Best Insurance Brokerages in the USA
| 5-Star Brokerages   

Industry expert Adam Frugoli, vice president at Leavitt Group and recognized as one of IBA’s Top Insurance Brokers 2023, says the best insurance brokerages excel by cultivating a unified culture of success. 

“It’s about clearly communicating where the organization is going and making sure you have those goals ready, and everyone is accountable,” Frugoli says.

To identify the top brokerages of the year, participants submitted detailed data on crucial business metrics such as revenue, client numbers, and profit margins. 

“The only way that you can possibly continue to compete is through revenue growth. It’s like oxygen,” shares Frugoli. 

This year’s best insurance brokerages experienced a significant increase in average total revenue from policies written, from $71.6 million to $92.5 million between 2022 and 2023.

From IBA’s winners, the top five firms by revenue growth were: 

• CAC Specialty: 40 percent
   

• Allied Insurance Agency: 38 percent
   

• Virtus: 35 percent
   

• Higginbotham: 30 percent    
   

• C3 Risk & Insurance: 28 percent

While overall revenue growth is a critical success indicator for brokerages, Frugoli emphasizes the importance of revenue growth per broker, another key benchmark used to evaluate this year’s winners.

Illustrating how these metrics complement each other, Frugoli adds, “They’re both important, and brokers need to be growing. If brokers are growing, that means the overall organization is growing. They are synonymous.” 

Maintaining a steady influx of new business is another critical success metric for America’s best insurance brokerages. 

“You need to have new clients coming in and a good mixture of clients because attrition happens. The lifeblood of any organization is growing your client count,” Frugoli notes. 

Of IBA’s 2024 winners, the brokerages with the highest client growth were: 

• AssuredPartners: 92 percent   
   

• C3 Risk & Insurance Services: 79 percent
   

• American Risk Management Resources Network: 33 percent
   

• Higginbotham: 20 percent
   

• Allied Insurance Agency: 14 percent
   

• Morrison Insurance Services: 14 percent

In an era where reputation and customer service are paramount, Frugoli highlights the importance of viewing insurance as a service. Brokerages, he asserts, have a responsibility to “serve the people in our industries.”

This is supported by having strong employees. Reflecting on its practices, winner AssuredPartners states, “We’re proud of our commitment to developing the next generation of talent in the insurance industry. We started a mentorship program that pairs newer team members with experienced ‘mentors’ in the company. These mentors help our team members reach their full potential.” 

Also emphasizing the importance of customer service is winner Virtus, whose 2023 client retention rate sat at an impressive 93 percent. 

Frugoli also points out the impact of market dynamics on client retention. 

“Right now, we are in a harder market, so premiums are increasing, and revenues and fees are also increasing. But it won’t always be this way. There will be times when we are in a softer market and premiums will be declining and we are going to need more clients.” 

The third pillar underpinning the best insurance brokerages is what they can offer clients.

Explaining what makes the difference, Frugoli says, “Good strategies are about being diversified, meaning you must have areas of expertise. You don’t want to be all personal lines, you want to have a good flow of personal lines, but you also want to have a strong commercial line diversified across different industries.”

Across IBA’s 2024 winners, the top five who have grown their policies are:

• Allied Insurance Agency: 55 percent
   

• C3 Risk & Insurance Services: 52 percent
   

• AssuredPartners: 37 percent
   

• American Risk Management Resources Network: 35 percent
   

• Morrison Insurance Services: 33 percent

Some of the other winning brokerages shared how their success is partly predicated on growing their policies over 2022 and 2023.

Element22 Insurance Services underlined how it has focused on challenging cases. “We are proud of maintaining and building additional partnerships with our agents and carriers to implement customized solutions for hard-to-place commercial risks.”

And ePremium Insurance Agency commented, “We launched two new products and entered a new distribution vertical. We have exceeded top and bottom-line growth goals.”

Offering additional guidance to the best brokerages, Frugoli explains, “My biggest advice is having a culture that attracts top talent. Individuals who are hungry and really want to win and grow.”

IBA asked this year’s 5-Star Brokerages about their proudest accomplishments of 2023:

• Higginbotham: “We celebrated our 75th anniversary by hosting a Volunteer Extravaganza where more than 600 of our people volunteered at nine nonprofits in Fort Worth, TX.”
   

• Virtus: “We achieved $26.5 million in revenue (37 percent year-over-year revenue growth) and ended the year with 115 employees (and growing), $270 million in brokered.”
   

• Western Pacific Insurance Network: “Our production team went beyond the goals set across the board, with 44 percent increased team member production on our renewal book, which would be our top accomplishment of the year.”
   

• CAC Specialty: “The group was presented with numerous difficult risk transfer requests, many of which could not be solved via traditional risk transfer mechanisms. We are extremely proud of our team’s ability to source and structure alternative risk transfer mechanisms.”
   

• American Risk Management Resources Network: “Developing our exclusive wetlands conservation insurance program. This program enabled us to focus more on the conservation of natural resources and help with wetland conservation projects by providing a financial assurance product for the mitigation banks.”
   

• ANCO Insurance: “Staying competitive in a hard P&C market, growing our benefits department, and adding two locations while celebrating 150 years in business.”

Best Insurance Brokerages in the USA
| 5-Star Brokerages