Agency M&A and Consolidation Deal Volume Statistics 2026

649 Deals and Still Accelerating

MarshBerry recorded 649 announced U.S. insurance brokerage M&A transactions through November 30, 2025, a 1.3% faster pace than the 633 deals announced through the same point in 2024. That puts 2025 on track to finish as the second- or third-highest volume year on record, meaning this is not a market cooling off after several active years, it is one still adding to an already elevated baseline.

A faster pace on top of an already-high prior-year total is the more meaningful signal here. Consolidation in this channel has had years to build momentum, and 2025’s numbers show that momentum was still building, not leveling off.

Who Is Doing the Buying

Private-capital-backed buyers accounted for 471 of the 649 deals, 72.6% of total volume, the dominant force behind the current wave of consolidation. Independent agencies were still buyers in their own right in 89 deals, 13.7% of the total, and bank buyers accounted for 7 deals, a small but persistent third category.

Private capital owning nearly three-quarters of deal activity is a different market than one driven mainly by agencies buying each other organically. It means the pace and pricing of consolidation is being set largely by capital with a return timeline, not solely by strategic fit between two agency principals.

A Concentrated Wave, Not a Broad One

The top 10 buyers accounted for 45.1% of all transactions in 2025, and the top three alone, BroadStreet Partners, World Insurance, and Hub, accounted for 20.2% of total deal volume on their own. A small number of named, repeat acquirers are responsible for a disproportionate share of the entire year’s activity.

That concentration matters for an agency principal evaluating an offer: the buyer on the other side of the table is very likely one of a relatively short, named list of active consolidators, not a one-time opportunistic buyer, which changes what a realistic negotiation and post-sale integration process actually looks like.

Specialty Distributors Are Getting Bought Too

Specialty distributors, not just standard retail agencies, were acquisition targets in 102 deals, 15.7% of the year’s total. Consolidation pressure in this channel is not limited to generalist commercial agencies, it extends into the wholesale and specialty-distribution side of the business as well.

That is a meaningfully broader footprint than a consolidation story confined to one segment of the distribution chain, and it means a niche or specialty-focused agency is not automatically insulated from the same acquisition pressure a generalist retail shop faces.

Where the Pace Accelerated Fastest

Q1 2025 alone recorded 127 deals, up 11.4% from 114 in Q1 2024, a faster year-over-year jump than the roughly 1.3% pace difference measured across the full eleven-month window through November. The early part of 2025 ran noticeably hotter than the year as a whole eventually averaged out to.

A front-loaded acceleration like that is consistent with buyers moving early in a year they expected to stay active, rather than deal flow building gradually and unpredictably as the year went on.

What This Pace Means for an Agency Principal Weighing Options

This is reasoning, not a separately cited statistic: with a short list of well-capitalized, repeat acquirers responsible for nearly half of all deal volume, an agency principal weighing a sale is very likely negotiating with a buyer who has done this many times before and knows exactly what an efficient, well-run new-business pipeline is worth in a valuation conversation.

An agency that keeps writing strong, well-documented new business right up to and through any ownership conversation is negotiating from a different position than one that let growth slip while a decision got made. Growth itself, not just size, is part of what a repeat acquirer is actually pricing.

The Numbers

Sources

The external data in this article draws on the sources below. Figures described in the text as estimates or industry triangulations are directional and are not attributed to a single dataset.

• MarshBerry, Insurance Brokerage M&A Stays Active in 2025 Amid Market Headwinds
• Independent Agent (IA Magazine), Big I and Future One Release 2024 Agency Universe Findings

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