Case 08 Financial services · 2023
Two brokers, one book, a hundred days.
A merger of equals with two cultures and one client book. We kept clients and producers on board while consolidating offices, systems and commission schemes.
- Client
- Two merging commercial insurance brokers, 260 people combined
- Services
- Integration, Margin and cost
- Duration
- 14 weeks
- Team
- Tomasz Wójcik, Georgi Petrov
What changed
Illustrative outcomes for a fictional client.1
97%
Client retention through the integration
15 of 15
Top producers retained
11%
Reduction in operating costs
The story
The situation
Two regional brokers of similar size agreed to merge. A fifth of their clients overlapped, their producers were paid on different commission schemes, and each firm assumed its own systems would survive.
What we found
The real risk was people, not systems. The top fifteen producers placed 60% of the premium between them, and several had been approached by competitors within a week of the announcement.
The real risk was people, not systems.
What we did
We put producer retention first: a single commission scheme agreed within thirty days, with no producer worse off in year one. Then a joint plan for the overlapping clients, and only after that the office and systems consolidation.
What changed
Client retention through the integration was 97%, all fifteen top producers stayed, and operating costs fell by 11% once systems and offices were combined.
Timeline
14 weeks
- DiagnoseWeeks 1–2
Producer and client overlap analysis.
- DesignWeeks 3–5
One commission scheme, agreed in thirty days.
- ImplementWeeks 6–12
Joint client plan, then offices and systems.
- Hand overWeeks 13–14
Combined leadership runs the cadence.
The team
- Northbridge and this client are fictional. Figures are demo content written to show how outcomes would be reported, not results of a real engagement.