This publish is a part of a collection sponsored by AgentSync.
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are at all times a sizzling matter in insurance coverage. From small businesses hoping to get acquired, massive businesses hoping to get bigger, or carriers seeking to broaden into new geographies or traces of enterprise, there are a large number of causes firms take into account mergers and acquisitions.
Because it’s such a standard prevalence throughout the insurance coverage business, it’s no shock that we’ve written about insurance coverage mergers and acquisitions earlier than. All for studying about why it’s best to prioritize compliance within the enterprise acquisition course of? Finished. Or questioning how one can keep away from getting caught with a lemon in an insurance coverage acquisition? Finished. How about an argument for why your tech stack issues earlier than you even take into account promoting your insurance coverage company? Finished!
However should you’re simply searching for some fundamentals – specifically what’s all this discuss of M&A within the insurance coverage business about anyway – you then’ve come to the appropriate place. On this weblog we’ll cowl the foundations like:
- What are mergers and acquisitions?
- How are mergers and acquisitions totally different from each other?
- Why are there so many mergers and acquisitions in insurance coverage?
- Why do some insurance coverage businesses purchase others?
- Why would you need your insurance coverage company to be acquired?
Earlier than you learn on, keep in mind that we’re consultants in producer license compliance administration however we’re not your legal professional or accountant. Earlier than contemplating any insurance coverage M&A exercise for your self, ensure you get skilled recommendation from a trusted skilled. For simplifying and automating your company’s, service’s, or MGA’s compliance, see how AgentSync may help.
What does M&A imply in insurance coverage?
The time period M&A stands for mergers and acquisitions: the method by which a number of separate enterprise entities grow to be one. The phrase mergers and acquisitions can embody just a few totally different particular actions, every with totally different meanings and implications.
What’s an insurance coverage merger?
An insurance coverage merger is when two separate firms type into one new firm. For instance, insurance coverage service A and insurance coverage service B determine they’d be in a greater place collectively forming a brand new firm: insurance coverage service C.
What’s an insurance coverage acquisition?
An insurance coverage acquisition is when one firm acquires a number of different firms, thus bringing the acquired firm below the umbrella of the buying firm. The buying firm, additionally referred to as a mum or dad firm, doesn’t have to purchase 100% of the corporate it needs to accumulate. Typically, an organization solely wants to accumulate greater than 50 % of one other enterprise to achieve management.
How do mergers and acquisitions differ?
Fairly merely, a merger normally refers to a “merger of equals” by which two firms mutually agree that it’s a wise enterprise transfer to mix into one, newly shaped firm. An acquisition normally refers to a bigger firm buying all or a part of a smaller firm and turning into its new proprietor or mum or dad firm. Acquisitions might be voluntary or involuntary (typically often known as a takeover or hostile takeover if the corporate being acquired isn’t mutually prepared).
How frequent is M&A inside insurance coverage?
Mergers and acquisitions occur continuously throughout the insurance coverage business, encompassing insurance coverage businesses, carriers, MGAs/MGUs, and insurance coverage expertise firms (insurtechs).
Over the past 20 years, insurance coverage M&A deal values (how a lot every deal is price) and deal quantity (the variety of offers carried out) have grown and remained excessive: anyplace from slightly below $40 billion throughout about 80 offers in 2003 to a document excessive of $57.5 billion throughout 869 offers in 2021. We should always be aware that the precise variety of offers and deal quantity fluctuate by sources however everybody agrees 2021 was a document yr.
Because the financial system slowed in 2022, insurance coverage business mergers and acquisitions additionally cooled off. Nonetheless, the business “remained resilient” in comparison with M&A exercise in different sectors of the financial system – with company and brokerage exercise fueling insurance coverage M&A at a far better fee than insurance coverage carriers.
Why do insurance coverage carriers take part in M&A exercise?
The largest motive an insurance coverage service will bear mergers and acquisitions is to extend market share. They’ll accomplish this by merging with or buying an insurance coverage service with a footprint in an entire new geographic area, new traces of enterprise, or each. Generally insurance coverage carriers will look to accumulate others in an try to swallow up an organization they see as beneficial competitors, which they’d moderately have below their very own roof than to compete in opposition to.
Insurance coverage firms additionally see alternatives to cut back working prices and overhead by means of M&A.
Why do insurance coverage businesses take part in M&A exercise?
In lots of circumstances, insurance coverage company house owners see acquisition as one of the best exit technique once they’re able to retire. If an insurance coverage agent has constructed a profitable company with a big and beneficial e book of enterprise over the course of their profession, promoting the company to a bigger company might be a gorgeous proposition. From the opposite aspect, bigger businesses typically need to broaden their attain into new states and new traces of enterprise, and the best means to do that is commonly to accumulate an current insurance coverage company that brings the specified qualities into the combo.
Why are mergers and acquisitions enticing in comparison with natural development?
Natural development would be the gold commonplace of a wholesome enterprise however mergers and acquisitions may help an organization develop and hit the bottom working rapidly with out having to employees up, prepare, or implement new expertise. In a finest case situation, the buying firm can begin to see a nearly-immediate return on their funding with an already worthwhile firm now below its umbrella.
What are some down sides to insurance coverage mergers and acquisitions?
Generally M&A creates redundancies, each in folks and methods. Spending money and time to kind out how the newly-created enterprise entity will perform when combining two beforehand impartial firms, or how one firm will take in the operations of one other, is usually a draw back of mergers and acquisitions.
Having the appropriate insurance coverage expertise in place can result in extra profitable mergers and acquisitions
This won’t appear apparent however when present process a merger or acquisition, insurtech issues. For firms seeking to be acquired, already utilizing fashionable insurance coverage infrastructure means potential consumers have a transparent view of what they’ll be getting from operational, monetary, and compliance views. With AgentSync, for instance, an insurance coverage company seeking to be acquired can present potential consumers with a full, real-time, correct view of the compliance standing of each producer working below that company.
For firms seeking to purchase or merge, having the appropriate tech stack will imply spending a lot much less time transferring knowledge over by hand. Geared up with the appropriate methods in place already means integrations and automation may help take the load off human workers who’d moderately be doing extra essential work all through the merger and acquisition course of.
Whether or not you’re contemplating M&A at your group or not, take a look at AgentSync’s suite of options to modernize your insurance coverage enterprise.
Subjects
Mergers & Acquisitions
