Top 50 Brokers: Which brokers were 2024’s high flyers?

#1 InsurEvo

In 2018, Synova Capital acquired health focused travel broker AllClear. In the year to March 2021, the broker’s turnover fell by almost 60%. Although its costs were dramatically cut as a result, AllClear took the opportunity to buy InsureandGo from Mapfre in August 2021. Fortune favours the brave.

In May 2024, Synova sold the business to NSM Insurance Group, getting 7.3 times its investment – an impressive return by any standard.

InsurEvo gets 2024’s top spot as a high flyer for having the courage – and cash – to see that the Covid-19 pandemic represented an opportunity, not just a short-term catastrophe.

#2 Aventum Group

Aventum Group has posted a 45% increase in commission income in its reports and accounts, while its MGA Rokstone confirmed a 79% commission income uptick – these figures have been achieved without making acquisitions or increasing debt.

This improvement saw it jump from 34 to 28 in 2024’s Top 50 Brokers ranking.

This impressive growth will make Aventum Group attractive to private equity firms. But if growth anywhere near this rate is sustainable without the need for external capital, it is possible that Aventum Group will continue to go it alone.

#3 Specialist Risk Group (SRG)

Group chief executive Warren Downey and Lee Anderson, group deputy chief executive, were late to the consolidation party, having left Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group (JLT) after its sale to Marsh and McLennan in 2019 and being parachuted into broker Miles Smith after its acquisition by Pollen Street Capital.

However, they have very much got to the punch bowl now with a string of acquisitions for SRG. Acquiring business does not in itself increase shareholder value. But the fact SRG attracted Warburg Pincus as an investor in May 2024 demonstrates the intermediary’s success at doing so.

With this additional firepower, we expect to see SRG accelerate its growth. Indeed, in October 2024, the firm announced a major acquisition of a Singapore broker – its first overseas deal.

Best of the rest

Howden

Typically, larger companies find it hard to source M&A deals that ‘move the needle’. However, Howden achieves this by doing multiple deals in multiple jurisdictions.

One has to go to the middle of 2024’s Top 50 Brokers listing to find another firm that exceeds Howden’s growth. Howden is not just an acquisition vehicle, but it successfully brings in teams to bolster growth.

In the short-term, this strategy does not boost earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (ebitda). However, in the long term, this does usually create more value.

Gallagher

M&A is a competitive sport. Assets are fiercely competed over and decisions have to be made quickly. For the US multinationals, this means they have to give their domestic UK operations a high degree of autonomy. Gallagher has achieved this.

The firm does not file UK group accounts, so we only have turnover figures from their US filings. As we don’t have sight of its ebitda numbers, Gallagher will not be on the high flyer podium, but it has been consistently growing its UK business over many years.

PIB Insurance Brokers (PIB)

PIB continues to reap the benefits of its forward-thinking European acquisition strategy. However, it would be wrong to assume that it is no longer interested in the UK.

The firm continues to pick up assets – but it only pushes hard for the ones it really wants as its European pipeline affords PIB the luxury of acquisition driven growth outside the UK.

At just 65 years old, PIB Group chief executive Brendan McManus shows no sign of retiring.

Brown and Brown

Brown and Brown styles itself as Brown and Brown Europe outside of the States – and that is how it is now behaving. Here is the clearest example of a major US acquirer using its UK platform to move into Europe.

We see this as an important exit route for medium-sized consolidators looking for relevance beyond UK M&A deals, which are beginning to slow with a lack of available assets to acquire.

Alan Boswell Group

Alan Boswell is the ‘King of the Castle’ in Norwich and the broader East Anglia area. Making small acquisitions funded purely from internal resources has seen the broker grow over five years from £23m to £40m, while still maintaining a healthy 25% margin.

Five years ago, the firm was placed 47 – now the group is 41 with an ebitda of £9.7m. The business makes for a compelling case study of how sticking to one’s knitting brings a highly credible long-term reward.

Avantia

Organic growth in a household book of 21% is impressive – no doubt helped by increasing building costs and associated premium rises. But to achieve a 37% net margin too, that is really impressive. This is despite the fact that two-thirds of its business comes via the commission hungry price comparison websites.

To describe Avantia as a broker is to do it a disservice. It captures almost the entire value chain, arguably renting its underwritings capacity. It rates all risks and settles the claims.

DR&P

Fresh in at number 50, DR&P has grown successfully by making numerous smaller acquisitions in the north and fewer, larger deals in the south and the States.

No sooner does it enter the Top 50 Brokers ranking, then it is snapped up by 12th placed broker BMS Group. The two business models are quite different, so we expect to see DR&P chief executive John Page remaining in the business and making further acquisitions. Next year, its numbers will be included in BMS Group’s figures.

And just outside the top 10 high flyers

Berry Palmer Lyle (BPL)

Around five years ago, BPL founding director Charles Berry said that the firm had built a partnership culture from the outset.

Only a handful of larger brokers have achieved the scale of BPL without making acquisitions.

Five years ago, BPL was ranked 37 in this list. Now, it is 34 – despite the M&A activity of the other Top 50 Brokers featured firms. This is a significant achievement. Maintaining this culture alongside growth is the challenge for the newish top management here.