Why Fresh Capital Keeps Finding the Agency Business 

• August 26, 2026

By John Merrill 

There are plenty of reasons to expect the independent insurance agency mergers & acquisitions market to cool. Property & casualty pricing has softened, organic growth has slowed, public broker valuations have contracted, and some active aggregators have pulled back. Together, that suggests a shrinking pool of buyers. 

However, it is not shrinking. It is broadening. Even as the industry works through these headwinds, a new wave of buyers is forming with legitimate capital behind them. 

Part of what is changing is who the buyers are. Private equity (PE)-backed platforms and public brokers still dominate, accounting for the majority of transactions, but the mix underneath those serial acquirers is widening. 

The pool of active buyers increasingly includes independent agencies buying similar-sized agencies, family offices and first-time institutional investors. Alongside them, a new class of acquirers is also emerging: smaller, newly launched platforms, often headed by experienced operators who left the big consolidators to build their own. 

As you can guess, artificial intelligence (AI) is the buzzword behind many of these new entrants. A growing share describes themselves as AI-enabled, promising investors faster growth, lower service costs, no legacy IT debt and smoother integration than traditional buyers. But not all of them are technology stories. Many are led by industry veterans whose real edge is decades of relationships and operating experience, with technology a complement. 

Why does fresh capital keep finding the agency business? The fundamentals are intact. It is a recurring-revenue industry with strong margins and thousands of firms still to acquire. A softening rate environment pressures organic growth, but it does not undo the math of consolidation. For investors with capital to deploy, a stretch of slower growth can be a better time to build. 

For agents and brokers weighing a sale, this is mostly good news. More buyers means more optionality and more price tension, particularly for high-quality firms. It also means more variety of partners, from national platforms to newer, founder-led firms where a seller can roll meaningful equity and share in the upside, rather than becoming a small piece of a billion-dollar broker. 

Yet, the cautions are worth highlighting. A newer platform has a shorter track record, more uncertainty behind its capital, an integration model and processes still being built, and its technology may be more aspiration than reality, which is hard for a less technical seller to assess. Sellers need to look past the pitch and assess these areas. Who has actually integrated an agency before? And do we believe in the founder’s vision and track record? Does the operating model, technology included, fit the way my team works and serves clients? 

The new wave carries real opportunity. What sets these firms apart is not just fresh capital; it is a clean slate. Free of the legacy systems, bolted-on acquisitions and entrenched processes that weigh on established brokers, they can build around modern technology from day one and rethink the traditional model. Not all will succeed and some AI promises will prove overstated. However, buyers willing to challenge the old playbook could reshape what a broker looks like. For sellers, that is one more sign that demand for well-run agencies is not just holding. It is broadening. 

John Merrill is a partner at Reagan Consulting.