Fewer brokers are reporting high levels of stress than a year ago, according to Ecclesiastical's latest Understanding Broker Mental Wellbeing research, though the insurer warned this should not be mistaken for a sign that the underlying pressures of the job have actually reduced.
The seventh annual instalment of the survey, based on 200 interviews with commercial lines brokers conducted by FWD Research in January 2026, found 67% of brokers had experienced work-related stress in the past 12 months and 44% had experienced anxiety, both lower than in recent years. Workload remains the single biggest driver of stress, cited by 69% of brokers, ahead of regulation and compliance (57%), customer demands (53%), insurer relationships (45%) and staff shortages (41%).
Ecclesiastical worked with Simon Moore, a chartered psychologist and behavioural scientist, to interpret this year's findings, and his reading of the improvement carried a note of caution.
According to Moore, the fall in reported stress may not necessarily reflect brokers actually coping better, but could instead reflect fears around stigma, job security and personal relevance in a changing technological environment. This means some brokers may simply be masking their stress more effectively rather than experiencing less of it.
Moore also pointed to a broader shift in tolerance, arguing that constant exposure to economic uncertainty, global events, workplace change and technological disruption is keeping many people in a heightened state of vigilance, which may be raising tolerance for stress even where the underlying pressures themselves have not reduced.
The research found significant disparities in the wellbeing support available depending on a brokerage's size.
National brokers were far more likely to have access to formal support: 89% have access to a confidential helpline compared with just 33% of provincial brokers, and counselling support followed a similar pattern at 79% for nationals against 52% for regionals and 34% for provincials.
Ecclesiastical said this creates a two-tier wellbeing system, since larger firms may generate more day-to-day pressure but also provide more tools to manage it, while smaller firms may feel steadier day to day but have far fewer places to turn when stress spikes.
Provincial brokers were also more likely to cite dealing with insurers, managing staff and bullying as stress factors than their counterparts at national or regional firms, according to the report.
Younger brokers reported higher stress intensity than older colleagues, though Ecclesiastical frames this as a sign of engagement rather than fragility, since younger brokers were also more likely to recognise early signs of strain, use wellbeing tools, and reject what the report calls "silent suffering" as a normal part of professional life.
Women also reported slightly lower wellbeing and higher stress intensity than men, which Moore attributed partly to additional family and caregiving responsibilities and to workplace cultures not originally designed around them, while noting that women's greater willingness to seek support may itself be contributing to the overall fall in reported stress levels.
Most brokers feel positively about their own employer's approach: 83% agreed their brokerage is committed to improving wellbeing, 86% saw their firm as supportive of colleagues facing mental health challenges, and 84% feel able to discuss mental health issues with their manager. Flexible working is now available to 77% of brokers, alongside a wider rollout of mental health awareness training, counselling support and employee assistance programmes.
However, that confidence dropped sharply once brokers are asked about the industry as a whole. Just 59% rate mental health awareness across the broader broking industry as high, only 37% rate industry-wide understanding as high, and fewer than half, 45%, believe there is strong acceptance of mental health issues across the sector generally.
Dave Carey, managing director intermediary at Ecclesiastical UK, said the real challenge for the industry is not simply helping brokers manage pressure but building and nurturing an environment where people can thrive and imagine long-term futures, adding that AI adoption is creating additional ambiguity around relationships and human connection even as it improves processes and efficiency.
The gap between local support and industry-wide perception that Ecclesiastical described echoes a wider pattern across financial services generally.
A separate report published this month by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, based on a YouGov survey of more than 2,000 UK adults, found 79% of respondents believe disclosing a mental health condition to an insurer would increase the cost of cover, and 65% believe it would hurt their chances of being offered cover at all, discouraging disclosure even when it might otherwise help.
Separately, an AXIS/Harris Poll survey of insurance employees found 82% of UK insurance staff reported increased stress and anxiety over the past year, compared with 60% in the US, suggesting the pressures Ecclesiastical documents among brokers specifically are part of a broader industry-wide pattern rather than isolated to broking.
The consistency of Ecclesiastical's own data since 2019 gives this year's improvement real weight: broker stress had risen for five consecutive years before this survey, reaching an average rating of 5.46 out of 10 in 2024's research, making this year's decline the first genuine reversal the survey has recorded.
Whether that reversal reflects a genuine improvement in day-to-day working conditions or simply better-normalised coping, as Moore suggests, may matter less to individual brokers than the fact that workload, regulation and customer pressure remain as embedded as ever.
