BRO, Brown & Brown, Inc.
Read top to bottom, the owner's questions in the order an owner asks them: what the business is, whether the record holds, whether it survives and is any good, and what you would be paying. New to the questions? Start with the Method.
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, read from the numbers in its filings. The quantitative detail is in the sections below; the verdict is left to you.
- What it is
- Revenue is led by Base Commission Revenue (67%) and Fee Revenue (22%), with 3 more lines behind.
- What moves the needle
- Underwriting discipline and the float. What decides it: whether the combined ratio stays below 100% so the policies make money on their own, how large the float is against equity, and what that float earns once it is invested.
- Is it a good business?
- The underwriting result is not cleanly tagged in the filings. Book value per share, the measure Berkshire is judged on, has compounded about 19% a year across the record. The float runs about 0.1× equity, the leverage that magnifies both the underwriting and the investing. Whether the discipline holds through a soft market, and how the float is invested, are what the 10-K decides.
Every line here is arithmetic from the company's own filings, not a model's opinion, and each figure appears in full in the sections below.
Where the money comes from
read the 10-K →Base Commission Revenue is 67% of revenue, so this is largely a single-line business.
- Base Commission Revenue67%$3.9B
- Fee Revenue22%$1.3B
- Profit Sharing Contingent Commission Revenue4%$255M
- Other Supplemental Commissions Revenue3%$206M
- Earned premium1%$83M
From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.
The record, 2016–2025
realized figures from each filing, no estimates| 2016’16 | 2017’17 | 2018’18 | 2019’19 | 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RevenueRevenue | $1.8B | $1.9B | $2.0B | $2.4B | $2.6B | $3.1B | $3.6B | $4.3B | $4.8B | $5.9B | $6.4B |
| Premiums earnedPremiums | $18K | $13K | $17K | $13K | $16K | $18K | $26M | $28M | $77M | $83M | $86M |
| Net incomeNet inc. | $257M | $400M | $344M | $399M | $481M | $587M | $672M | $871M | $993M | $1.1B | $1.1B |
| Return on equityROE | 11% | 15% | 11% | 12% | 13% | 14% | 15% | 16% | 15% | 8% | 9% |
| Float (reserves)Float | $78M | $477M | $65M | $59M | $43M | $63M | $841M | $131M | $1.5B | $671M | $611M |
| Book value / shareBVPS | $8.55 | $9.29 | $10.88 | $12.15 | $13.61 | $15.13 | $16.51 | $19.85 | $22.67 | $40.17 | $37.43 |
| Dividends / shareDiv/sh | $0.25 | $0.28 | $0.31 | $0.33 | $0.36 | $0.39 | $0.43 | $0.48 | $0.54 | $0.62 | — |
Owner’s Scorecard
Is it a good business?
- Not enough data
Premiums or claims weren't found in the filing data.
- Below the cost of equityNet income $1.1B ÷ equity $12.6B
What it earns on shareholders' capital, the underwriting result plus what the float earns invested. Durably above the ~10% cost of equity is what compounds book value.
The float
- Float (reserves) $671M0.1× equityLoss and claim reserves $671M, 0.1× equity
Money collected as premiums and held against future claims, invested in the meantime. Buffett's insight was that good underwriting makes this float cost less than nothing, a pool of other people's money the owners earn on. The larger it is against equity, the more that leverage works, for better or worse.
- Not enough data
Net investment income wasn't found.
Solvent is not the same as cheap; growing is not the same as good. These are vital signs, not a verdict, the judgment is yours, and the filing is one click away.
Management & pay
Two questions Buffett actually asks about pay: is stock compensation, a real expense, whatever the income statement pretends, quietly large, and is the top wildly out of line with the floor. He's no populist about it; he just wants pay that's rational and earned, and comp committees that aren't lapdogs.
- Stock-based compensation$93M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 2% of revenue, equal to 6% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. And note the trap, the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFA bank / financial isn't read on an owner-earnings DCF, its economics live on the balance sheet (book value, the return earned on it, and the cash the assets throw off). We don't force this lens where it doesn't belong.
What the filing emphasizes, FY2025
read the 10-K →Each year a 10-K must name what could go wrong, in the company's own words. Here are the ones Graham and Buffett would stop on, each set against the figure from the same filings that bears on it, anchored to a period you can find in the record above. We point; the judgment is yours.
- Debt terms & refinancingMD&A
The fine print behind the debt. Covenants and near-term maturities decide who is really in control when a year goes badly.
“We have the ability to utilize our Revolving Credit Facility, which as of December 31, 2025 provided capacity for up to $700 million in additional available cash.”
From the recordBalance sheet (TTM)$6.5B meaningful net debt · interest covered 5.6× - Litigation & contingenciesMD&A
Claims an owner inherits. Most disclosure is boilerplate; this fires only on an actual matter, a named suit, a settlement, a contingency, a number.
“Additionally, the Company may, subject to satisfaction of certain conditions, including receipt of additional term loan commitments by new or existing lenders, increase either Term Loan Commitment under the existing Loan Agreement or the term loans issued thereunder or issue new tranches of term loa…”
A judgment, not a number, weigh it against the filing yourself. - Regulation & policyMD&A
Rules that can rewrite the economics, tariffs, antitrust, data, export controls.
“The increase was driven by approximately $42 million of interest income earned from the proceeds of the Company's follow-on common stock offering and senior notes issuance in June 2025, which was held in preparation for the closing of the Transaction.”
A judgment, not a number, weigh it against the filing yourself.
What changed, FY2025 vs FY2024
read the 10-K →Most of a 10-K is boilerplate carried over verbatim; the signal is in what's new. These lines appear this year and weren't there last, figure updates filtered out, so only the language shift remains.
- “Profit-sharing contingent commissions in 2025 increased 50.0%, or $61 million, from 2024, to $183 million which was primarily driven by favorable loss ratios, increased premiums, and acquisitions completed in the past twelve months. 42 Total commissions and fees increased 19.8% and the Organic Reven…”
- “If the estimated fair value of the reporting unit is less than its carrying value, an impairment loss would be recorded for the amount of carrying value in excess of fair value. 34 We typically use a combination of market and income approach methodologies to estimate the fair value of our reporting …”
- “The decrease is attributed to the proceeds received during the second quarter of 2024 of $57 million from the settlement of two of the contingent payments related to the sale of certain third-party claims administration and adjusting services businesses in the fourth quarter of 2023.”
- “Critical estimates and assumptions used in the analysis include forecasting future performance such as projected revenue growth, profit margins and capital expenditures as well as tax rates, cost of capital and risk premiums used in the selection of discount rates.”
Classic text analysis over the filing itself, no model wrote a word of this, and every quote is the company's own.
Peers, Insurance brokers
The same industry, side by side on the underwriting lens, compare, don't rank by a single number.● marks best in the group.
| Company | Revenue | Combined ratio | Loss ratio | ROE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AONAon PLC | $17.2B | — | — | 40% |
| AJGArthur J. Gallagher & Co. | $13.9B | — | — | 6% |
| WTWWillis Towers Watson PLC | $9.5B | — | — | 20% |
| BROBrown & Brown, Inc. | $5.9B | — | — | 8% |