M&A Insurance Broker of the Year

Howden

Howden M&A is the largest specialist M&A insurance adviser in Europe. The team consist of 160+experts across 17 offices in Europe and Asia, Howden M&A advise private equity and real estate funds, international corporates and their advisors on W&I, Tax, Title and Legal Indemnity, Environmental and Contingent Risk insurance with each specialism headed up by industry experts.
 
Howden M&A enjoyed another record year in 2022, placing more policies and helping provide cover for more deals than ever before. The bumper year reflected the ongoing growth in M&A insurance and the rising recognition among clients of the value provided by cover. The M&A market itself naturally played a role. Global M&A may have declined from its recent extraordinary levels, notably in the second half of last year, however total M&A globally over the 12 months was valued at $3.3 trillion – still above pre-pandemic levels.

The demand for M&A insurance put Howden M&A on its mettle to provide the best possible rates and service. We feel we have delivered. During 2022, we placed 1,262 policies across 876 deals. The core product of warranty and indemnity insurance (W&I) represented the lion’s share of our business, but we also saw significant rises in policies covering tax, title, environmental and structured solutions. Rates across many regions and policy types fell, which was good news for our clients. The world faces more difficult economic times in 2023 and M&A volumes are likely to be lower. But when M&A becomes riskier, the value of M&A insurance rises. This helps buyers and sellers to manage deal risks even in the most challenging of circumstances. Furthermore, with the volume of deals lowering, and with several new insurers entering the M&A sector increasing the available coverage, rates are easing significantly in 2023. Even as rates soften, we expect clients to demand more from the sector. Clients expect value for money, but they increasingly also want a more sophisticated service. Our growing work in specific risk policies provides both a balance in our own business and a more comprehensive range of products for our clients.
 
Insurance is an integral part of the M&A process and clients expect the industry to provide a more holistic service, assisting in due diligence and risk assessment, and
providing complimentary services and policies for both transactions and for their wider business operations.
2023 will be one in which providers that can deliver not just market-leading pricing, but an advisory service and a wider suite of products, will be the ones to thrive.

Lockton

In a turbulent period for the M&A market after the highs of 2021, Lockton’s Transactional Risks team continued to support private equity investors across a range of sectors and deal sizes, helping dealmakers to minimise their risks and unlock value by placing over 130 policies in Europe and APAC.

Lockton is proud to support the private equity community across the UK, with the largest presence outside London of any major broker. During the year, we made several senior appointments in both London and Manchester, strengthening our tax and contingent offerings as well as our core private equity team. We have continued to support or clients with our dedicated insurance DD practice and specialist in-house claims function, as well as providing clients with regular updates on market trends, thought leadership pieces and webinars.

We remain committed to fostering relationships within the wider PE community, hosting a large number of networking events, wellbeing classes and fitness events in London, Manchester andBristol, with a particular focus on engaging with, and supporting, women in the industry. In particular, we co-host quarterly “Women in PE” breakfasts, regularly attracting over 100 attendees from a range of funds, law firms and other service providers.

Marsh

The last 12 months represented a period of significant evolution for the Marsh UK M&A insurance business. We maintained our deal count in the UK year-on-year in the context of lower M&A volumes, placing 353 policies for 259 transactions (and 954 policies for 688 transactions across our EMEA teams). We are most proud of the creative and innovative ways we deployed insurance capacity to solve key transaction issues for our clients. This includes ring-fencing critical deal issues to allow transactions to proceed (including multiple placements with limits in excess of $800m); and creating dedicated insurer panels for our private capital clients to secure better outcomes from the insurance market.

We advocated for our clients with insurers securing multiple claims settlements protecting our clients’ investments.

During this period, Marsh supported a broad spectrum of private capital clients, ranging from small-cap UK investors to global sponsors, in investments across all sectors with a particular focus on infrastructure/utilities, renewables and technology businesses. We supported our UK client base with outbound investments in 36 countries including the further development of the M&A insurance market in LATAM, Africa and the Middle East. We supported transactions across the deal size spectrum with deal values insured in the last 12 months ranging from USD2m to over USD9 billion.