Insurance Brokers (MMC, AON, AJG, WTW, BRO)

[formthirteen]

36 minutes ago, Junior R said:

Insurance broker stocks tumble as OpenAI approves first AI insurance app

 

Mr. Market is confused. They built an MCP that communicates with "Tuio" through OpenAI's chat interface:

 

Quote

OpenAI has approved the first AI app from an insurance provider on ChatGPT, built by Tuio, one of Spain’s leading digital insurers, and powered by WaniWani’s AI distribution infrastructure, enabling users to receive a personalised home insurance quote, and soon, purchase a policy, entirely within the conversation.

 

If Mr. Market is correct then people who use insurance brokers today will in the future ask Tuio for a quote.

[Junior R]

1 minute ago, formthirteen said:

 

Mr. Market is confused. They built an MCP that communicates with "Tuio" through OpenAI's chat interface:

 

 

If Mr. Market is correct then people who use insurance brokers today will in the future ask Tuio for a quote.

this creates great opportunity added more arthur will exit at 10% recovery

[UK]

All this is crazy, reminds me the era of 'Amazon doing this or that' all over again...

 

Edited February 9 by UK

[formthirteen]

Mr. Market also thinks that Tuio publishing ads on Google search disrupts insurance brokers.

 

The most expensive keyword for google adwords is insurance

https://www.wordstream.com/articles/most-expensive-keywords

Edited February 9 by formthirteen

[Spekulatius]

I added a bit more AJG as well. I want to be careful here, because these declines always can get worse. RYAN is los on my ads to list. it’s specialty is urn de so should be even more insulated.

 

I fail to see how AI alone can make a difference unless it has good data to base their guesses on. Apps to get insurance quoted have been around d for quite some time, but they never worked for me, even for the easiest stuff like homeowners. Founds this Ma y times, they the inline quotes were invalidated later when my quote was removed or in some cases, they decided that they don’t want to insure me at all, because certain requirements or combos of requirements were not met after all. Been there done it.

Edited February 9 by Spekulatius

[MxMI17]

12 hours ago, formthirteen said:

 

Mr. Market is confused. They built an MCP that communicates with "Tuio" through OpenAI's chat interface:

 

 

If Mr. Market is correct then people who use insurance brokers today will in the future ask Tuio for a quote.

How likely is that a commercial client adopts an AI solution for such a complicated matter? Downside of insurance coverage mistake could be very large and is not possible to hold AI responsible

[longterminvestor]

On 1/29/2026 at 1:04 PM, Eldad said:

I really want to invest here but I just have small problems with each one. 
 

BRO - seems like the obvious choice.
 

Pros: Giant family ownership. Still relatively small. Great growth and currently very cheap. 
 

Cons: It looks like they pay too much. ROE sucks as a result. Even FCF ROE sucks. Then the fact that they maybe overpaid with a ton of stock. It just bothers me. 
 

AJG: have not looked into much but seems to be the same as BRO on paying too much and not as cheap. 
 

MRSH: It looks like they have had to deploy 3/4 of their cash to keep the 10% growth going. Better on ROE front but seems like a 10% return kind of stock (I would rather get more BRK in that case) 

 

RYAN: weird structure probably a no go. 
 

AON: Same as Marsh not really even cheap. 
 

Anyone have any advice or thoughts? 

When in doubt, buy a basket.  Similar to Mr. Buffett and his bets on Airlines/Japanese trading houses.  

[longterminvestor]

Question: Insurify & Tuio...what business are they in?  

 

Remember, people don't really understand insurance - normal folks actually hate insurance in general (they think its a scam).  Investors really don't understand insurance.  Understanding what position a business ranks or stands in the insurance ecosystem and how that business transacts is a very important part of understanding insurance as an industry.  Lots of "investors" think businesses do things they do not.  Nike is not a shoe manufacturing company, Nike is a marketing company who has a contract supply/manufacturing chain that gets their product (shoes) in the hands of both distribution and retail customers directly.  McDonalds is not a burger business, McDonalds is a real estate company with a royalty on all burgers sold.  Coca-Cola is not in the fizzy drink business, Coca-Cola is in the syrup business. 

 

From the reaction in the market, it would seem like Insurify & Tuio are the smartest guys in the room and the folks that have been in the insurance business for 150+ years know nothing about how to grow a business, create share holder value.  That's fine.  And I am open to fact that insurance, distribution and risk bearing, will change over time.  

 

The cream will rise to the top.  Technology will democratize the insurance business.  The Weak will get weaker.  The Strong brokers/carriers will figure out how to utilize technology and win out....

 

ANSWER: Insurify & Tuio are in the insurance broker business.  They are just brokers who are looking to take the transactional policy and make it easy.  And, as Amazon taught us, Insurify & Tuio are "first to market" which can be an advantage.  Insurify & Tuio are not gonna take the white meat, middle market+ accounts from competitors, they want your "easy to place home/auto".  And they can have at it, its a rough/service intensive game. 

 

Reminds me of a poem by R. Kiplin, IF:

 

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

 

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

[gfp]

These are getting so juicy.  It will be interesting to see if we get some insider purchases.  In my basket, only RYAN (tomorrow after the close) and BWIN (Feb. 26th I believe) haven't reported and are still in blackout periods.

 

I'm a buyer of RYAN, BWIN, AJG and BRO this week and have a decent little picnic basket put together.

[Eldad]

15 hours ago, longterminvestor said:

When in doubt, buy a basket.  Similar to Mr. Buffett and his bets on Airlines/Japanese trading houses.  

Thanks. Finally got a tiny bit of Brown. Thanks for the poem as well. 

[MMM20]

 

I am nibbling at BRO and forcing myself to ramp on this space. Another one where the compounder -> AI bros have done all the work for us but puking it now? Ironically with that ticker. If raining gold, don’t grab the thimble?
 

Edited February 11 by MMM20

[tnathan]

I'm more confident in this space than in some of the software names so continue to buy as well but its not fun!

[rogermunibond]

Isn't the move in insurance brokers mostly about interest rates, P/C market softening due to low cat activity and lots of money chasing risk, and low M&A opportunities?

 

I don't think any of the sell off since March 2025 is about agentic insurance agents.

 

 

[gfp]

4 minutes ago, rogermunibond said:

Isn't the move in insurance brokers mostly about interest rates, P/C market softening due to low cat activity and lots of money chasing risk, and low M&A opportunities?

 

I don't think any of the sell off since March 2025 is about agentic insurance agents.

 

 

 

Don't think that's it.  Why would interest rates have an effect on brokers anyway? 

[rogermunibond]

Fiduciary interest income for premiums etc that they hold for clients.

 

It's not huge but drops straight to the bottom line

[dealraker]

Given my level of investment in the insurance brokers held from long-long ago I'm not adding but I sure would otherwise.  This is equal to the Eliott Spitzer contingency commission lawsuits era of the early 2000's.  

[tnathan]

33 minutes ago, dealraker said:

Given my level of investment in the insurance brokers held from long-long ago I'm not adding but I sure would otherwise.  This is equal to the Eliott Spitzer contingency commission lawsuits era of the early 2000's.  

Thanks yeah this is an interesting corollary but its weird because i would argue today there's no real negative news aside from a soft market? like don't these things happen every 5 years or so? 

[Spekulatius]

12 minutes ago, tnathan said:

Thanks yeah this is an interesting corollary but it’s weird because i would argue today there's no real negative news aside from a soft market? like don't these things happen every 5 years or so? 

AI is an extremely strong narrative that drives the market and individual securities around. There is a winner bucket and a loser bucket and not much else.

[Junior R]

Quote

• Brown & Brown (BRO) has entered into an accelerated share repurchase program with Bank of America, N.A. for $250M of its common stock.
• The program is part of the company’s board-approved $1.5B share repurchase authorization announced on October 22, 2025.

 

[Junior R]

11 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

AI is an extremely strong narrative that drives the market and individual securities around. There is a winner bucket and a loser bucket and not much else.

I think AI scare is good thing that allowed us to buy companies we like at a very low price...Could go lower though before recovery

[MMM20]

BRO screens cheap, insiders own a ton and now they announce this accelerated buyback. I need to do the math but I think <15x P/E translates to <10x true earnings because the amortizable intangible assets are mostly purchased customer accounts and non-competes which probably should be added back to some degree. Maybe that’s being tested somewhat right now but the startup poaching producers that they talked about on the last call, but this looks like ~10-12x distributable earnings growing ~10% per share, priced to compound at ~20%. If the new risk is whether companies with like 50 employees and complex insurance needs that are CYA’ing and not super price sensitive are now gonna DIY or risk going with some AI-based disrupter, then BRO is very cheap. It reminds me of when AMZN was gonna crush ORLY. Turned out there was more to it than tech and pricing. 

 

Edited February 12 by MMM20

[dealraker]

15 minutes ago, Junior R said:

I think AI scare is good thing that allowed us to buy companies we like at a very low price...Could go lower though before recovery

So while I'm heavily weighted into insurance brokers I haven't added (I've bought for a trust I manage but not personally) since 1994.  The reason?  I come from a newspaper family, my grandparents owned The Dispatch in Lexington, NC and my dad was publisher and editor of it when it was sold to the New York Times in 1975 for $3.8 million- a nice sum back then.  Dad owned 20% when this sale came.

 

So for years we would say, "Geez, we'd have a lot more money if we had kept the newspaper."  That changed to "Glad we sold the newspaper" not too long afterwards.  We guess that The Dispatch today is worth about $100k.

 

In any event I'm not and have never been in the "dismissal" camp when things like the AI threat comes along given it almost assured that big changes will eventually come to the insurance distribution model.  I've brought that up several times in this thread and we have discussed it.

 

But even given that it is my guess that none of us are really on top of what's businesses will be most threatened by AI, that the surprises will be many - and actually not as easily predicted as some may suggest.  I have family who are very wealthy and in the residential building and managing business who are saying today that the data center build out is making their construction projects both difficult to staff and far more expensive mostly because of labor scarcity.

 

Interesting times and likely just the very-very-very beginning of something that probably will end up being far different that most anyone thinks.  My guess is that the current prices of insurance brokers, particularly BRO and AJG, will be a good entry point.  

[Marco Van Basten]

40 minutes ago, MMM20 said:

BRO screens cheap, insiders own a ton and now they announce this accelerated buyback. I need to do the math but I think <15x P/E translates to <10x true earnings because the amortizable intangible assets are mostly purchased customer accounts and non-competes which probably should be added back to some degree. Maybe that’s being tested somewhat right now but the startup poaching producers that they talked about on the last call, but this looks like ~10-12x distributable earnings growing ~10% per share, priced to compound at ~20%. If the new risk is whether companies with like 50 employees and complex insurance needs that are CYA’ing and not super price sensitive are now gonna DIY or risk going with some AI-based disrupter, then BRO is probably very cheap. It reminds me of when AMZN was gonna crush ORLY. Turned out there was more to it than tech and pricing. 

 

Are you sure?  I had thought the adjusted EPS took care of that no?  Thank you.

[MMM20]

2 hours ago, Marco Van Basten said:

Are you sure?  I had thought the adjusted EPS took care of that no?  Thank you.

Actually I think you’re right, thanks, I’m picking this back up and got too excited and double counted some of it. More like ~12-14x ‘26 FCF right now. Accession was clearly a big deal so it’ll be interesting to see if they can still deleverage quickly closer to ~2x and then get aggressive if we’re looking at both lower target multiples and a cheap stock, which could obviously drive that multiple much lower out a year or two. IIRC they put all their CFO toward M&A at ~5-6x when the stock traded ~10x in ‘08. I suspect we’d see more buybacks this time. 
 

Edited February 12 by MMM20

[Spekulatius]

I think AJG is the better deal than BRO right now. The valuation is almost the same, with BRO having slightly lower multiples, it AJG has much netter organic growth. I actually, I switched some BRO to AJG and put fresh money to AJG. I still own more BRO than AJG

Edited February 13 by Spekulatius