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Aon Nears $17 Billion Acquisition in Insurance Brokerage Push

By  |  August 30, 2026
Aon

Aon is approaching an agreement to acquire insurance brokerage USI Insurance in a transaction valued at roughly $17 billion including debt, a move that would further expand the global broker’s presence among midsize corporate clients.

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    The potential transaction could be announced as soon as Monday, according to The Wall Street Journal, which cited people familiar with the matter. The newspaper cautioned that the agreement had not yet been completed.

    The proposed acquisition would rank among the largest recent transactions in the insurance-brokerage industry and would give Aon another sizable platform serving middle-market companies. According to the Journal’s Aug. 30 report, USI generates about $3 billion in annual revenue and provides insurance brokerage and consulting services to companies and individuals.

    USI is based in Valhalla, New York. Private-equity firm KKR acquired the business alongside Canadian investment manager CDPQ in 2017 in a transaction valued at $4.3 billion, according to the Journal. KKR subsequently invested additional capital and increased its ownership position, becoming USI’s largest shareholder.

    For Aon, the acquisition would deepen a push into the middle-market insurance business. The company, which provides commercial risk, reinsurance, health and retirement-related services, has benefited from stronger demand in areas including commercial risk and reinsurance. The USI transaction is expected to add to Aon’s earnings per share as early as 2028, the Journal reported, citing a person familiar with the matter.

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    The prospective deal follows another major expansion by Aon. In 2024, the company acquired middle-market insurance broker NFP for about $13 billion in cash and stock from Madison Dearborn Partners and HPS Investment Partners. Madison Dearborn later repurchased most of NFP’s wealth-management operation from Aon for approximately $2.7 billion, according to the Journal.

    Aon had a market capitalization of about $75 billion as of Friday, the Journal reported. Adding USI would substantially increase the scale of the company’s middle-market operations and extend a period of consolidation among insurance brokers, where size can provide greater access to carriers, data and specialized advisory capabilities.

    A transaction would also represent a significant realization for KKR at a time when private-equity managers have faced pressure to return capital to investors after a prolonged slowdown in dealmaking and exits.

    KKR recorded $1.29 billion of asset sales in its latest quarter, its highest quarterly total, according to the Journal. Recent realizations cited by the newspaper include the sale of data-center cooling company CoolIT and the divestiture of the commercial and defense aerospace business of Circor. KKR generated about 15 times its invested equity on the CoolIT transaction, the Journal reported.

    The private-equity firm has simultaneously continued raising capital for new investments. Earlier this year, KKR closed a $23 billion North America-focused private-equity fund, bringing capital raised across the latest generations of its flagship regional funds to $46 billion, according to the Journal.

    The talks between Aon and KKR remain subject to completion. The Wall Street Journal reported that an announcement could come as early as Aug. 31 if the parties finalize the transaction.

    Source: The Wall Street Journal