New report finds deal counts falling, average transaction values rising, and post-close execution increasingly determining whether insurers create or destroy value.
Fewer deals are getting done, but the stakes have risen
Insurance mergers and acquisitions are no longer mainly a story about volume. They are increasingly a story about select, larger transactions where the margin for execution error is narrow.
That is the central message of ACORD’s 2026 report, Carrier Mergers & Acquisitions: Drivers, Implications & Outcomes. ACORD said 35% of carrier C-suite executives it surveyed still ranked M&A among the top three levers for driving growth, market share, and profitability. But the report also found that the number of insurance M&A transactions has fallen materially in recent years, even as the financial size and strategic complexity of the deals that do close have increased.
According to ACORD, insurance M&A deal volume peaked at 1,705 transactions in 2021 and declined to about 870 in 2025. Over the same period, average insurance M&A deal size jumped. After averaging about $290 million from 2015 through 2023, the average deal value rose to $803 million in 2024 and 2025. ACORD attributed the lower deal count to a more difficult environment marked by higher costs of capital, persistent inflation, geopolitical uncertainty, and greater regulatory scrutiny and complexity.
For carrier executives, that combination carries an obvious implication: fewer opportunities are available, and each deal now carries more financial and operational consequences.
Carrier deals still command most of the value
ACORD’s broader market data helps explain why carrier transactions continue to matter disproportionately.
The report said the insurance industry logged more than 13,000 transactions from 2015 through 2025, representing nearly $700 billion in combined value. Carriers accounted for only 21% of total transaction volume, but 77% of total deal value. Across all insurance-related transactions, the average deal size was $333 million. For carrier transactions alone, the average rose to $483 million. Property/casualty carrier deals averaged $375 million.
In other words, carrier deals remain fewer in number than agent and broker transactions, but they continue to account for most of the money at risk. That makes ACORD’s emphasis on execution discipline especially relevant for senior carrier management, distribution leaders, and investors evaluating whether an acquisition is likely to add durable value.
ACORD says M&A is no longer the only strategic lever competing for capital
One of the more useful observations in the report is that M&A has slipped somewhat in the hierarchy of insurer growth and profitability levers since ACORD’s 2024 edition. The report said organic initiatives, such as operational efficiency, digital transformation, and artificial intelligence capabilities, are increasingly competing with acquisitions for management attention and capital.
That point sharpens the report’s significance. It is not simply that deals are harder to do. It is also that the strategic bar for doing them has risen. In a market where insurers are also investing in modernization, data, and AI-enabled capabilities, management teams need a clearer reason than size alone to justify an acquisition.
P&C deals create value more often than they destroy it, but the upside is limited
For Agency Checklists readers in the property/casualty market, the report offers a measured message rather than a sweeping one.
ACORD said it screened about 2,800 deals closed between July 2023 and December 2025, then focused on nearly 500 carrier transactions across 84 countries. From that universe, it narrowed its shareholder-return analysis to 34 public transactions that met specified criteria, including disclosed transaction value, non-affiliated companies, and a publicly traded insurer as the buyer.
Using total shareholder return indexed against the MSCI World Index, ACORD found that 68% of the transactions studied created value and 32% destroyed value. Within P&C, 60% of deals created value, while 40% destroyed value. ACORD said P&C deals produced positive net excess returns overall, but described those returns as more modest than in life insurance. The report said execution risk, integration complexity, and competitive pressures combined to cap upside in P&C deals.
That is an important distinction. The report does not say P&C acquisitions are broadly unsuccessful. It says they are less forgiving. The gains are there, but they appear easier to erode.
The motivation behind the deal matters
ACORD divided buyer rationale into four categories: scale and scope, core expansion, capability acquisition, and diversification. The results varied meaningfully by motive.
For P&C carriers, the weakest rationale was scale and scope. ACORD reported that P&C transactions driven by scale and scope produced returns of negative 21.0% relative to the market. By contrast, core expansion deals generated positive 8.3% returns, capability acquisition deals returned positive 6.9%, and diversification deals returned positive 6.7%. Across all lines of business, capability acquisition produced the strongest overall excess returns at 27.7%, followed by diversification at 13.7%.
The report also found a notable shift in strategic rationale over time. Diversification moved from the least prevalent rationale in the 2013-2023 period, accounting for 12% of carrier deals and generating negative 3.4% returns, to the most prevalent motive in recent years at 41% of deals, with positive 13.7% returns. Capability acquisition fell from 21% of activity to 6%, but produced the strongest returns. Scale and scope fell from the most cited rationale to third place and remained the only motivation with a negative indexed total shareholder return overall.
ACORD’s explanation for the weakness of scale-and-scope deals is direct: expected scale benefits are often overstated, integration risks are often underpriced, and diseconomies of scale are often overlooked. In the report’s formulation, increasing scale tends to amplify existing limitations more than transforming the business.
The report’s clearest message: value is won or lost after closing
The most practical section of the report may be its discussion of post-merger execution.
ACORD said post-merger value creation is most often constrained by execution challenges rather than deal strategy itself. Among the recurring impediments it identified were culture and change management issues, technology and systems integration problems, operating model conflicts, talent loss, inconsistent data, unclear governance, customer and channel disruption, regulatory complexity, and integration fatigue.
The report paired those risks with a list of value-creation enablers: clearly defined value initiatives, a single integration authority, protection of underwriting and service continuity, aligned leadership, a defined end-state architecture, retention of critical talent, disciplined value-tracking, consistent communications, phased integration, and transition to business-as-usual operations. ACORD said the transactions that failed to create value were often marked by insufficient focus or thoughtful assessment.
For Massachusetts carrier and agency executives, that may be the report’s most useful takeaway. Deal rationale matters, but execution appears to matter more.
ACORD argues that standards can reduce integration risk
The report closes by making the case that ACORD data standards can reduce integration risk during both diligence and post-close operations. ACORD said standards can make integration readiness more visible before closing by exposing data-definition gaps, data-quality issues, and operational dependencies. After closing, the report said standards can support “bridge integration,” allowing acquired and legacy systems to operate together without immediate core system replacement while also improving reporting, governance, and time-to-value.
Whether readers treat that point as strategic guidance or as ACORD’s institutional perspective, it is consistent with the broader conclusion running through the report.
The bottom line
ACORD’s 2026 study suggests that insurance carrier M&A has entered a more concentrated phase, with fewer deals, larger average transaction values, and a heavier premium on integration discipline. For P&C carriers in particular, the report suggests acquisitions can create value, but not by default. The strongest returns are tied less to buying scale than to buying capabilities, entering adjacent growth areas, and managing integration with precision.
In this market, the report’s message is straightforward: getting a deal signed still matters, but getting the integration right matters more.
The report is available for free at the Acord website: www.Acord.com/Research.
