Aon strikes $17 billion deal for rival USI Insurance Services

JUST IN: Aon to buy rival USI Insurance Services in a $17 billion deal from private equity firm KKR.

Seventeen billion dollars. That's what Aon is paying for rival broker USI Insurance Services.

The seller is private equity giant KKR, and this is the trade of a lifetime for them. KKR and a Canadian pension fund bought USI back in 2014 for four point three billion. Twelve years later, it walks out the door at seventeen. Not a bad hold.

For Aon, this is all about mid-sized American businesses, the middle market everyone in insurance suddenly wants. CEO Greg Case says the deal builds on their thirteen billion dollar NFP purchase from 2024 and makes them the premier middle-market platform in the US. And he's not alone in writing big cheques. Gallagher paid thirteen and a half billion for AssuredPartners, Brown and Brown nearly ten billion for Accession. Insurance brokerage has quietly become deal country.

The deal closes in the fourth quarter, and it prices an entire industry's ambition at seventeen billion dollars.

This is Sara White, reporting for HIT.