation, the top 20 broking groups together achieved an even higher aggregate growth rate of 11.7% albeit this was driven in part by M&A activity.

In terms of the value of its total broking revenues worldwide, Marsh McLennan ranked first among broking groups in 2022 and it was followed in descending order by Aon, WTW, Gallagher and Acrisure.

The leaders in each of the five broking segments

  • commercial P&C insurance retail broking – Marsh McLennan;
  • private P&C insurance retail broking – HUB;
  • employee benefits activity plus retail broking of life and health cover – WTW;
  • reinsurance broking – Aon;
  • wholesale insurance broking – Amwins.

Top 20 groups are believed to have controlled 51.5% of total global broking fees and commissions and the top 300 groups for 83.2%.

Relative to the equivalent figures computed for 2021 (namely, a respective 50.7% and 79.4%), this shows that there has been some consolidation in the market structure; this is due both to M&A activity and to the strengthening of the US dollar against most global currencies during 2022, causing US-based groups to achieve a higher weighting within the worldwide ranking (see Impact of Social Inflation for P&C Insurance Costs).

Total Insurance Broking Revenues by Type

Total Insurance Broking Revenues Segmentation by Type
Source: Insuramore research Top 300 Broker Groups Worldwide

Among the top 300 groups, the US is the headquarters for 141 (47%) of them; following the US by this measure are France, the UK, Canada and India, the home countries for a respective 29, 27, 17 and 13 of the largest 300 groups, with the rest of the world accounting for the remaining 73 in the analysis (see US P&C Insurance Market Underwriting Results).

Total Insurance Broking Revenues by Region

Total Insurance Broking Revenues Segmentation by Region
Source: Insuramore research Top 300 Broker Groups Worldwide

The vast majority (at 247, or 82.3%) are privately-owned involving one or a combination of family ownership, employee ownership or private equity.

Looking ahead, it will be apposite to see whether a continuing stream of M&A activity causes the worldwide market to consolidate further in 2023 or if the dynamic growth of some smaller and medium-sized competitors causes the share of the top 20 groups to hold at just over a half of global broking revenues (see Impact of Natural Catastrophic Risks for the US P&C Insurance Market).

Top 15 Insurance Broker Groups Worldwide

Broking group2022 revenues, $ mnCAGR 2020-2022
1Marsh McLennan16,3388.2%
2Aon11,5576.3%
3WTW7,781-3.8%
4Gallagher7,35615.7%
5Acrisure3,82340.5%
6HUB 3,4917.8%
7Lockton3,20622.7%
8Alliant2,95425.5%
9Truist Insurance2,50813.6%
10Assured Partners2,3621.1%
11USI 2,34413.7%
12Brown & Brown2,32218.3%
13Howden1,92655.2%
14NFP 1,81311.5%
15Amwins1,66611.8%
All other brokers79,948
Total151,394
Source: Insuramore

Data includes acquisitions completed by end of 2022 but not ones pending at end of 2022 and / or completed in 2023.

Data for total revenues (used for the calculation in the relevant column) include non-broking revenues (e.g. tied agency, MGA / MGU / cover-holder, ancillary) but not premiums from risk-carrying activity (for the few groups with such activity).

Property & Casualty Commercial Insurance

Insuramore’s analysis of commercial P&C (non-life) insurance retail broking revenues of brokergroups in 2022 – with data for a majority of groups also provided for 2020 and 2021 – covers up to thetop 300 groups worldwide by this measure. Together, these 300 groups accounted for an estimated 87.3% of total global commercial P&C (non-life) insurance retail broking revenues in 2022.

Top 15 Commercial P&C Insurance Broking Group by Revenues

Broking group2022 revenues, $ mn CAGR 2020-2022 
1Marsh McLennan9 77010,6%
2Aon6 1277,2%
3Gallagher4 12413,1%
4WTW3 1053,9%
5Acrisure2 64545,4%
6Lockton1 93825,9%
7HUB1 81120,6%
8Alliant1 80922,8%
9Assured Partners1 47518,3%
10Brown & Brown1 20721,0%
11Howden 1 15269,0%
12USI 1 13410,7%
13Broad Street Partners98931,5%
14Truist Insurance95514,7%
15Ardonagh Group69430,1%
    
 All other brokers29 835 
 Total68 772 
Source: Insuramore

Rankings of the world’s leading broker groups by retail broking revenues derived globally from commercial P&C (non-life) insurance.

Property & Casualty Private Insurance

Insuramore’s analysis of private P&C (non-life) insurance retail broking revenues of broker groups in 2022 – with data for a majority of groups also provided for 2020 and 2021 – covers up to the top 150 groups worldwide by this measure. Together, these 150 groups accounted for an estimated 77.5% oftotal global private P&C (non-life) insurance retail broking revenues in 2022.

Top 15 Private P&C Insurance Retail Broking Group by Revenues

Broking group2022 revenues, $ mn CAGR 2020-2022 
1HUB5288,8%
2Ardonagh Group42926,5%
3Acrisure41034,8%
4Markerstudy Group378222,3%
5Alliant368144,7%
    
 All other brokers12 470 
 Total14 583 
Source: Insuramore

Rankings of the world’s leading broker groups by retail broking revenues derived globally from private P&C (non-life) insurance.

Definition of insurance broking revenues

Definition of insurance broking revenues

Insurance broking revenues are defined as fees and commissions earned from any kind of insurance(or reinsurance) wherein the intermediary (brokerage / independent agency) acts in an advisorycapacity for its customers and places risks with all or a broad range of carriers / underwriters in therelevant market either directly (on a retail basis) or indirectly via other intermediaries (on a wholesalebasis).

Fees and commissions earned from activity wherein the intermediary acts as a tied agent for a single(non-captive) carrier / underwriter or places risks with a limited panel of (non-captive) carriers /underwriters are NOT classified here as insurance broking.

Fees earned from alternative risk transfer (ART) activity such as the placement of risks with acaptive carrier / underwriter, risk retention group (RRG) or insurance pool, or into an insurance-relatedsecurity, are also classified here as insurance broking revenues, as are fees intrinsically related tocore broking activity such as those earned from safety / risk / crisis management consulting, claimsadvocacy / claims management, premium finance, employee benefits / health / pensions / wellnessconsulting, associated data / actuarial analytics etc.

Revenues earned

Fees and commissions earned from underwriting activity by managing general agents (MGAs),managing general underwriters (MGUs) and cover-holders with binding authority (i.e. where risks arenot retained) are also NOT classified here as insurance broking revenues.

Revenues earned from ancillary services that are not intrinsically related to insurance broking(as defined above) are also NOT classified here as insurance broking.

Variously, and depending onthe breadth of activities of the intermediary, these ancillary services may include general humanresources (HR) and compensation consulting / communication / administration, workforce absencemanagement consulting, general management consulting, capital advisory services for insurancerelated investments, other professional services (e.g. audit, compliance, deal advisory, tax etc.),financial advisory services for individual customers concerning investments / pensions / retirementsavings / wealth management, estate planning, online price comparisons for insurance / otherservices (i.e. aggregation), and premium finance (where not intrinsically related to the intermediary’score broking activity).

Captive brokers that focus mainly on arranging insurance for their parent organizations (and theirsuppliers) are excluded from the analysis; these are present in a few specific countries such asGermany and Japan.

In 2022, the top 300 broker groups by this measure segmented by type and by home region as shownin the charts overleaf.

Edited & Fact checked by Oleg Parashchak    Oleg Parashchak

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