A pair of multibillion-dollar insurance brokerage deals has thrust valuations back into the spotlight. However, sellers looking at the headline multiples may be drawing the wrong conclusions about what their own businesses are worth.
Aon agreed on August 31 to acquire USI Insurance Services for $17 billion, or $16.7 billion after certain tax benefits. Aon said the net purchase price equated to roughly 14.5 times USI’s trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA after anticipated synergies. USI brings roughly $3 billion in annual revenue and a substantial presence in the US middle market, employee benefits and excess and surplus lines.
Two weeks later, The Baldwin Group announced a $7.7 billion take-private transaction with Sequence Holdings and DFO Management. That enterprise value represents approximately 20 times Baldwin’s trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA of $396 million. Shareholders are set to receive $32.50 per share, an 88% premium to Baldwin’s unaffected June 17 closing price.
The numbers add to a recent run of large brokerage transactions. Gallagher completed its approximately $14 billion acquisition of AssuredPartners in August 2025, while Marsh McLennan paid $7.75 billion for McGriff in November 2024.
But Peter McMurtrie (pictured), partner in West Monroe’s insurance practice, said brokers should resist treating those transactions as straightforward valuation benchmarks.
“I think the key thing here is that the higher values are coming to organizations that are bringing something tangible beyond just, ‘I have brokers, premium and clients.’ It really is the potential or uniqueness of the capability set,” McMurtrie told Insurance Business.
Even the Aon-USI and Baldwin deals are fundamentally different valuation exercises, said McMurtie: Aon is valuing USI partly according to what the brokerage can become inside Aon, including the additional revenue and efficiencies the buyer believes it can extract from the combination.
Aon has identified approximately $395 million in annual run-rate net adjusted EBITDA impact from revenue and cost synergies across its combined middle-market platform. Baldwin’s buyers, meanwhile, are effectively betting on the platform’s future as an independent private company, including further investment in technology, AI and organic and inorganic expansion.
For Baldwin, McMurtie said, valuation reflects “the strengths of what it has today” alongside the upside available from further investment in the platform.
At the smaller end of the market, buyers remain heavily focused on the revenue stream: book size, retention, producers, carrier relationships and the types of business being written.
Complex commercial and E&S books may be viewed differently from predominantly personal lines or small commercial portfolios. McMurtrie said a buyer of a smaller agency is often primarily assessing the quality and durability of the revenue it is acquiring, rather than paying for a broader operating platform.
As brokerages become larger, however, McMurtrie sees buyers increasingly value the infrastructure surrounding that revenue. Brokers that have accumulated agencies without properly integrating them can lack the consistency and franchise value buyers are seeking.
“Those that have been able to demonstrate a franchise operating model that brings value and drives organic growth, that’s where you see the higher valuations,” McMurtrie said.
McMurtrie said some owners are still anchoring expectations to an earlier period when buyers were prepared to pay heavily for businesses that could simply be tucked into larger consolidators. Today, he sees more scrutiny of whether a brokerage already has an integrated technology stack, usable data, consistent processes and an established approach to AI.
Due diligence is following the same direction. Buyers are examining whether technology and data are standardized across offices, the strength of cyber and data controls, and whether repeat acquirers have a genuine integration playbook.
For owners considering an eventual sale, that suggests the work influencing valuation may begin well before a transaction process starts. Building an integrated operation, demonstrating organic growth and showing that acquisitions have created a coherent brokerage rather than simply a collection of agencies can all affect how a buyer views the platform.
“The higher-end multiples are going to those organizations that have created those franchise structures,” McMurtrie said.
