Who was the world’s biggest brokerage in 2021?

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the biggest brokerage of them all?

Marsh McLennan, with revenue of US$9.5 billion and a global market share of approximately 15.4% in 2021, said a new report by Insuramore, a London, U.K.-based insurance and marketing consultant.

Aon is the first runner-up, with 2021 revenues of $6.1 billion and a global market share of about 9.8%.

Insuramore said 2021’s top five finished with:

3rd: Gallagher ($3.5 billion 2021 revenue; 5.7% market share)
4th: WTW ($3.1 billion revenue; 4.96% market share); and
5th: privately-owned brokerage Acrisure ($1.9 billion revenue; 3.12% market share).

Overall, 2021 was a good year financially for the world’s largest brokerage groups, with total fees and commissions earned from insurance broking activity totalling about US$137.6 billion — a 12% increase over last year, the report stated.

The Top 20 global brokerages account for 50.6% of total global broking fees and commissions, Insuramore said, while the Top 300 groups for 79.3%.

Among the world’s Top 300 brokerage groups, the vast majority (almost 81%) are privately-owned involving one or a combination of family ownership, employee ownership or private equity. Sixteen per cent of these Top 300 brokerages are headquartered in Canada, according to the report.

Several factors brought about the notable increase in the world’s insurance broking market last year, Insuramore noted, the higher rates (and therefore increased premium commissions) of the hard market being among them.

“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,” the report said. “In fact, intermediaries with advanced digital capabilities have benefited significantly from this trend.”

The report further listed the top players in five broking segments:

commercial P&C insurance retail broking – Marsh McLennan
private P&C insurance retail broking – Alliant (thanks largely to its acquisition of Confie in 2021)
employee benefits activity plus retail broking of life and health cover – WTW
reinsurance broking – Aon
wholesale insurance broking – Amwins

Feature photo courtesy of iStock.com/Steven Lynn