Wisconsin-based McClone Insurance has absorbed the employee benefits team and clients of Universal Insurance Advisors (UIA), a Menasha brokerage. UIA will continue operating its Medicare and individual health business separately. The move fits a pattern playing out across the country: independent benefits shops selling or merging group health books into larger platforms, often because building the infrastructure to compete alone has become too costly.
UIA president Pam Utpadel (pictured, right) said the decision was about positioning clients and staff for the future. "I wanted to make sure both our clients and our team were positioned to continue receiving the same personal service and trusted guidance, with even more resources behind them," she said. Dustin McClone (pictured, left), president and CEO of McClone, said the deal preserves the client relationships UIA built while adding the capacity his firm can now bring to the table.
Employee benefits agencies accounted for roughly 13 percent of US and Canadian insurance agency M&A deals tracked by OPTIS Partners, a Chicago-based investment banking firm, in 2025. The first half of 2026 was the slowest start for the sector since 2016. Just 292 transactions were announced, down 15 percent year over year, though OPTIS noted that valuations remain high for well-run agencies seeking an exit and that the downward trend is likely near its floor. The structural pull is not hard to see. More than 30,000 independent agencies generate less than $1.25 million each in annual revenue, and most lack a viable internal exit.
Reagan Consulting's annual succession-readiness surveys, meanwhile, have consistently found that more than 60 percent of agency principals lack a written perpetuation plan. Internal succession is rare because next-generation producers seldom have the personal capital to buy founders out at market multiples. A sale to a larger platform is often the more practical path.
Buyers have shown consistent appetite for benefits books. Group health renewal rates typically run between 92 and 96 percent for well-run agencies, according to CT Acquisitions data, and that durability makes commission revenue more stable than commercial P&C books across renewal cycles. Well-run benefits agencies were fetching nine to 12 times EBITDA in the first half of 2026, one to two turns above comparable P&C agencies.
Healthcare costs were projected to rise between 6.5 and 9.5 percent in 2026, based on industry estimates. That trajectory has put direct pressure on the employer side. Clients are asking for more: plan design, cost containment, and compliance guidance. Smaller brokers often cannot supply it without the carrier relationships and staff depth that a larger platform provides, which is why many are choosing to sell their employee benefits books rather than stretch.
The UIA transaction shows the deal structure this environment tends to produce. UIA keeps its Medicare and individual health operations, which run on different regulatory and distribution mechanics than group employer benefits. McClone takes the employee benefits clients and team. Both parties preserve their core area of expertise rather than forcing a full integration.
That arrangement has become one of the more common structures in mid-market benefits consolidation. It lets owners like Utpadel exit one segment without a full exit and gives buyers a clean book without inheriting unrelated lines. For clients, the practical implication is continuity of their day-to-day contact within a platform that now has more resources behind it. Independent employee benefits brokers facing this same pressure who see no parallel to their own situation are the exception, rather than the rule.
