The New Insurance Playbook: M&A Strategies Defining the Next Decade

Global insurance M&A has become a key lens through which insurers, intermediaries, and investors are responding to a rapidly changing industry landscape. Between 2020 and 2025, dealmaking has been shaped by the unwinding of the post-pandemic consolidation wave, shifting risk-return dynamics, and a disciplined approach to capital deployment. What initially emerged as a period of aggressive, volume-driven consolidation has gradually evolved into a more selective market, where execution certainty and strategic fit increasingly outweigh transaction scale. 

A defining feature of the current cycle is the divergence between deal value and deal volume. While transaction volumes have declined meaningfully from post-pandemic highs, global deal values have remained resilient, supported by a small number of large, high-conviction transactions. This pattern reflects a recalibration in buyer behavior as high interest rates, valuation mismatches, and longer regulatory timelines have raised the bar for deal execution. As a result, acquirers are prioritizing fewer transactions with clearer strategic, operational, or financial rationale, rather than pursuing broad-based consolidation. 

At the same time, the composition of insurance M&A is undergoing a structural shift. Deal value is increasingly concentrated in asset-light distribution models, particularly insurance brokers, as investors favor scalable businesses with low capital intensity and predictable earnings. Geographically, North America continues to anchor global M&A activity, while incremental deal value is beginning to emerge from underpenetrated and developing markets, reflecting a gradual broadening of acquisition focus beyond traditional core regions. 

This report analyzes global insurance M&A trends from 2020 through 2025, examining deal value and volume dynamics, shifts across segments and geographies, and the strategies of leading acquirers shaping the market. It assesses how evolving market conditions and investor preferences are likely to influence dealmaking patterns going forward. This report also offers a forward-looking view on the next phase of insurance M&A.