Brown & Brown, Inc. (BRO) Business Profile

What it does

Brown & Brown, founded in 1939, is headquartered in Daytona Beach and is led by Chief Executive Officer and President J. Powell Brown. It is an insurance intermediary: it helps customers obtain insurance rather than generally taking on the insurer’s underwriting risk itself.

The company sells insurance products and related services mainly in property and casualty insurance and employee benefits. Its Retail segment serves commercial, public and quasi-public entities, professionals and individuals. It also provides non-insurance warranty and service-risk-management offerings through automobile and recreational-vehicle dealer-services businesses.

Its Specialty Distribution segment serves carriers, brokers and customers handling complex, niche or difficult-to-place risks. The segment combines insurance program management, wholesale brokerage and specialty businesses. Program operations develop and manage insurance offerings for particular industries, trade groups, public entities and market niches; wholesale brokers place commercial and personal coverage, including excess and surplus lines; and specialty businesses provide affinity, administrative, captive, reinsurance, travel/accident, warranty and life-and-health services.

Brown & Brown also has ancillary insurance operations, including captives and reinsurance companies, that add underwriting capacity and can allow participation in underwriting results. Its Wright National Flood Insurance Company writes policies under the National Flood Insurance Program, with premiums and underwriting exposure ceded to that program, and sells excess flood policies that are fully reinsured in the private market.

How it makes money

Brown & Brown’s principal revenue sources are commissions paid by insurance companies and, to a lesser extent, fees paid directly by customers. A commission usually equals a percentage of the premium paid by the insured. Revenue therefore moves with insurance premium rates, the value or volume of the customer’s insured exposure—such as property values, sales or payroll—and the amount of coverage purchased. Carrier-set premium rates depend on factors including loss experience, customer risk profiles and reinsurers’ rates.

The Retail segment earns commissions and fees by arranging coverage and providing related risk-management, loss-control, claims-processing, employee-benefits and dealer-services work. Approximately 77% of its commissions and fees revenue is commission based. The Specialty Distribution segment earns from Arrowhead Programs, Bridge Specialty Group and Arrowhead Specialty. Its program operations can receive delegated underwriting and, in some cases, claims-handling authority from carrier partners; wholesale brokerage connects independent agents and brokers with admitted, excess-and-surplus-lines and Lloyd’s markets. Approximately 81% of Specialty Distribution commissions and fees revenue is commission based.

The company also receives profit-sharing contingent commissions, generally linked to underwriting results and sometimes to volume, growth or retention. These commissions averaged approximately 4.4% of commissions and fees over the last three years. Fees accounted for 22.2% of total commissions and fees in 2025, including policy-issuance work for carriers and services delivered to certain large Retail customers.

It was reported on 26 October 2026 that the consensus expected $1.6 billion of revenue for the coming quarter.

The company uses Organic Revenue, which excludes profit-sharing contingent commissions, the first 12 months of acquired operations’ core commissions and fees, divested businesses and foreign-currency translation, to measure revenue from comparable operations.

Customers and how it sells

Retail customers include commercial, public and quasi-public entities, professionals and individuals. The segment also serves automobile and recreational-vehicle dealers through F&I businesses. Its service work includes risk-management strategies, loss-control surveys and analysis, consultation on placing coverage and claims processing.

Specialty Distribution works with insurance carriers, independent agents and brokers, affinity groups, wholesale entities, direct-to-consumer channels and customers with complex or hard-to-place risks. Arrowhead Programs distributes coverage through retail agencies, including Brown & Brown offices, affinity groups, wholesale entities and directly to consumers. Bridge Specialty Group distributes mainly through independent agents and brokers, including the company’s retail agents.

Customer concentration was limited in the Retail segment: its largest single customer represented 0.6% of Retail commissions and fees in 2025. The largest Specialty Distribution customer represented approximately 7.2% of that segment’s commissions and fees.

The company operated from 468 domestic locations in 47 states and 246 international locations as of December 31, 2025. Most operations are in the United States. International retail operations are based in Bermuda, Canada, the Cayman Islands, India, the Netherlands, the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom; Specialty Distribution also operates in Belgium, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Malaysia, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates. International operations generated $843 million of revenue in 2025.

Suppliers and costs

Insurance carriers are central commercial partners: they pay most commissions, support program operations, and provide access to admitted, excess-and-surplus-lines and Lloyd’s markets. Arrowhead Programs is supported by over 100 well-capitalized insurance carriers, which commonly delegate underwriting authority and sometimes claims-handling authority. The company also uses reinsurance to limit claims-expense exposure in captive and excess-flood activities.

This is not a manufacturing business. Its operating model depends on licensed employees who act as agents, brokers, intermediaries or third-party administrators in the jurisdictions where it operates. Brown & Brown employed 22,888 individuals worldwide at December 31, 2025.

Costs include employee compensation and benefits, service and operating expenses, depreciation and amortization, and acquisition and integration costs. Acquisitions can also increase amortization, depreciation and transaction, restructuring, retention, systems-integration and professional-service costs. The company’s capital requirements as an insurance intermediary are low, while its acquisition strategy can require cash, debt and equity consideration.

Competitive position

The insurance-intermediary market is highly competitive. Brown & Brown competes for customers and insurance markets with numerous firms, including firms with greater resources and market presence. Competition is based on innovation, insurance knowledge, understanding of coverage terms and conditions, service quality and price.

Insurance companies also sell directly, mainly to individuals and small enterprises, avoiding third-party agent and broker commissions. Internet and startup technology companies are another source of direct placement for personal-lines and small-business insurance. Brown & Brown has technology capabilities for those customer groups, and states that direct internet purchasing is generally concentrated among single-line personal-lines customers and small businesses without complex insurance programs.

Our reading: Brown & Brown’s customer and carrier relationships are a meaningful moat because its retail and specialty operations connect customers, independent agents, brokers and carrier markets across many coverage types and jurisdictions. [item1]

Our reading: Specialized underwriting, program-management and placement capabilities add a moderate moat in niche and hard-to-place risks, but service quality and price remain explicit bases of competition. [item1]

Our reading: The moat is limited in simpler personal-lines and small-business insurance, where direct insurers and digital channels can bypass intermediaries. [item1]

Growth opportunities

Brown & Brown’s growth approach combines new business, customer retention and acquisitions. The company has acquired 717 insurance intermediary operations from 1993 through the fourth quarter of 2025. In 2025, it expanded its team by nearly 5,794 teammates through 43 acquisitions. The acquisition of RSC, the holding company for Accession Risk Management Group, Inc., in the third quarter of 2025 contributed to the combination of the former Programs and Wholesale Brokerage segments into Specialty Distribution.

The company states that revenue grew from $95.6 million in 1993 to $5.9 billion in 2025, with a 14.2% compound annual growth rate, and that net income increased from $8.1 million to over $1.0 billion over the same period. It reported 22.5% commissions-and-fees growth and 2.8% consolidated Organic Revenue growth in 2025.

In Retail, 2025 Organic Revenue growth was driven by net new business and renewals, although renewal activity was affected by slowing rate increases, rate decreases in certain coverage lines, incentive-commission adjustments and a regulatory change in one UK business. In Specialty Distribution, Organic Revenue growth came from net new and retained business and exposure-unit expansion, partly offset by prior-year flood-claims-processing revenue and declining catastrophic-property rates.

Growth may also come from ancillary captive facilities, which add capacity for placing coverage and allow limited participation in underwriting results, and from specialty offerings across programs, wholesale brokerage and acquired specialty businesses.

Structural risks

• The company may fail to realize all anticipated benefits from the Accession transaction, including use of deferred tax assets, or those benefits may take longer than expected. Risks include integration costs, unknown or contingent liabilities, goodwill and intangible assets, financing effects, and retaining Accession employees, key brokers and customers.

• The inability to hire, retain and develop qualified employees, or the loss of executive officers or other key employees, could impair retention of existing business, new-business generation and innovation. The company’s sales, service and licensed-intermediary model depends on personnel.

• Changes in insurance premium rates, customer exposure units, coverage limits, economic and competitive conditions, and catastrophic weather can affect commission revenue. Carrier-set rates are outside the company’s control.

• Insurance companies that sell directly, along with internet and startup technology companies, can bypass third-party agents and brokers, particularly for simpler personal-lines and small-business coverage.

• Licensing, agency and regulatory requirements differ by state and international location and may be amended or reinterpreted. Authorities may grant, revoke, suspend or renew licenses, and noncompliance can lead to suspension from activities or fines.

• International operations bring staffing, infrastructure, legal, compliance, tax, currency, political and fund-transfer risks. The company also faces risks from data-privacy and protection laws and from failure to comply with them.

Leadership

J. Hyatt Brown is chairman of the board, and his sons J. Powell Brown, the president and chief executive officer, and P. Barrett Brown, an executive vice president, are employed by the company. The company states that nearly 20% is owned by teammates.

Bottom line

Our reading

Our reading: Brown & Brown is a commission- and fee-based insurance intermediary whose two segments pair broad retail distribution with specialized program, wholesale-brokerage and captive capabilities. [item1; item7] Its results are tied to new and retained business, acquisitions, insurance pricing and customers’ insured exposures rather than to assuming most underwriting risk. [item7] The business also depends on carrier access and licensed sales and service personnel, while integration, regulation, direct distribution and international operations create material operating risks. [item1; item1a]