Risk Placement Services (RPS) is a wholesale insurance broker and managing general agent (MGA) based in Rolling Meadows, Illinois. Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. built the firm from scratch in 1997 as its domestic wholesale brokerage division.
The division now works with independent retail agents across the country to place hard-to-find coverage. It has grown mainly through a long series of small wholesale-broker and MGA acquisitions, not one large merger.
Website: rpsins.com
Head office address: 2850 Golf Road, Rolling Meadows, IL 60008
Founded: 1997
Company type: wholesale insurance division of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (NYSE: AJG)
Regions served: nationwide
RPS traces its start to Gallagher’s push into wholesale distribution in the late 1990s. The division began small and built out state by state through acquisition rather than rapid internal expansion. That approach has continued for nearly three decades.
Every deal on this list follows the same shape. RPS buys wholesale brokers and MGAs, not retail agencies, and lets each one keep its local leadership and client relationships. That discipline has let the firm add regional depth and product lines. It also avoids disrupting the retail relationships those acquired teams already had in place.
RPS operates across several business lines that work together in practice. Its core offerings include:
Agents typically turn to RPS for one or two of these lines rather than the full list, since needs vary by client and region. The mix gives the wholesaler several ways to stay useful to a retail partner as coverage needs shift over time.
Risk Placement Services has drawn both firm-level and individual recognition from Insurance Business America. Its most recent firm-level nod came through the outlet’s Best Wholesale Brokers USA | 5-Star Wholesale Brokers and MGAs report.
That report rates wholesale brokers and MGAs on criteria such as technical expertise, product range, and the ability to place niche risks. IBA featured Risk Placement Services directly in that report, and its people have also earned individual recognition across:
That spread of recognition covers both the firm and individual brokers across regions and practice areas. It points to a bench of expertise that runs deeper than a handful of senior titles. Specialist judgment increasingly separates one wholesaler from another in this segment. That kind of distributed recognition works as a credential of its own.
Wholesale brokers and MGAs have picked up a growing share of US commercial placements in recent years. More coverage keeps moving from admitted markets into the surplus lines space as standard carriers pull back. Our own reporting has tracked this shift for several years.
Retail brokers increasingly route hard-to-place accounts through wholesale partners instead of placing them directly. Risk Placement Services sits inside that broader shift as one of Gallagher’s wholesale distribution arms, alongside the retail acquisitions Gallagher pursues separately. Its acquired MGAs and wholesale brokers roughly map where the surplus lines market has grown.
Want to see what RPS has been doing lately? Check the news section below for its latest moves.
