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 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.
In 2022, this market is estimated to have broken down between around USD 68.8 billion due to commercial P&C (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) 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.
Meanwhile, the leaders in each of the five broking segments were as follows:
• 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.
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 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.
Indeed, 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. Furthermore, 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.
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