Marsh McLennan Agency (MMA) has agreed to acquire Accel Holdings, the parent company of Waverly, Iowa-based independent brokerage The Accel Group.
Financial terms were not disclosed, and the deal is expected to close in the third quarter.
The Accel Group traces its roots to 1936 and expanded further through a 2018 merger with Millhiser Smith Agency, a firm founded in 1928. Today it operates seven offices across Iowa, Illinois, Missouri and Kansas, employing more than 130 people who are all expected to join MMA at their existing locations. The firm's business spans commercial and personal insurance, employee benefits, agribusiness coverage, and wealth and retirement advisory services.
The deal fits a pattern MMA has followed closely this year, layering in specialty agribusiness and rural Midwest capacity through smaller regional acquisitions rather than one large purchase. It follows MMA's April deal for Montana-based Seitz Insurance, a six-decade-old agriculture and energy specialist, and comes roughly a year after MMA launched AgriCover, a standalone insurance program built specifically for agribusiness risk.
Ryan Watkins, CEO of MMA's Upper Midwest region, said Accel's reputation stems from its people and its focus on clients.
"The Accel Group has a strong reputation because of its talented team and client-first culture," Watkins said. He added that the deal extends MMA's footprint in Iowa and neighboring states while bringing in Accel's retirement, wealth and agribusiness expertise to strengthen the combined firm's offering.
David Eslick, CEO of MMA, framed the acquisition around the combined firm's ability to serve Accel's existing client base at greater scale. He described Accel as one of the industry's leading firms due to its hands-on service and local relationships, and said pairing that with MMA's wider capabilities would let the combined business deliver more value to the businesses, families and agricultural organizations that rely on Accel for integrated risk solutions.
Corey Rekers, president of property and casualty insurance at The Accel Group, pointed to what MMA's scale adds for Accel's own client relationships going forward.
"MMA's national platform, global resources, and specialized capabilities build upon the strong foundation Accel has established for nearly 100 years," Rekers said.
MMA has been one of the industry's most consistent acquirers of independent agencies in recent years, closing deals across Texas, Florida, Hawaii, Montana and the Mid-Atlantic over the past two years alone, including its recent close of the TriBridge deal expanding its presence in that region.
Those regional purchases sit alongside its parent company's far larger moves, including Marsh McLennan's $7.75 billion purchase of McGriff Insurance Services in 2024, the largest deal in the company's history.
The Accel deal lands in a brokerage M&A market that industry tracker MarshBerry describes as resilient but recalibrating. As of the end of May 2026, MarshBerry had recorded 241 announced insurance brokerage M&A transactions in the US for the year, down 5.1% from the same point in 2025, with private capital-backed buyers accounting for roughly 70% of that activity and independent brokers like MMA responsible for about 9.5% of deals.
Agribusiness specifically has drawn repeated attention from acquirers this year. Relation Insurance Services made its third agricultural-focused acquisition of 2026 in early August, building out its Central Valley presence in California, a pattern the outlet described as a deliberate effort to consolidate agricultural distribution in concentrated farming markets.
Taken together, that data suggests MMA's approach with Accel, adding rural and agribusiness capability through a steady sequence of regional deals rather than a single large purchase, mirrors a broader strategy other consolidators are running in parallel, even as overall deal volume across the brokerage market has softened slightly this year.
For independent agency owners with agribusiness books or succession questions of their own, the Relation and MMA activity in the same year points to sustained acquirer interest in that segment specifically, regardless of the modest pullback in total transaction counts. What's less clear from the public record is exactly what buyers in this segment are prioritizing when they evaluate a target. Both MMA's and Relation's recent deals have emphasized geographic density within an existing rural footprint, cross-sell potential into wealth and retirement advisory services, and long-standing local carrier relationships, rather than pure book size alone. Owners considering a sale in this environment would do well to have a clear, documented answer on each of those three points before entering a process, since a buyer already running a comparable regional playbook is likely to ask about them directly.
