Global broker market grew almost 12.5% in 2021, says Insuramore

The world’s 50.6 percent insurance broking fees and commissions was in the control of just the top 20 insurance broking groups last year, latest rankings and analyses by Insuramore have shown. In 2020 the top 20 broking groups controlled 52.3 percent showing its marginally down by just under two percent.

Insuramore is a provider of marketing services and related consultancy with a primary focus on the insurance sector.

The analyses also showed that the top 300 insurance broking groups commanded, in aggregate, 79.3 percent of overall global broking fees and commissions in 2021. In 2020 up to 250 Nigerian broking firms controlled 78 percent.

Insuramore also showed that the value of the worldwide market for insurance broking in terms of fees and commissions earned was around $137.6 billion in 2021, almost 12.5 percent higher than the $122.3 billion, without adjusting for inflation—and about 8 percent higher when inflation-adjusted.

“Several factors brought about the notable increase in the world’s insurance broking market in 2021. Growth in underlying premium rates was an important driver for both commercial P&C retail broking and wholesale broking while a further shift to digital and advice-led distribution had the most impact for retail broking of both private P&C insurance and life and health insurance. In fact, intermediaries with advanced digital capabilities have benefited significantly from this trend,” says Insuramore.

Overall market leaders
In terms of the value of its total broking revenues worldwide, Marsh McLennan ranked first among broking groups in 2021 and it was followed in descending order by Aon, WTW, Gallagher and HUB. The rankings among the top five remained unchanged from 2020.

The US is the headquarters for 141 (47 percent) of the top 300; following the US by this measure are France, the UK, Canada and Germany, the home countries for a respective 32, 31, 16 and 15 of the largest 300 groups, with the rest of the world accounting for the remaining 65 in the analysis.

Looking ahead
Insuramore says that it will be apposite to see whether a continuing stream of M&A activity causes the worldwide market to consolidate in 2022 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.