Territories singled out for growth in the global non-life sector include emerging economies such as India, China and Central America. The company estimated that global commercial non-life insurance broking revenues were $46.26bn in 2012 (€35.32bn, £30m) up from $41.9bn in 2008.
While most markets in Europe saw only moderate increases or declines in revenue over that period, emerging markets experienced the highest growth rates. This was led by India with a nominal compound annual growth rate of 36.3% between 2008 and 2012, followed by Argentina and China with annual increases of 28.0% and 22.4%, respectively.
It was predicted that, overall, countries outside Europe and North America can expect to see their share of global commercial non-life insurance broking revenues grow from 20.2% to 23.4% by 2016.
India is expected to lead this growth, with Finaccord predicting it would more than double its existing market for commercial non-life insurance broking revenues between 2012 and 2016.
The increasing importance that brokers played in territories marked out for growth was also significant, according to Finaccord consultant Bernd Bergmann.
Bergmann said: “Outside Europe and North America, the significance of brokers as intermediaries of commercial non-life insurance can vary dramatically as they play only a very small role in some countries, such as Japan where multi-tied agents are far more important, whereas brokers dominate the distribution of commercial lines in Argentina, Australia, Brazil and South Africa among other countries.
"Crucially, they also account for a rapidly rising proportion of the market in China and India.”
The biggest players in the non-life market – Canada and the US – accounted for 50.8% of the global market in 2012. Between 2012 and 2016, the share of North America within the global total is likely to decline slightly to 50.1%.
Europe meanwhile is expected to experience a sharper drop from 29% to 26.6%.
“Brokers in Europe are generally gaining at the expense of other distribution channels, growth in their revenues is limited by the mediocre dynamics in commercial insurance premiums which are likely to experience a slow recovery from the difficult market environment that characterised the years from 2008 to 2012,” Bergmann said.
Finaccord also carried out detailed analyses of the leading commercial lines brokers in each of the 30 markets investigated. Aon and Marsh are by far the largest players in global commercial non-life insurance broking, with Aon estimated to account for about 13% of global
revenues ahead of Marsh with 11% and Willis with 3%.
Across the 30 countries surveyed by Finaccord, Aon was found to be the market leader in commercial lines broking in 16 countries ahead of Marsh which was the largest in eight.
