ALKEME Insurance has announced the acquisition of eight agencies completed during the second quarter of 2026.
The additions expand ALKEME's commercial, personal lines, Medicare benefits and environmental specialty capabilities across seven states, from the Northeast to the West Coast.
ALKEME's pace stands out against a broader slowdown in insurance distribution M&A. Deal volume in the sector fell to 148 transactions in the first quarter of 2026, the lowest first-quarter total since 2016 and the tenth consecutive quarter below the long-term trend line, according to OPTIS Partners.
Private equity-backed and hybrid buyers still accounted for 72% of announced deals in the quarter, though overall activity has fallen well off the 1,108-deal peak recorded in 2021.
The newly acquired agencies are LG Insurance in Long Branch, New Jersey, a property and casualty agency serving the high-value residential market alongside hospitality and construction clients; Blue Lion Insurance in Chandler, Arizona, which operates in Arizona and Washington with a focus on contractors and hard-to-place surplus lines; and Top Floor Insurance in Atlanta, Georgia, which specializes exclusively in commercial coverage for apartment community owners and managers.
They also include Affordable Medicare Solutions in Hoschton, Georgia, a retail agency providing Medicare benefits coverage across greater Atlanta; Stonebriar Insurance in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, a retail property and casualty agency with additional health and specialty products; and Virtue Risk Partners in Pearl River, New York, a specialty underwriting organization serving contractors, consultants and engineers nationwide with general casualty, professional, environmental and excess insurance products.
Rounding out the group are LF Insurance Group in Golden, Colorado, a retail property and casualty agency with a long-standing presence in the Denver market, and Blue Sky Insurance in Simi Valley, California, an independent brokerage specializing in apartment building coverage across Southern California.
"The agencies we choose to partner with are a direct reflection of who we are as a company. We don't pursue growth for its own sake, we look for agencies that are culturally aligned, deeply committed to their clients, and bring expertise that strengthens our entire network," said Curtis Barton, CEO of ALKEME Insurance. "Every one of these eight agencies met that bar, and we couldn't be more proud to welcome them to ALKEME."
The deals continue ALKEME's aggressive acquisition pace. The company closed seven agency deals in the first quarter of 2026 alone, spanning states from Colorado to Hawaii, and has now completed more than 80 acquisitions since launching in 2020. ALKEME writes more than $1 billion in annual premiums and employs over 1,000 staff across more than 30 states.
The brokerage is backed by private equity, having launched with capital from GCP Capital Partners, a middle-market firm with prior investments in Acrisure and Ironshore. GCP more recently brought in Apollo's S3 business as a co-investor through a continuation vehicle, a structure that gave existing GCP fund investors liquidity while signaling the ownership group's intent to keep funding acquisitions at a steady pace.
Two of the eight new agencies, Top Floor Insurance and Blue Sky Insurance, focus specifically on apartment and multifamily coverage, a segment insurance professionals have watched closely amid one of the hardest property markets in commercial insurance. Roughly 30% to 40% of new habitational placements are now written in the surplus lines market, up from under 15% a decade ago, as admitted carriers have pulled back capacity following years of water-damage claims, catastrophe losses and reinsurance tightening. State Farm's 2024 non-renewal of roughly 42,000 California commercial apartment policies remains the most visible example of that retrenchment.
That pressure has begun to ease in parts of the market heading into 2026. Multi-Housing News reported that multifamily insurance premiums, which more than doubled between 2019 and 2023 in some regions, have started softening for a number of owners, though rates in high-risk coastal and wildfire-exposed markets remain well above pre-2019 levels. Even so, insurance now represents a materially larger share of multifamily operating costs than it did a decade ago, and specialty expertise in placing apartment risk, particularly access to surplus lines markets, remains a valuable capability for brokerages competing for that business.
