In a word, 2020 was the year of COVID-19. In the midst of lockdowns and transitions to remote work, some brokerages simply did the best they could. But others faced down challenge after challenge – including a hardening market and shrinking capacity – and managed to not only drive record growth, but also become better brokerages in the process.
For the eighth year in a row, IBC celebrates the brokerages that achieved significant growth over the past 12 months – a mix of bootstrapped startups, long-time operations, digital providers and award winners of all kinds. IBC’s method of evaluating brokerages ensures that companies of all sizes compete on an even playing field. In addition to focusing on metrics of size and volume – such as revenue and number of clients – IBC also evaluated brokerages on their year-over-year growth.
On the following pages, this year’s Top 10 Brokerages reveal the moves they’ve made to overcome the challenges of the pandemic and offer their insights as to where the industry is headed next.
Each brokerage’s ranking in each category was added into a composite score that determined the final ranking. A lower composite score thus equals a higher ranking.
The majority of the criteria used by IBC recognizes growth and business volume per broker, rather than critical mass, allowing brokerages of all sizes to compete fairly. In addition, expressing metrics such as revenue growth and policy growth as a percentage of total business ensures that the very best-performing brokerages make the final list.
*Change between 2019 and 2020
