ACORD Carrier M&A study finds 68% of global carrier transactions create organizational value

The study, which examined global carrier transactions that closed between July 2023 and December 2025, reveals meaningful shifts in deal drivers

NEW YORK, April 8, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- ACORD, the standards-setting body for the global insurance industry, today released a newly updated edition of its report, Carrier Mergers & Acquisitions: Drivers, Implications & Outcomes. The study examines the drivers behind carrier consolidation and the implications for operating models, technology integration, and shareholder outcomes.

ACORD studied nearly 500 carrier transactions across 84 countries that closed between July 2023 and December 2025, finding 68% of those transactions created value, while 32% destroyed value. Transaction performance was assessed based on the value created for shareholders of the acquiring carrier, measured through total shareholder return (TSR) indexed against the MSCI World Index.

The study also reveals meaningful shifts in the prevalence and performance of carrier M&A strategies in recent years, compared to the previous decade. Key findings about M&A buyer motivations include:

• Scale & Scope — amortizing fixed costs and improving resource access by increasing absolute size or expanding scope across strategic and tactical dimensions — fell from the most cited buyer rationale to third place. This strategy remains consistently likely to destroy value. This motivation was the only one with a negative indexed total shareholder return, averaging -13.6%.

• Diversification — expanding by acquiring new revenue and earning sources — has pivoted from the least-used, lowest-return rationale to a leading source of activity, with materially stronger outcomes. It has become the most prevalent motivation at 41% of deals, associated with the second-strongest returns (+13.7%), reflecting a notable shift in both adoption and performance.

• Capability Acquisition — optimizing the risk, cost, and time associated with developing new or enhanced internal capabilities — while less common, now delivers the highest excess returns. Although the share of capability-led deals declined to 6%, these deals produced the strongest returns (+27.7%).

"The underperformance of Scale & Scope as a buyer motivation highlights the difficulties of achieving scale-related benefits through M&A. Increasing scale only amplifies what already exists, including inherent limitations and challenges; it rarely transforms," said Dave Sterner, Senior Vice President of Research & Development at ACORD. "Scale benefits are often overestimated, while cost synergies are smaller than projected. Integration risks are also systemically underpriced, and diseconomies of scale are overlooked."

"For transactions that fell short, value destruction was driven primarily by execution, not deal logic," Sterner continued. "Without disciplined value-capture management, synergies identified in diligence often dissipate during integration."

Since peaking in 2016 at 321 carrier transactions, the number of carrier deals fell to approximately 163 in 2025. This contraction reflects a challenging deal environment marked by higher costs of capital driven by rising interest rates, persistent inflationary pressures, geopolitical uncertainty, and increasing regulatory scrutiny and complexity.

At the same time, deal dynamics have shifted toward fewer, larger transactions. From 2015-2024, average carrier disclosed deal sizes were approximately $455 million. But in 2025, the average carrier disclosed deal size increased to $1.1 billion.

"As insurance M&A continues to evolve toward fewer, larger, and more complex deals, disciplined execution will remain the defining differentiator between transactions that close and those that deliver lasting results," Sterner continued. "Organizations that protect core operations, translate deal intent into focused value initiatives, establish clear decision rights, and sequence integration deliberately are far better positioned to sustain value creation."

For the first time, ACORD has made the study findings publicly available for both ACORD members and non-members. For more information or to download the report, please visit www.acord.org/research.

About ACORD
ACORD is the global standards-setting body for the insurance industry. For over 50 years, we have been an industry leader in identifying ways to help our members make improvements across the insurance value chain. ACORD facilitates fast, accurate data exchange and efficient workflows through the development of electronic standards, standardized forms, and tools to support their use.

ACORD currently engages more than 36,000 participating organizations spanning over 100 countries, including insurance and reinsurance companies, agents and brokers, software providers, financial services organizations, and industry associations. ACORD maintains offices in New York and London. Learn more at www.acord.org.

Media Contact:
Beth Jarecki, Omnia Paratus
[email protected]

SOURCE ACORD