The insurance brokerage market across Spain and Portugal presents a substantial yet structurally nuanced opportunity for industry participants. The Iberian sector represents a mature, regulated ecosystem where traditional intermediation coexists with emerging digital platforms and delegated underwriting models. This landscape—shaped by regulatory harmonization under the Insurance Distribution Directive (IDD), significant bancassurance presence, and a highly fragmented intermediary base, demands strategic clarity on where value is created and how channel economics diverge across customer segments and broker models.
Spain dominates the Iberian insurance market, contributing approximately €76.6 billion in total premiums in 2023, while Portugal accounted for roughly €10.95 billion. Within this broader insurance economy, brokers and agents collectively handled approximately 46.9% of Spain’s portfolio in 2022, translating to a broker-driven premium volume near €28.3 billion. Portugal’s intermediary landscape, though less granular in publicly available data, supports an estimated broker total addressable market in the €4–5 billion range, bringing the combined Iberian brokerage sector to the €32–33 billion threshold.
Growth dynamics reflect a pronounced expansion in life insurance, particularly in Spain, where life premiums surged 36.4% year-over-year in 2023, driven by traditional savings products and unit-linked policies benefiting from a higher interest-rate environment. Non-life segments, while growing more moderately at 7.1%, continue to represent the primary turnover driver. This product-mix evolution is reshaping broker activity, shifting advisory focus toward wealth accumulation, retirement planning, and long-term savings instruments, where brokers compete with bancassurance and digital platforms for client engagement.
The Iberian brokerage sector is distinguished by a multi-channel distribution architecture that blends traditional intermediation with bank-led distribution, digital platforms, and managing general agents (MGAs).
Bancassurance maintains a dominant role, especially in life insurance, where banks leverage branch networks and digital banking infrastructure to deliver savings and protection products at scale. In Spain, bancassurance-related insurers contribute meaningfully to life premium volumes, with industry analyses noting that approximately 14% of bank earnings are linked to bancassurance activities. This channel shapes broker economics by establishing an alternative route to customers, often with negotiated revenue-sharing arrangements that compress net margins for independent brokers competing in the same segments.
Digital and insurtech brokers are expanding rapidly, offering streamlined quoting, binding, and policy administration that reduce friction for individuals and SMEs purchasing standardized covers. European market forecasts indicate that digital distribution channels are among the fastest-growing segments, with projected compound annual growth rates in the double digits in select markets. For Iberian brokers, this trend introduces both competitive pressure and opportunity: incumbents can leverage digital tools to enhance client experience and operational efficiency, while new entrants can disrupt established models by offering transparent pricing, instant quotes, and seamless onboarding
MGAs and delegated underwriting entities represent a distinct and strategically relevant segment. Operating with delegated authority from insurers to underwrite, bind, and administer policies within defined parameters, MGAs enable speed-to-market, product innovation, and operational efficiency. For insurers, MGAs offer access to distribution capacity and underwriting talent without building internal infrastructure; for clients, MGAs can deliver tailored coverage and responsive service. The growth of this model introduces additional complexity in governance, oversight, and risk transfer arrangements, shaping competitive dynamics and profitability across the value chain
The Iberian brokerage market exhibits medium-to-high competitive intensity, shaped by a fragmented intermediary base, significant bancassurance presence, and rising digital platform activity. Porter’s five forces analysis reveals moderate buyer power—stronger in commoditized personal lines, weaker in complex corporate programmes—and moderate-to-high supplier power from insurers and reinsurers, amplified by MGA delegations and capacity concentration. Substantial entry barriers stem from regulatory compliance and distribution access, while intense rivalry persists across most segments, particularly retail and SME. Substitution threats are meaningful in standardized products, where direct-to-consumer channels and aggregators compete on price and convenience.
Strategic differentiation concentrates in several vectors: advisory depth and risk engineering for complex corporate accounts; proprietary technologies and data analytics that enhance portfolio management and benchmarking; and integrated distribution networks, whether through bancassurance partnerships, digital platforms, or MGA ecosystems, that deliver scale and service breadth. Regulatory compliance itself functions as a competitive moat: IDD-aligned licensing, consumer protection rules, and governance standards impose non-trivial costs but create defensible positions for well-capitalized, compliant intermediaries.
The Iberian brokerage sector presents a moderate market opportunity, characterized by a sizable addressable market, regulatory stability within the EU framework, and growth vectors in digital distribution and MGAs, tempered by channel fragmentation, bancassurance competition, and compliance costs. Profitability outlook remains moderate, with favorable margins attainable in specialty, reinsurance, and delegated underwriting segments offset by pricing pressure in commoditized lines and bank-affiliated channels.
Key risks include regulatory evolution affecting bancassurance rules, capacity constraints in reinsurance markets during catastrophe cycles, technological disruption from digital platforms, and operational challenges in talent acquisition and geographic dispersion.
For market participants, strategic positioning requires clarity on target client segments, value-chain activities to own, and regulatory capabilities to sustain. Brokers that invest in analytics, automation, and integrated client experiences—while managing channel mix proactively to balance volume with margin—are better positioned to navigate this complex, evolving landscape.
