How a broker's value is evolving

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[00:13] Paul Lucas: Hello everybody. Welcome to Insurance Business TV. We are here at Insurance Fest 2026 with another peer-to-peer interview and today we're catching up with Bryan Davis who is the president and CEO of HUB International.

[00:24] Bryan Davis: Thanks. Thanks for having me. A really really good vibe out here.

[00:28] Paul Lucas: Now, let's talk a little bit about brokerage services if you don't mind. Of course, you're at one of the biggest brokerages internationally. So, how has the role of the broker changed over the last few years and beyond perhaps just placing risk?

[00:40] Bryan Davis: Absolutely. It used to be, advice, particularly proactive advice or high-touch advice, was rationed, right? You only had time for maybe your top 20% of your revenue-driven clients that you gave most of your time, talent, and treasure towards. And what's exciting is technology is enabling you to give that same kind of service level to a way broader base of your client base and it's being demanded. Clients need proactive advice. They're underinsured, they're underprotected, and brokers haven't really been giving that advice. So, the role of a broker has gone from just placement of services and advising a small group of folks to not only placement of services and driving proactive advice to a broader set of your client base, which is pretty exciting times right now in fact.

[01:27] Paul Lucas: Yeah, and of course, one of the things that's definitely changed in the brokerage space over the last few years is just the rate of consolidation. Of course, HUB is very active in that area as well. So, not specifically talking about HUB, but in general, what do you think is driving this sort of rush of consolidation? Is it scale, technology, talent, or is it something else?

[01:45] Bryan Davis: Yeah, I look at that in two phases, right? Probably the last, say from 2008 to 2022 when they had quantitative easing and macroeconomic policies that were driving a low interest rates environment, it was an economic advantage to buy, because the cost of buying was a little bit cheaper and less riskier. We had an environment where rate was driving some tailwinds on the brokers' P&Ls.

[02:12] Fast-forward to today where we're probably in a more higher interest rate environment and rates have actually reversed on P&Ls. And so, now you have to think about M&A from a more strategic standpoint, from a more integrated, fundamentally sound way of enabling value propositions.

[02:28] It reverses from, hey, trailing 12-month evidence, trailing 12-month revenue, to more of how can we provide more value? How can we draw a line in where we're going to provide a differentiated value than our fellow competitors? And so, I think the macroeconomy is opening up brokers to be way more fundamentally sound with how we think about M&A.

[02:49] Paul Lucas: Yeah. And if you don't mind as well, you talked about how the brokerage industry has changed in the last few years. I imagine some difficult conversations have come up along the way with clients. Are there any conversations, some hard conversations that stand out that maybe you weren't having three years ago?

[03:03] Bryan Davis: Yeah, loyalty used to matter. It used to be, hey, I've been with you for 10, 20 years, never had a claim, never had any issues, and then here's a non-renewal notice. And then, more importantly, here's a non-renewal notice that I got from a carrier and not from you. Right. And that's not a good place to be on a defensive posture for a broker who's supposed to be out front being my advocate with our carrier partners or whatever partners from a risk management standpoint.

[03:30] But a lot of that was allowed to be had because you were making your financials in other ways. And so, I think this is a good phase for brokers to rethink about the fundamentals and what is the true value that a client perceives that they get from their broker.

[03:49] It can't just be, hey, they place some insurance for me and every year they kind of talk to me about all the endorsements they process for me and that may or may not happen. It has to be, this person is an advocate on my behalf, they're proactive in nature, and they really have my interest at heart. My entity and brokers are supposed to be for the client. And I think that's where there's AI, whether it's macroeconomic policy, back to the fundamentals is where brokers are going to have to go to.

[04:16] Paul Lucas: I want to let's be positive and forward-thinking as well. What do you see changing in a positive light in the brokerage space over the next few years?

[04:23] Bryan Davis: Yeah, what technology is enabling and whether that's, I hate this, somebody asked me, hey, what's your AI strategy? I was like, well, we don't. We have a business strategy and AI is just a technique that helps us enable that.

[04:35] I think there's a way you can reimagine your value proposition. The things that you didn't do for clients who are underserved, you probably can do. Particularly in my sector in personal lines. If you ask a typical personal lines consumer, hey, what's the value of your broker? They're like, what is a broker? Right? They don't even know what the entity is. They couldn't tell you the difference between a State Farm agent and a HUB broker.

[05:00] What's exciting for me is we're in a place that is not known and we can define it and deliver it. And it's value for brokers and it's value for clients. And you could take that to personal lines, you could take that to middle market commercial, you could take it to our wholesale and specialty areas.

[05:13] So, I think the opportunity for brokers to really show what their value really is, the ones who do that, particularly enabled by technology, I think the ones who are going to win in this space. The ones who don't do that are so far behind from investing in things in data analytics and people, there's probably a lower multiple consolidation conversation that's being had or will be had.

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