UK insurance distribution M&A is slowing sharply. There were 151 deals in 2023 and 152 in 2024, before activity dropped to 99 last year. By early August, just 47 deals had been completed in 2026.
MarshBerry said several of the market's historically most acquisitive firms had either slowed down or quietly paused their UK dealmaking this year.
Insurance Business spoke to a group of independent brokers with little appetite to join the consolidation cycle. For them, independence is not a holding position while they wait for the right offer. It shapes how they run their businesses and what they can promise clients, and, for some, raises a newer question: whether a small, independent brokerage has the resources to handle AI on its own.
For Gareth Cotty, chief commercial officer at Thomas Carroll Group, the decision was made in 2023 and has not been revisited since. Rather than simply declining approaches, Thomas Carroll, which employs 180 people across seven offices, restructured its ownership, transitioning to an employee ownership trust and placing 94% of its equity into the structure.
He has watched plenty of friends in the industry take the opposite path and is not critical of the choice, but said he has also seen how acquisitions can change businesses. For Cotty, the attraction of independence is less about sentiment than control.
"We're all in control of our own destiny," he said. "I couldn't tell you what our EBITDA is. I don't know, I don't care. It's only relevant if you're looking to sell the business."
Cotty does not criticise brokers who choose to sell, but believes the consolidation process has become predictable.
"I'd never criticise anyone for taking that path," he said. "But you can rinse and repeat the model. You know what will happen."
Peter Robinson, managing director of Prism Solutions, takes a similarly firm position, and for him the issue is what changes once ownership changes hands.
"You lose autonomy," he said. "You can lose being yourself."
Martin Castleton, managing director of Aureum Insurance, set up on his own three years ago after leaving the corporate broking world, while Alan Tate-Smith left a large corporate broker to launch his own agriculture-focused business earlier this year. Both see independence as more than a defensive position; it shapes the promises they can make about control and continuity.
"Being an independent broker means you own the business, it's your decision," Castleton said. "It's the best decision I ever did was set up on my own."
Tate-Smith believes clients notice the difference. "The really good clients... will put some value to that stability, that loyalty, that simple communication," he said.
The ownership question becomes more complicated when independents consider technology they may not have the scale or resources to tackle in the same way as larger groups. AI, in particular, produced different responses from brokers speaking to IBUK.
Russell Sessions, managing director of Vision Insurance Brokers, takes the wary route: stay independent, stay cautious.
"It scares me a little bit, I think, to be honest, that we move into that world where there's too much of a heavy reliance on it," he said. "Throwing in another system that we don't really understand is a risk for us."
Duncan Spencer, director of EDIA Limited, chose to build rather than wait. His business developed its own AI tool to mine years of environmental survey data, reducing a day's work to 20 minutes on unique, judgement-based risks. But he's kept it away from repeatable, high-volume work, what he calls a "turn-the-handle model," because "the error rates are too high still."
Tim Larden, a charity insurance specialist at Access, part of the Benefact Group, took a third route. He sold his brokerage into the group last year, with AI among the considerations behind the decision, although the opportunity to join a charitably-owned group operating in his specialist sector was also a significant attraction.
Larden said he is typically sceptical of claims that a new technology will reshape the industry, but AI is the first to have convinced him. Unsure whether a business as small as his could distinguish a genuine opportunity from a real threat, he admitted it "felt quite comforting to join a larger firm, if I'm quite honest with you."
It's a reminder that the case for independence was never just about resisting a buyout. A slower M&A market might make this a quieter year for brokers weighing whether to sell. But the harder question many of them now face isn't only who's buying, it's what a small, independent business needs to be able to do on its own, and whether AI is making that a much more expensive question to get wrong.
