According to the latest rankings and analyses updated by Insuramore, the value of the worldwide market for insurance broking in terms of fees and commissions earned was around $151.4bn in 2022, up from around $137bn in 2021, a growth rate of almost 10.5% without adjusting for inflation, but closer to 2% as an inflation-adjusted measure.
In 2022, this market is estimated to have broken down to around $68.8bn for commercial P&C retail broking, $14.6bn to private P&C retail broking, $50bn to employee benefits plus life and health insurance retail broking, $6.4bn to reinsurance broking and $11.6bn to wholesale broking (these data points omit tied agency and MGA/MGU activity among other elements).
The report added that each of the segments registered a double-digit growth rate during the year apart from employee benefits and life and health insurance retail broking. 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 value of its total broking revenues worldwide, Marsh McLennan ranked first among broking groups in 2022, followed by Aon, WTW, Gallagher and Acrisure. Meanwhile, the leaders in each of the five broking segments were:
- Commercial P&C insurance retail broking – Marsh McLennan;
- Private P&C insurance retail broking – HUB;
- Employee benefits activity and retail broking of life and health cover – WTW;
- Reinsurance broking – Aon;
- Wholesale insurance broking – Amwins
Overall, the top 20 groups are believed to have controlled 51.5% of total global broking fees and commissions in 2022 and the top 300 groups for 83.2% relative to the figures achieved in 2021 (50.7% and 79.4% respectively). This shows that there has been some consolidation in the market structure due both to M&A activity and to the strengthening of the US dollar against most global currencies in 2022, causing US-based groups to dominate worldwide rankings.
Among the top 300 groups, the US is the headquarters for 141 (47%) of them; followed by France (29) , the UK (27), Canada (17) and India (13). Furthermore, the vast majority (247 or 82.3%) are privately-owned involving one or a combination of family ownership, employee ownership or private equity. M