There’s more than one way to grow a business. In this edition of Your M&A and Corporate Partner, Connie Phelps analyzes the recent acquisitions by insurance giant Aon and explores how strategic acquisitions can fuel business growth, even with a $30 billion price tag.
Global professional services provider and insurance and reinsurance broker Aon recently announced it had finalized a deal to acquire USI Insurance Services in a massive $17 billion buyout deal. Private equity firm KKR currently owns the majority of USI, alongside several smaller shareholders. Both Aon’s and USI’s Boards of Directors unanimously approved the multibillion dollar deal and expect it to close in late 2026, subject to regulatory approval.
Reportedly the tenth largest insurance broker in the U.S., USI earns approximately $3 billion in revenue annually. It offers “property & casualty, employee benefit, personal risk and retirement solutions for the middle market.”
In contrast, Aon’s target clients were historically enterprise-level organizations that required large-scale services and insurance brokerage solutions. This approach led Aon to great heights, with the company recognized as one of the largest insurance brokers in the world and serving clients in over 120 countries. However, recent business moves show that Aon is looking to expand by capturing a larger share of the middle market.
The 2026 USI deal follows another acquisition by Aon in 2024, in which the insurance giant paid $13 billion to acquire the then-privately owned NFP, a “market property and casualty broker, benefits consultant, wealth manager and retirement plan advisor” also serving the middle market. Furthermore, the triumph of the NFP acquisition is even in the USI deal press release, where the company noted that the latest acquisition “[builds] on the successful acquisition of NFP to advance leading platform in the large and growing U.S. middle market.”
Aon has gone all-in on this strategy, investing $30 billion in just two years on middle-market expansion with established companies that offer immediate access to new growth opportunities.
What Can Businesses Learn From This?
Business growth comes in many forms. Sometimes it looks like deepening a relationship with an existing client to offer additional services. Sometimes it is furthering your reach to do business with more companies in your existing market. And sometimes it means taking your business and expanding it into an untapped sector.
In Aon’s case, the company aims to strategically scale down its enterprise-level insurance brokerage solutions to meet the needs of the growing U.S. middle market. By strategically acquiring USI and NFP, Aon is streamlining its middle-market growth, bypassing the often tedious process of laying new groundwork to find clients outside of established specialties. The company turbocharged its advance into the middle market by leveraging the existing clients, relationships, and business models that already helped the acquired companies reach multibillion-dollar levels of success. Once the deal closes, that success will belong to Aon, and the company expects its $30 billion total price tag to be more than worth it in the coming years.
Have questions about how strategic acquisitions can help accelerate your business growth? Contact M&A and Corporate lead Connie Phelps at cphelps@berenzweiglaw.com.
DISCLAIMER: Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations.
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