Insurance broker roll-ups borrow from clubs of private lenders, with lines set aside for more deals
The companies assembling insurance agencies into national brokerages pay for much of that buying with private credit, and the loan schedules that business development companies report to the SEC show whose. In the June 30, 2026 schedules, Integrity Marketing Acquisition, LLC appears in 34 funds run by 17 different lenders, with $1,813 million of principal outstanding between them. Higginbotham Insurance Agency appears with 14 lenders, World Insurance Associates with 13, and AmeriLife, Acrisure and Foundation Risk Partners with 9 each. Blue Owl Credit Income Corp. alone holds $377.0 million of a first-lien term loan to Integrity Marketing at SOFR plus 5.00%, due in August 2028 sec.gov.
The loans share a shape. They are senior first-lien term loans priced at a spread over SOFR, and many carry a second piece that has not been drawn yet. Blackstone Private Credit Fund holds $112.5 million of Higginbotham's first-lien loan at SOFR plus 4.50%, due in June 2031, alongside a $27.5 million delayed-draw term loan commitment that runs to December 2027 and was undrawn on June 30 sec.gov. The same fund holds $111.6 million of World Insurance Associates' loan at SOFR plus 5.00%, with an undrawn $14.5 million delayed-draw line and an unused $5.1 million revolver. A delayed-draw line is money a lender has already agreed to advance later, and in a brokerage that buys agencies its usual job is to pay for the next acquisition.
For the owner of an agency, this changes what a bid means. When one of these brokerages makes an offer, the cash can already be committed by a group of lenders who have underwritten the buyer's whole acquisition program, and the undrawn line shows how much the buyer can spend before it needs new money. An owner can ask a bidder who its lenders are and how much of its delayed-draw line remains, and the answer can be checked against these filings every quarter.
Smaller deals run on different money. SBA loan data current to June 30, 2026 shows 74 SBA 7(a) loans of $1 million or more made to insurance agencies over the prior 12 months, leaving out loans to individuals, startups and franchises data.sba.gov. 31 of those loans financed a change of ownership, which means a buyer used the loan to acquire an agency. Bankwell Bank made 13 of the 74, 10 of them change-of-ownership loans, and Live Oak Banking Company made 9. The median loan was $1.81 million, and SBA caps 7(a) loans at $5 million, so this market serves buyers of agencies far smaller than the ones the private-credit funds lend to.
Insurance brokerage is one of the services businesses where people still do much of the work customers pay for, from quoting and placing policies to servicing them and handling renewals. Lenders are financing the companies that buy agencies at scale, and their loan terms are a readable record of how much they will lend into that consolidation and at what spread. As software takes on more of the servicing work, the useful question for an agency owner is which of these buyers, with which lenders behind them, will pay for the agency as it runs today.
The next schedules arrive with the September 30 quarterly reports, due in November. Two things are worth watching: whether the undrawn delayed-draw lines at Higginbotham and World Insurance Associates get drawn, which would usually mean the acquisitions they were set aside for have closed, and whether new lenders join these groups.