The consolidation wave that reshaped independent P&C distribution over the past decade has clearly lost momentum. Insurance Business America reported that North American agency deal volume dropped to 292 transactions in the first half of 2026, a 15% decline from 342 a year earlier, based on data from OPTIS Partners. That's the softest first-half showing in seven years, and the trailing twelve-month tally of 646 deals hasn't been this thin since early 2019 (Insurance Business America).
Even the biggest names in the buyer pool are stepping back. OPTIS partner Steve Germundson pointed out that Hub International's pace has fallen 47% over the trailing year, Keystone Agency Partners is down 29%, and BroadStreet Partners — still the busiest acquirer with 37 closings in H1 — has trimmed its own activity by 16%. Private-equity and hybrid buyers haven't disappeared; they still represented 75% of trailing-year deals and 80% in the second quarter alone, and the ten largest acquirers absorbed 55% of first-half volume. But smaller and emerging PE shops, along with owners recapitalizing their own firms, are picking up relative share as the giants pull back. P&C agencies stayed the most commonly sold asset type, making up 198 of the 292 first-half deals, or 68% of total volume.
This slowdown isn't new. Full-year 2025 closed at 695 agency deals, down 12% from 787 in 2024 — the third straight year without a late-year surge in closings — while the number of distinct buyers shrank 9% to 95, according to OPTIS partner Timothy Cunningham (Insurance Business America, Jan 2026). Cunningham has flagged that 2026 could still bring more large deals and recapitalizations as bigger players chase scale, which should keep valuations firm for the strongest sellers. Earlier in 2025, Cunningham also noted that a handful of new investors were entering the market for the first time even as the overall buyer roster contracted (Insurance Business America, Oct 2025).
So what does a national pullback in roll-up buying mean on the ground in two of the country's largest independent-agency states? Public state licensing and carrier-appointment records show the independent channel in Texas and Florida is still overwhelmingly intact. Texas counts roughly 9,100 independent P&C agencies, with 99.7% still independently owned and only 0.2% held by consolidation platforms — a fragmentation level essentially unchanged by years of national deal activity. Florida's channel is a bit further along, with 9,945 agencies and 95.3% independent ownership, 3.9% platform-owned, concentrated most heavily around Miami, Tampa and Orlando (public state licensing and carrier-appointment records, retrieved July 2026; full state detail at /intelligence/insurance/florida and /intelligence/insurance/texas).
Formation activity backs up the picture: fragmentation isn't just being preserved by a stalled buyer market, it's actively being replenished. Florida DFS licensing data shows 2,963 new agency licenses issued in the trailing twelve months, with new-license volume holding roughly steady versus a year ago, plus 1,117 fresh P&C agent licenses in just the last 90 days. New agency formation is running fastest in Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, where the agents-per-agency ratio also runs low — a signature of a market still full of small, newly formed shops rather than one being steadily rolled up (FL DFS/CFO public license data, as of July 2026; county-level breakdown at /intelligence/insurance/florida/counties).
For an agency owner, the practical read is that the top-down consolidation story has softened considerably, at least for now. With the largest platform buyers slowing their own pace, more of the deal activity that does happen is shifting toward smaller and regional acquirers, plus owners choosing to recapitalize rather than sell outright. Meanwhile the base of independent agencies keeps replenishing itself through new formation, particularly across South Florida. That combination means fragmentation in these two states isn't closing from the top — it's holding open, and value is still being built and negotiated locally rather than dictated by a handful of national buyers. More on how that fragmentation and consolidation runway looks across markets is available at /intelligence/insurance/florida/consolidation.