CB Insights has noted in a recent research report that the insurance industry is consolidating, and agencies need a proper technology stack. Insurance M&A activity surged 50% from 2018 to 2022, and has “held steady since.” CB Insights also mentioned that deals like WTW‘s recent $1.3B acquisition of Newfront signal the scale of “consolidation pressure for agents and brokers in particular.”
Agencies and brokerages outpaced carriers in revenue growth by “nearly 6 percentage points between 2018 and 2022,” according to the most recent data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
To serve agencies capturing the industry’s growth opportunities, startups and well-established vendors “are reshaping the tech landscape.”
A new tech stack is emerging for insurance agents: agency management systems and comparative raters “remain foundational, but AI-supported decision-making is fast becoming table stakes.”
Now, agency professionals should identify “optimal vendors in the most promising markets to support their growth.”
Using CB Insights predictive intelligence, the team said they have now mapped 84 unique companies “shaping agent- and broker-focused tech products across 11 tech markets — from proposal comparison platforms to billing and payments platforms.”
The market map includes public and private companies, “guided by CB Insights’ Commercial Maturity and Mosaic Score predictive signals.”
Key takeaways shared by CB Insights are as follows:
- Agency management systems, comparative rating, and billing & payments platforms are the most mature markets.
- Companies in these markets have an average CB Insights’ Commercial Maturity score — which measures a private company’s ability to compete or partner — of at least 4 out of 5, indicating active market traction and business expansion. Agency management systems (AMS) and comparative rating platforms include the oldest companies on average (25+ years since founding). Across both markets, just one company (Irys) was founded this decade.
- Future consideration: Some AMS vendors operate in other markets, so agency leaders should evaluate the trade-offs of specialized solutions versus bundled AMS capabilities.
- GenAI summarization and text-generation capabilities underscore burgeoning markets focused on sales workflow enhancement.
- Lead management & prioritization platforms, proposal review & comparison platforms, and underwriting appetite intelligence platforms led equity dealmaking across the markets analyzed between Q1’22 and Q3’25 (combined 45% of all deals).
- Companies in the lead management and proposal review markets have seen at least half of dealmaking go to early-stage investments since founding. For example, Further AI — one of the 50 most promising insurtech startups of 2025 — raised $25M in an October 2025 Series A round and offers a product that compares and summarizes multiple carrier quotes.
- Future consideration: It is still early days for these markets, so agency leaders should prioritize pilots and thorough evaluations before multi-year commitments as new capabilities and competitors emerge.
- Early-stage investors — BrokerTech Ventures, Markd, and Y Combinator — invested in at least 3 of the mapped companies between Q1’22 and Q3’25. 14 of the 17 unique companies were founded this decade.
- Future consideration: Agency leaders should monitor the investments of insurance-focused VCs to identify potential partners early and influence product roadmaps as early customers.
