2025 Best Practices Study

The most common profitability metric throughout the Best Practices Study is pro forma EBITDA. An agency’s pro forma EBITDA is reported earnings before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization, after normalizing revenue and expense adjustments are made, and discretionary expenditures made for the benefit of owners are added back. Pro forma profit reflects the agency's real and sustainable profit after the numbers are cleaned up to remove any static.

Pro Forma EBITDA

Pro forma profitability remained at near all-time highs in this year's Best Practices Study . Many of the significant expense reduction gains achieved during the COVID Pandemic have become permanent fixtures for Best Practices agencies.

30.0%

29.7%

28.1%

28.8%

29.6%

28.2%

27.5%

25.8%

24.9%

24.8%

23.1%

22.3%

21.4%

N/A

<$1.25M $1.25-2.5M $2.5-5M $5-10M $10-25M $25-100M >$100M

2024 2025

Conclusion The independent insurance brokerage industry is evolving rapidly, shaped by consolidation, emerging technologies, shifting client expectations, and rising performance standards. In this environment, the ability to benchmark your firm against high-performing peers isn’t just helpful, it’s essential. This report provides a comprehensive look at how firms of all sizes perform across a wide range of metrics. By organizing data into seven distinct peer groups, we’ve made it easier to compare your results to those of brokers with similar scale and resources. With over 3,000 data points, this report offers both breadth and depth, covering everything from growth and profitability to productivity, compensation, and operating structure. But data alone doesn’t create change. What matters most is how you use this information. We encourage you to take a close look at where your firm stands today and identify the areas with the greatest potential for improvement. Use these benchmarks to challenge assumptions, sharpen your strategy, and set ambitious but achievable performance goals. Ultimately, benchmarking is not a one-time exercise. It’s part of an ongoing commitment to continuous improvement. The firms that make the most of this report will be the ones that treat it as a tool—not just for measurement, but for growth, innovation, and long-term success.

2025 Study Highlights

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