The Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers (CIAB) has agreed to acquire an insurance industry training program suite from PriSim Business War Games, adding two long-running simulation-based leadership programs to its professional development offerings.
The acquisition covers the training suite known within the brokerage community as Broker Smackdown and, more broadly across the commercial insurance market, as the Insurance Challenge. The deal marks the start of a multi-year transition of the programs from PriSim to The Council, intended to allow a seamless experience for Council members and PriSim's existing clients and carrier partners.
PriSim will continue supporting current clients, running Broker Smackdown through 2027 and the Insurance Challenge through 2029.
Broker Smackdown is an in-person competition in which participants run a brokerage firm within a computer-simulated insurance market, learning through trial and error how their decisions affect financial, operational and sales outcomes. It is designed to give emerging leaders a broader view of how the business operates.
Meanwhile,the Insurance Challenge extends that format further, allowing participants to manage both a carrier and a brokerage organization and explore the full insurance value chain, from product development through distribution. More than 2,300 Council members and 2,100 carrier participants have gone through the two programs to date.
Joel Wood, president and CEO of The Council, said Broker Smackdown is "widely regarded as the gold standard for leadership training across the industry." He said retention, career-pathing and succession planning are consistently cited as top priorities for member firms, and thanked Jeff Lefebvre and the PriSim team for entrusting The Council to carry the program forward.
Jeff Lefebvre, founder of PriSim Business War Games, said PriSim's simulations have sharpened the strategic thinking and financial acumen of thousands of carrier and brokerage leaders over 25 years.
"Having partnered with The Council for the past decade, I'm confident they have the reach and expertise that is needed to be good stewards of this simulation and curriculum," Lefebvre said.
The acquisition follows The Council's 2026 decision to convert It's All About Risk, an on-demand onboarding course for new-to-the-industry talent, from a paid, industry-wide program into a free benefit exclusive to Council member firms.
Founded in 1913 and based in Washington, D.C., The Council is the premier association for the top commercial property/casualty and employee benefits brokerages worldwide, with member firms placing more than 90% of U.S. commercial P/C premiums and touching nearly 70% of employer-provided health plans nationally.
That scale gives the acquisition an unusually wide potential reach, extending a simulation-based training tool historically tied to individual carrier and brokerage sponsorships into a resource embedded within the industry's leading trade association.
The acquisition lands as the US insurance industry confronts one of its most acute workforce challenges in decades. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has projected the sector could lose around 400,000 workers to attrition by the end of 2026, driven largely by an aging workforce, with the median age of insurance employees at 44 versus a national average of 42, and only about a quarter of the workforce under 35. Research from Patra Corp has estimated that roughly half of current insurance personnel could exit the industry within 15 years.
That pressure has intensified in 2026. Marsh's latest People Risk report identified a deepening labor shortage as one of the three most pressing workforce risks facing US organizations this year, while the Jacobson Group and Aon's Q1 2026 Insurance Labor Market Study found job openings in finance and insurance falling to their lowest monthly level in a decade. Bureau of Labor Statistics data has also shown the sector shedding jobs at an accelerating pace, with roughly 40,000 positions lost year over year in early 2026 and independent agencies and brokerages cutting 2,700 roles in a single month.
Against that backdrop, succession planning and structured leadership development have become higher priorities for brokerages seeking to retain experienced staff and prepare younger employees for greater responsibility more quickly.
RSM US financial services senior analyst Marlene Dailey has said data analytics, cybersecurity and digital marketing are among the skills she expects to be in especially high demand as workforce pressure continues, with data-related capabilities considered particularly critical as insurers lean more heavily on data for risk assessment and fraud detection.
The Council's decision to acquire an established, widely used simulation-based training suite, rather than build a competing program from scratch, reflects a broader pattern of associations and brokerages consolidating around proven professional development infrastructure as the industry's talent pipeline narrows.
With retirements accelerating, younger professionals reportedly hesitant to enter the industry, and The Council's membership covering the large majority of US commercial P/C premium volume, tools that compress the learning curve for emerging brokerage and carrier leaders are likely to take on greater importance for firms trying to protect institutional knowledge and manage succession over the coming years.
