Willis loses No 3 spot

The results from Insurance Times' annual top 50 brokers survey.

Willis has been knocked off the number three spot in the annual Insurance Times Top 50 brokers survey, ceding its place to Acromas Holdings, the company that merged the AA and Saga last September.

Aon has retained its crown as the UK’s number one broker, followed by Marsh. After Acromas in third and Willis in fourth place, the rest of the top 10 are: JLT Group; Towergate Partnership; Benfield Group; BGL Group; Swinton Group and Venture Preference.

The figures, compiled by IMAS and published in a special supplement distributed with today’s Insurance Times, show a healthy growth in the broking sector with the aggregate brokerage income of the top 50 growing by 14% to £5.26bn.

New entrants included CCV at 23, specialist motor broker Adrian Flux at 38 and Bollington at 49.

Oliver Laughton-Scott of IMAS predicted that consolidation would cool off in the sector following the major deals of the past 12 months.

“Timing is everything. And times have changed,” he said. “Now many of the partygoers have gone home to recover from the binge and it is not clear when they will accept another invitation.

“However, it is not all doom and gloom. This disappearance of the lager louts has left the floor open to those with distinct strategies to find appropriate partners.

“We are now receiving inquiries from outside the industry from businesses that are looking to build sophisticated customer propositions.”

This year’s analysis also showed a resurgence among personal lines brokers, with BGL and Swinton achieving growth rates of 43% and 37.4% respectively.

However, the London market remained stagnant with an overall decline in brokerage of 1.1%.

*See the full Top 50 brokers supplement, out with tomorrow's edition of Insurance Times and available online at Insurancetimes.co.uk.