Gallagher's wholesale division is buying its way deeper into the central US at a moment when the structural conditions for regional MGA acquisitions have rarely been stronger. The E&S sector's share of total US P&C premiums reached approximately 9% in 2025, nearly double its 2017 level, as admitted carriers restricted appetite in specialty and catastrophe-exposed lines and wholesale demand absorbed accounts that no longer fit standard underwriting frameworks. Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. has announced that Risk Placement Services, its US wholesale brokerage and programs division, has acquired Med James, Inc., a Kansas-based MGA and wholesale insurance broker serving retail agents across commercial and personal lines. Terms were not disclosed.
The geographic logic of the deal is specific. Med James is based in Overland Park and operates from five additional offices in Springfield, Missouri; Little Rock, Arkansas; Las Vegas, Nevada; Colorado Springs, Colorado; and Phoenix, Arizona - a six-state footprint spanning the Mid-South and Mountain West where admitted carrier retreat from transportation, garage, environmental and catastrophe-exposed lines has been particularly pronounced. Those are precisely the lines Med James writes: transportation, garage, professional liability, excess and umbrella, environmental, inland marine and cyber. The deal gives RPS a regional presence in markets where wholesale demand for hard-to-place commercial lines has grown and where RPS previously lacked dedicated local capacity.
Pam Donahue and the Med James team will remain in their current location, reporting to Jacey Norberg, RPS's vice president for the North Central Region. Gallagher described Med James as having a strong reputation in the wholesale space that expands RPS's regional capabilities.
The Med James acquisition follows RPS's July 7 acquisition of Wilson M. Beck Insurance Services in Vancouver and a May agreement to take on Pennsylvania-based McKee Risk Management, which added construction, public entity and property programs to the RPS platform. The three deals in rapid succession give the North Central build-out its specific momentum context rather than treating Med James as a standalone transaction.
Gallagher closed 33 mergers in 2025 representing more than $3.5 billion in estimated annualized revenue. As of Q1 2026 the company reported more than 40 term sheets in play representing roughly $400 million in annualized revenue. Tuck-in targets now trade below 10x and larger deals fall in the 12-13x range per the company's Q1 2026 earnings disclosure - a pricing environment that makes regional MGA acquisitions economically attractive relative to the organic cost of building equivalent distribution from scratch in markets where local broker relationships define deal flow.
